Social Influence

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What is conformity?
The tendency to change what we do, think or sayin response to the influence of real or imaginal pressure from others
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What are the 3 different types of confromity?
1. Compliance 2. Identification 3. Internalisation
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What is compliance?
Agreeing with others whilst diasgreeing in private
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What is identification?
To want to be perceived to belong
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What is internalisation?
To agree with others both in private and public
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Which type of conformity is the shallowest type?
Compliance
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What type of conformity is a moderate type of conformity? Why
Identification as we act the same as a group because we share their values and want to be accepted. The change of belief is often temporary
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What is the deepest type of confromity? And why
Internalisation because this is where the person has internalised and accepted the views of the group
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What are the 2 explanations for confromity?
Normative social influence and Informational social influence
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Which social psychologists developed the 2 part explanation for conformity?
Deutsch and Gerard
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Deutsch and Gerard developed a two process theory which processes that there are two main reasons why people conform. They are based on two human needs:
1. The need to be right 2. The need to be liked
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What is normative social influence?
This occurs when we wish to be liked by a majority. Even though we may think they are wrong we still go along with their views.
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What is a limitation of normative social influence?
There are people classed as nAffilators. These are people who arent concenred with fitting into the social norms. People with a greater need of affilation are more likely to conform
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What is informational social influence?
This is occurs when we wish to be right. We look to the majority group when we are unsure of something and how to behave. The person conforms because they think the majority is genuinely right.
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What study was used, and by who, to study normative social influence?
Schutz et al (2008)did a study on hotel guests and found that hotel guests exposed to normative social influence conformed on a scale of 75% as they re-used their towels each day rather than getting a new one as that is what the other hotel guests di
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What does schutz's study suggest?
It suggests that 75% of participants shaped thier behaviour on the basis that they desired to be like the reference group
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What study was used, and by who, on informational social influence?
Brink and Henley (1996)found that pps exposed to negative infor about people which they were led to believe was a mjority opinon which later reported a negative beliefs about a black individual
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What was Sherif's studies aim?
Demonstrating that people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambigious situation
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What was the method used in Sherif's experiment?
Lab conditions. He used the autokinetic effect where as a small spot of light is projected onto a screen in a dark room. In a dark room it will appear to move even though it is still
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What did Sherif discover from his method? (part1/2)
When particiapnts were individually tested their estimates on how far the light had moved varied considerably. The pps were then tested in groups of threes. Two of the people that he put in the group had very similar estimates and the others estimate
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What did Sherif discover from his method? (part2/2)
was completely different. Each person had to say their estimate out lous
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What were the results from Sherifs experiment?
The group converged to the same estimate. The persons estimate that was orginally very different to the other twos now conformed to their view.
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What does Sherif's results show?
They suggest that when in an ambigious situation a person will look to others and would always conform in a group rather than make individual judgements
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What was Soloman Asch's beliefs?
He believed the problem with Sherif's conformity experiment was that there was no correct answer to the ambiguous autokinetic experiment
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How did Asch overcome the limitations of Sherif's experiment?
He created an experiment where there was an obvious answer to a line experiment so if the pp got it incorrect then it was obvious that the pp was conforming to the pressure of the group
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What was the Aim in Asch's study?
To investigate the extent at which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to confrom
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What was the procedure of Asch's study? (part1/2)
1. Lab setting 2. Line judgement task where there was one naive participant and 7 confederates. 3. Everyone was asked to say which lines were most similar to each other and the answer was always obvious.
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What was the procedure of Asch's study? (part2/2)
4. The confederates decided in advance what they were going to say the same wrong answer 5. The pp was seated last so gave the answer last
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What was the result of Asch' study?
On average 32% of pps conformed to the clearly incorrect majority and at least 75% conformed at least once in the trial
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What did Asch conclude from his study?
When pps were interviewed after, majority of them said they knew what they were giving wrong answer in fear of being ridiculed (normative social influence) A few said they thought the majority was right (informational social influence)
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What is ecological validity and does both Sherif and Asch's studies have it.
he methods, materials and setting of the study must approximate the real-world that is being examined. An both studies do not have this because they were both in an artificial lab setting
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What is population validity and does both Sherif and Asch's studies have it?
A type of external validity which describes how well the sample used can be extrapolated to a population as a whole. The study only focused on men so it did not have this type of validity as it isn't a representative sample
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Did Asch and Sherif results prove to be similar and does this make them reliable?
Ash's study showed that 1/3 conformed but in Sherif the majority conformed meaning that the findings arent reliable
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What is internal validity and are Asch and Sherif's studies internally valid?
internal validity is the extent to which a causal conclusion based on a study is warranted, which is determined by the degree to which a study minimizes systematic error. Yes the studies are internally valid because they were both in lab settings
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Both Asch and Sherif's studies have been accused of being unethical. Explain what aspects the studies might have been unethical? (PART1)
1. Deception: They were not told that there would be confederates so the majority of the study they were conducting they were oblivious to 2. Informed consent: they were not told the real aim of the study, if they knew they might not have wanted to
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What is era dependant and could Asch and Sherif's studies be it?
