Social Psychology

Agency Theory: Milgram 1963

Describes how, when a person is put in a distressing situation, they will go through a period of moral strain and shift from an autonomous state (in control of actions) to an agentic state (acting as an agent for someone else) during agentic shift, feeling they are no longer responsible for their actions.

Pros:

• Milgram (1963) experiments showed 65% obeyed when 'electrocuting' people.
• Mai Lai massacre killed 504 villagers, American soldiers under no order to do so.
• Hofling et al - 22 nurses asked to give fake drugs when told to, 21 obeyed.
• Bickman - when in uniform, conformity rates doubled when asked to do inconvenient tasks.

Cons:

• Milgram had low ecological validity.
• Too simplistic as people do disobey.

A: to see if participants would harm another when given the order by an authority figure.

P:

• Advertisement in a newspaper offered $4.50 for 40 males aged 20-50yrs with a range of backgrounds.
• Drew lots to decide the 'learner' and 'teacher' between two PPs ('learner' actually in on the experiment).
• Teacher strapped into an electric chair and given a small electric shock to show it works, learner strapped in in separate room, the teacher was taken to a room and told to shock learner for wrong answers starting at 45v and increase up to 450v that had *** by it.
• PP told the experiment was into memory. When showing strain, experimentor in white lab coat told them it was imperative they continued.
• A recording played at 315v showing learning protests, banging on wall and then falling silent beyond 400v.

F:

• 65% carried on up to 450v.
• Nervous laughter in 14PPs, full seizures in 3, extreme stress - sweat, groan, fidget in all.

C:

• Autonomous and agentic states.
• When someone is in an agentic state, they no longer feel responsible for their actions (agentic shift).
• During the shift someone will experience moral strain.

C:

• Generalisable: No, males and only in America. Certain ages.
• Reliable: Yes, good sample and repeatable (Burger 2009 repeated it)
• Applicable: Yes, to WW2 and why Nazi soldiers obeyed horrific acts.
  
• Valid: Yes, controlled with standardised procedures, high internal validity.
• Ethical: No. Mental harm, physical harm, delayed debrief, deception, no right to withdraw.

Personality:

• 1. Locus of control (Rotel): internal = I control my destiny, external = others do (obey more).
• 2. Authroritarion personality (Adorno): F-Scale proved more likely to obey.
• 3. Empathetic less likely to obey

Gender: No difference, though woman do suffer more anxiety (Burger 2009). Sheridan and King show no difference in their 'Puppy Love' experiment where PPs were asked to shock puppies.

Situation: French and Raven (1959)

• 1. Legitimate power (is it a legitimate figure and cause?)
• 2. Reward power (are they offering a reward to obey?)
• 3. Coercive power (are they charming enough to convince you to obey?)
• 4. Expert power (are they an authority figure?)
• 5. Referent power (can they influence you using respect?)

Culture: Smith and Bond showed individualist cultures such as UK and US have a conformity rate of 25% whereas collectivist cultures such as Japan and China have a conformity rate of 37%.

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner): 1970

• Stage 1: social categorisation - in and out groups created.
• Stage 2: social identification - absorbing the culture of the group.
• Stage 3: social comparison - to boost self-esteem, compare your group to others.

Tajfel's Bristol Boys Experiment:

• Boys from Bristol, assign a random group in school.
• Asked to rate their group and others group as well.
• Rate out groups much lower than their ingroups.

Pros:

• Supported by evidence (Tajfel)
• Easily applicable to real life

Cons:

• Not easily measurable or explained fully - just states things.

Personality (OCEAN):

• O: openness to experience
• C: conscientiousness
• E: extraversion
• A: agreeableness
• N: neuroticism

O and A less likely to be prejudice. Chors et al 2012 states Right Wing Authoritarian more prejudice.

Situation:

Social Impact Theory states that there is more prejudice if more people are seen doing it and that it is dependent on the context - e.g. conflict over life will be more aggressive than conflict over what movie to watch.

Akrami et al states that it is situation and not personality that affects prejudice.

Culture shows prejudice: North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine.

The Robbers Cave Experiment:

A: see if forming in and out groups created prejudice.

P: Stage 1:

• 22 boys ages 11-12yrs field experiment set in a summer camp in America.
• Boys made friends then were separated after a few days into two groups, breaking friendships and creating group identities through inside jokes, t-shirts and names 'Eagles' & 'Rattlers'.
• In fake target practice, boys overestimated the 'skilled' in their group and under estimated the ones perceived as unskilled.
• Stage 2:
• Introduction of competition.
• Made the boys call each other names, ignore previous friends and set fire to other teams stuff including their flags. There was also some scuffles.
• Stage 3:
• The experiments aim had been completed, therefore superordinate goals were introduced to try and fix relationships, e.g. fix a broken down bus. Friends were formed once more.

