Exam-Style Questions- Social Influence

Outline how Milgram investigated the effect of 2 sitational factors on obedience (4 marks)

• Location was changed from a prestigious university setting to a run down building
• Obedience fell to 47%, showing the experimenter had less authority in this setting
• In the original experiment, the experimenter wore a grey lab coat (uniform). In a vriation, the experimenter was 'an ordinary member of the public dressed in ordinary clothes'
• Obedience fell to 20%, suggesting unifrom acts as a strog visual authority symbol

Outline the Authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience (2 marks)

• People with an authoritarian personality are especially obedient to authority- obedience is pathological
• It originates from childhood through harsh parenting e.g. extremely strict discipline and severe criticism

Outline and briefly explain 2 methodological issues in Asch's studies of social influence (4 marks)

• Participants were all white, male college students (the study was androcentric and ethnocentric)
• The findings can't be applied to women, different cultures…