Social psychology

1. effects of individual interaction 

2. effects of groups 

3. effects of situation 

5. effect of social roles 

• Obedience - to take direct orders from someone who is a figure of authority or a percieved figure.
• Conformity - doing something which is against invidicuals own inclinations but not doing it with the intentions of tthe majority.
• compliance - going along with what someone says while not necissarily agreeing with it.
• internalisation - obeying with agreement.
• Destructive obedience -the idea of aan individual following the orders which they consider immoral, which causes them distress and or harm to themselfs or others. 
• Moral strain - when people feel comfortable with their actions as they feel it is wrong and goes against morals and beliefs. 
• Agentic state- acting on behalf of someone else
• Autonomous state- acting upon own free will. 

Learner - 47 year old 'Mr Wallace'

Apparatus - shock generator with volts from 15v to 450v

Participants - 40 in total, all white and all male. Ages from 20-50 and from varied jobs. 

Experimenter 

• Experimenter watched teacher administer shocks. 
• if teacher hesistated experimenter gave a prod which encouraged them to continue. 
• Wore a lab coat.
• Would be impassive during experiment.
• Would not force teacher to continue but strongly encourage them to. 

1. Volunteers responded to an advirtisement in a news paper which stated the experiment was 'punishment on learning'

2. Via a fixed lottery roles of teacher and learner were chosen. Mr wallace always the learner. 

3. Learner strapped into chair and electrodes were placed on wrists. 

4. Teacher taken next door and was told if learner gave them the wrong answer a schok was to be given, each time there was a wrong answer the voltage was increased. 

5. Confederate answered wrong frequently and after each shock a recording was played. 

6. When the teacher refused or hesitated prods were given. 

7. After 300v silence came from the learner. 

8. Exeperiment came to an end when teacher refused to go on or got to 450 volts. 

9. After experiment ended participant debriefed and introduced to an unharmed Mr Wallace.

• Please continue
• The experiment requires you to continue.
• It is absolutely essential you continue.
• You have no other choice but to continue. 

Statistical results. 

65% went to 450V all went 300V

Behvioural results

particpants were ' observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their nails, groan and dig their fingers into their flesh' 

• Ordinary people are more likely to follow orders given by an authoritive figure, even o he xtent of killing someone. 
• Obedience to authority is ingrained in us 
• If an authority s recognized people are more likely to obey . 
• Response to authority is learned in a variety of situations. 

Generalisability. 

Gender bias as all males (androcentrism) not generalisabile to women

All white (ethnocentrism) not generalisable to ethnic groups

Data can't be applied to a whole plethora of people.

Milgram used adults only, not generalisable to children or teenagers. 

Repeated many times with variations.

Different situation (I.V) to see how it affected obedience. 

Punishment on learning would be applied obedience would not. 

Well standardised and obedience was accurately operationalised as the amount of voltage given, so valid experimentally.

Participants were decieved about real purpose of eperiment.

Participants weren't protected as they were exposed to harmful and stressful situations. 

Participants were debriefed and their confidentiality was upheld

4 prods discouraged withdrawl.

Participants did not give full consent, gave consent to punishment on learning not obedience study. 

Created by milgram who suggests :

Individuals act as an agent for someone else. 

Strengths

• Can use in context of psycho-biological approach and the evolutionary theory. 
• Can back up agentic state.
• Hoffling's experiment backs this up.

Weaknesses

• No physical evidence
• No explanation on how or why some could move in/out of the state. 
• Theory is vague
• French and Raven present other explanation. 

Developed by Bibb Latane; an american psychologist who carried out bystander opportunity.

Theory is an attempt to produce an explanation for a set of studies from the 1960's and 1970's into how people conform to the group they are in, follow leaders and imitate each other. 

this theory underlines milgrams guidlines, expands on social identity theory, illustrates features on the social approach and ties to key question. 

social force

• this is the pressure put on people to change their behaviour
• Equation : i=f(sin)
  • Strength (s) - how much power you believe the person influencing you has?
  • Immediacy (i) - how recent the influence is.
  • Number (n)- number of people putting the pressure on you. 

Psychosocial law

the first source of social force will have more impact more than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th source and as the sources go on less and less social force will be generated. 

Division of impact 

Social force gets spread out to all the people it is directed at (division responsibility). The more people the less responsibility felt by one person.

Credibility. 

There is a lot of research to support this 

Objection 

• Social impact theory pays attention to the characteristics of the person giving the orders, but not the person recieving them 
• Another problem is social impact theory suggest people are passive. 
  • It proposes anyone will do anything if the right amount of social force is used. 
  • Some obeyed whilst also subverting. 

Differences 

• Milgram's agency theory is simplistic compared to social impact theory. However social impact shows that many features of agency theory are true. 
• There are situational factors for example the room. 
• There is also no discussion of moral strain in social impact which views them as obeying or disobeying. 

Application

The idea of a mathematical formulae to calculate social impact is useful. Latane believes if you know the number of people, the immediacy and the strength you can calculate how likely someone will obey. 

The social impact theory suggests if you want to get people to obey you need to direct social force at them when they are in small groups to stop them forming larger groups. 

Aim 

To find out if the same results as milgram's will occur if the study is replicated with modern participants.

Also to see if personality variables influence obedience.

Finally to see if a disobedient 'model' makes a difference. 

I.V 

The main I.V is the bas condition compared with model refusal. This is an independent group design

D.V

Obedience measure by how many volts is the last to be delivered. 

Participants (mixed gender) did the experiment being randomly put into conditions aged 20-81 and were paid $50.

Burger actually screened pps. Anyone who'd heard of the original experiment; studying psychology; had anxiety or drug dependency were removed. 

Procedure replicates milgram's.

• The experiment, and confederate were the same.

Test shock was 15volts not 45 volts. however if a person went ott press 165 volts the experiment was stopped. 

*in the model refusal condition a second confederate acted as a second teacher. The teacher delivers shocks till 90 volts then real pps are told to continue. 

Burger used questionnaires to measure individual differences. 

interpersonal reactivity- measures empathy

Desirability of control - measures locus of control. 

1. 2 step screening. 

2. Right to withdraw controls. 

3. Experimenter was a clinical psychologist.

4. Test shock was 15 volts not 45 volts.

5. Introduced pps and debriefed.

In base condition. 

• 12 people (30%) stopped at 150 volts or before 
• 28 people (70%) continued past 150 volts. 

Model refusal condition.

• 11 people (36.4%) stopped at 150 volts or before. 
• 19 people (63.3%) continued past 150 volts. 

Burger also compared gender but didn't find any difference in obedience. 

Women were most likely to refuse in model refusal. 

Milgrams results still stand half a century later. People are still influenced by situational factors to obey authoritve figures even thoguh it may go against moral values. 

Burger made the assumption that if the person went to press the 165 volts they were going to go to 450 volts which may not be true.