Findings included in the procedure.

C:

• Superordinate goals reduce tension.
• Contact is not enough to reduce hostility.
• In group members will overestimate the skills of those perceived as 'leaders'.

C:

• Generalisable: No, only middle-class boys from America used. Reliable: Yes, they were screened beforehand. Applicable: Yes, Realistic Conflict Theory. Validity: High ecological, low internal with little controls. Ethics: boys did not have the right to withdraw, some harm, deception but full debrief and consent through parents.

How can knowledge of social psychology be used to reduce prejudice in situations such as crowd behaviour or rioting?

The Problem:

• London 2011 riots.
• Business destroyed, aggression, injury.
• In crowd behaviour, especially at football games, there is often racism and street fighting.

Solutions:

• RCT: add a superordinate goal to reduce prejudice.
• Milgram, Hofling: use police as they are authority figures and increase obedience.
• SIT: separate groups to reduce in and out-group discrimination.
• Robbers Cave: remove the ringleaders to reduce prejudice and discrimination.

A questionnaire to see if males or females perceive themselves to be more obedient.

A questionnaire was completed using 25 females and 25 males from my local area with a range of open and closed questions as well as ones that use the likert scale.

I found that woman perceived themselves to be more obedient.

Mann Whitney U was completed.

G: No, only from the local area and small sample. R: No, not repeated. A: Yes, to Milgram and obedience in classrooms. V: High ecological, low internal. E: Yes, full debrief, no deception, no harm.

Replicating Milgram. A: Will we still obey today?

P: Same experiment carried out, except with added conditions for ethics:

• Safeguard of 150v, if PPs go beyond it is assumed they would go to 450v.
• 2 step screening process for all participants, 70 of them paid $50 before it began.
• Reminders in place that the PP could withdraw if they wanted to.
• Low shock sample of 15v as opposed to 45v.
• Immediate debrief, experimenter is an actual psychologist.

F: 70% continued past 150v.

• Empathy made no difference.
• Those who stopped did have a higher locus of control.

C: We do still obey today, just as Milgram predicted.

C: G: No, small sample. R: Yes, controls, screened, standardise procedure. A: Yes, Milgram. V: High internal. E: Still argued no as PPs came to harm, deception.

Social Impact Theory: Latane and Wolf 1981

Placed in the equation i=f(SIN)

• i = magnitude of the social impact
• f = function
• S = strength of source
• I = immediacy of source
• N = number of people affected

Pros:

• Maths formula means it's easily measurable
• Useful application, easily applicable to real life (e.g. rioting)

Cons:

• No account for individual differences
• Subjective

Experiment 7: used a telephone to give instructions and found obedience levels fell to 25%.

Experiment 10: performed the experiment in a rundown office block and found obedience levels fell to 48%.

Experiment 13: ordinary man gave the orders and found obedience fell to 20%.

Realistic Conflict Theory (Sherif 1960):

1.When more than one group compete for resources there will be prejudice and discrimination.

2.The dominant people in a group will also show prejudice to the weaker people of the same group.

3.However, superordinate goals can reduce conflict by having everyone work towards the same goal.

Pros:

• Sherids Robbers Cave experiment supports all three points.
• Very applicable concept to conflict today - e.g. Israel/Palestine.

Cons:

• Prejudice is seen even before groups are made.
• It is rare in real life for conflict to only be on one resource - Israel/Palestine.

• Milgram (1963) experiments showed 65% obeyed when 'electrocuting' people.
• Mai Lai massacre killed 504 villagers, American soldiers under no order to do so.
• Hofling et al - 22 nurses asked to give fake drugs when told to, 21 obeyed.
• Bickman - when in uniform, conformity rates doubled when asked to do inconvenient tasks.
• Locus of control (Rotel)
• Authroritarion personality (Adorno): F-Scale
• Gender: No difference, though woman do suffer more anxiety (Burger 2009).
• Sheridan and King show no difference in their 'Puppy Love' experiment where PPs were asked to shock puppies.
• Situation: the four powers French and Raven (1959)
• Culture: Smith and Bond showed individualist cultures such as UK and US have a conformity rate of 25% whereas collectivist cultures such as Japan and China have a conformity rate of 37%.
• Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner): 1970
• Akrami et al states that it is situation and not personality that affects prejudice.
• Social Impact Theory: Latane and Wolf 1981
• Sherif et al 1954