It is something that has low levels of temporal validity and is time bound. Asch's was time bound as the study was repeated 20 years later with different outcomes where conformity had dropped.
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What did Smith and Bond find that showed difference in conformity amongst cultures?
People from Western cultures are more likely to be individualistic and wont conform whereas Eastern cultures are more likely to value the needs of others before their own. They are known as collectivist cultures and are more likely to conform.
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In further trials, Asch changed the procedure by changing 3 factors:
1. Group size 2. Unamity 3. Task difficulty
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What happened when Asch changed the group size?
Asch found that conformity tends to increase as the size of the group increases.+1 = increase of 3% +2 = 13% +3 = 32% but little changed after 3 so 3 was the optimum size for conformity
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What happened when Asch changed unamity?
Asch was interested in whether adding non conformists would change the conformity rate of the pp. He introduced a confederate that disagreed which caused the conformity level to decrease and the pp to behave more independently
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What happened when Asch changed the task difficulty?
When we are uncertain it seems we look to others for confirmation (information social influence) so conformity increased
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Perrin and Spencer were the ones that suggested that Asch's study was time bound Why?
They repeated the study and only 1 student out of 396 trials conformed
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What was aim of Zimbardo's stanford prison study?
To see whether people will conform to new social roles
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What was the method of Zimbardo's experiment? (part 1)
1. Participants were all male psychology students. 2. Stanford uni in Cali 3. They volunteered 4. they were randomly allocated to 2 groups - guards and prisoners 5. prisoners spent 23 hours a day for 2 weeks in cells
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What was the method of Zimbardo's experiment? (part 2)
5. Guards got to work shifts and got to go home at the end their roles were to keep the prisoners under control 7. Prisoners were dehumanized by being arrested at home and were referred to as numbers not names
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What were the results of Zimbardo's experiment?
It was called off after 6 days as guards became too brutal and 2 prisoners had nervous breakdowns. Prisoners became apathetic and did not stand up for themselves
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What conclusion did Zimbardo make about his experiment?
1. Participants conformed to the behaviour of the social roles 2. Deindividuation - is a state when you become immersed in norms of the group and lose sense of identity & personal responsibility
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What are the positives and negatives of Zimbardo's study (include ethical issues) ?
1. Demand characteristics 2. Lacks population validity 3. A strength is that it has altered the way prisons are run 4. Another strength is that harmful treatment of participant led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines
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What are the ethical issues of Zimbardo's study?
1. Lack of fully informed consent prisoners did not consent to being 'arrested' at home 2. participants playing the role of prisoners were not protected from psychological harm, experiencing incidents of humiliation and distress.
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How did Zimbardo debate that it was ethical?
Extensive group and individual debriefing sessions were held
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What is the difference between obedience and authority? (part 1)
C = A change in behaviour in response to group norms O = A change in behaviour in response to authority C = a difference in views and desire to be wanted in a group O = A difference in status - those in authority and those subject to authority
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What is the difference between obedience and authority? (part 2)
C = A desire for acceptance within a group O = A fear that if you do not accept authority then there will be a consequence
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What is obedience?
A type of social influence which causes a person to act in a response to an order given by another (usually someone with power and authority)
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What was Milgram interested in?
The apparent contradiction between the ordinariness of men involved in war crimes in WWII and their terrible deeds. Their defence is that they were carrying out orders
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What was the procedure of Milgram's study?
1. participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. 2. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, the learner was on of Milgram’s confedera
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What was the procedure of Milgram's study? (part 1)
1. participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. 2. The draw was fixed, the participant was always the teacher, the learner was on of Milgram’s confederates
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What was the procedure of Milgram's study? (part 2)
The learner (a confederate) was taken into a room & had electrodes attached to his arms, the teacher & researcher went into a room that contained an electric shock generator & a row of switches marked from 15 volts to 450
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What were the conditions of Milgram's experiment?
Lab setting with volunteers of 40 males whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for just turning up.
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What happened if the pp didnt obey?
They were given prods: Prod 1: Please continue. Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue. Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue. Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.
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What were the results of Milgram's experiment?
65% of participants continued to the highest 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.
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What did Milgram conclude from his experiment? part 1
Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.
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What did Milgram conclude from his experiment? part 2
People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and / or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.
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Milgram (1974) explained the behavior of his participants by suggesting that people actually have two states of behavior when they are in a social situation:
1. The autonomous state – people direct their own actions, and they take responsibility for the results of those actions. 2. The agentic state – people allow others to direct their actions, then pass off the responsibility to the person giving orders
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Milgram suggested that two things must be in place in order for a person to enter the agentic state:
1. The person giving the orders is perceived as being qualified to direct other people’s behavior. They are seen as legitimate 2. The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens.
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The Milgram experiment was carried out many times whereby Milgram varied the basic procedure (changed the IV). By doing this Milgram could identify which factors affected obedience (the DV). What were they? (Hint: situational explanations)
1. Uniform 2. Location 3. Proximity 4. Absent experimenter condition 5. Social support condition 6. Two teacher condition
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How did uniform affect Milgram's experiment?
The experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority.Then the experimenter was called away at the start.The role of the experimenter was then taken over by an ‘ordinary person’ in everyday clothes, obedience dropped to 20%
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How did change of location affect Milgram's experiment?
The experiment was moved to a set of run down offices rather than the impressive Yale University. Obedience dropped to 47.5%. This suggests that status of location effects obedience.
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How did proximity effect Milgram's experiment?
The teacher had to force the learner's hand down onto a shock plate when they refuse to participate after 150 volts. Obedience fell to 30%. The participant is no longer buffered / protected from seeing the consequences of their actions.
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How did the two teacher condition affect Milgram's experiment?
When participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches, 92.5% shocked to the maximum 450 volts. When there is less personal responsibility obedience increases. This relates to Milgram's Agency Theory.
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How did the social support condition affect Milgram's study?
2 participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey. Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts & confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts. The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduces the level of obedience 10%
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How did the absent experimenter condition affect Milgram's study?
It is easier to resist the orders from an authority figure if they are not close by. When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.
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What are some positives and negatives of Milgram's study?
1. Milgrams sample was biased (they were all males) 2. conducted in a lab 3. They volunteered 4. It only suits the military context as there is no mundane realism 5. conducted in industrialized Western cultures, we cant conclude a universal trait
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What are some ethical issues of Milgram's study? (part 1)
1. Deception – the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person 2. Protection of participants - Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm.
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What are some ethical issues of Milgram's study? (part 2)
3. Right to Withdrawal - The experimenter gave four verbal prods which essentially discouraged withdrawal from the experiment:
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What were some arguments that Milgram had to say the study was ethical
He did debrief the participants fully after the experiment & also follow ups to ensure there was no lasting harm. He also argued that they are justified as the study was about obedience so orders were necessary.
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What are dispositional and situational explanations?
Situational explanation - focus on external circumstances. Dispositional explanation - highlights personality
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What are social-psychological factors?
Concern the influence of others on the individuals behaviour
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What was Adorno interested in?
Investigating why Nazi soldiers were so willing to kill a minority group
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What did Adorno state?
He claimed a particular personality type is more likely to obey an authority. He claimed a high level of obedience is a psychological disorder
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What did Adorno investigate?
The causes of an obedient personality. It involved over 2,000 middle-class white males and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
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What did Adorno develop?
The F scale
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What is the F scale?
A questionnaire. Measures the relationship between a person's personality type and prejudiced beliefs
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What does the F stand for in F scale?
Fascist
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What is a fascist?
Someone who believes in a totalitarian state rule by a supreme leader who controls everything possible and treats people harshly
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What was adornos findings?
Those who scored highly on the F scale had a particular cognitive style: 1. No grey areas between categories of people 2. Had fixed stereotypes 3. Strong correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
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What is the authoritarian personality?
Adorno proposed that there was such a thing as an authoritarian personality, i.e. a person who favours an authoritarian social system and in particular admires obedience to authority figures.
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What can having a harsh and punitive upbringing, little love and much punishment do?
Create a fear of parents which leads to be respectful of authority figures or a hatred for parents which leads to a hate for authority figures
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What are some characteristics of the authoritarian personality?
1. Rigid beliefs in conventional values 2. Hostility towards other groups 3. Intolerant of ambiguity 4. Submissive attitudes towards authority figures
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What is resistance to social influence?
The ability of people to withstand social pressure to conform to the majority or obey an authority. This ability is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors
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There are 2 explantation of resistance to social influence. What are they?
1. Social support 2. Locus of control
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What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same
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How does social support affect conformity?
1. conformity is reduced by dissenting peer 2. It is not long lasting 3. Asch found that conformity is reduced to 5.5% when one of the confederates gave a different answer 4. Social support breaks the unanimous position of the majority
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How does social support affect obedience? (part 1)
1. Obedience is reduced by one other dissenting partner 2. The dissenter's disobedience frees the pp to act from their own conscience 3. Milgram found that obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine pp was joined by a disobedient confederate
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How does social support affect obedience? (part 2)
Independant behaviour increased from 35% to 90% in the disobedient peer condition. 5. Social support - people are more confident to resist obedience if they can find any who is willing to join them.
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What research has been used to prove social support? (part 1)
Allen & Levine found independance increased with one dissenter in an Asch type study. Even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had problems with his vision.
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What research has been used to prove social support? (part 2)
This showed that resistance is not motivated by following what someone else says but enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group
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What is locus of control?
refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behaviour.
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What is Internal locus of control?
People with a high internal locus of control perceive (see) themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behaviour and are therefore more likely to take responsibility for the way they behave.
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What is external locus of control?
a person with a high external locus of control perceive their behaviours as being a result of external influences or luck
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What is some research that supports the locus of control?
Holland repeated Milgram's study and measured whether pps were internals or externals. 37% of internals did not continue to the highest level whereas only 23% of externals did not continue
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What is some contradictory research over the LOC?
Twenge analysed data from USA obedience studies over 40 years. Data showed that over time people have become more resistant to obedience but more external. If resistance were linked to an internal LOC, we would expect people to become more internal
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When does minority influence occur?
occurs when a small group (minority) influences the opinion of a much larger group (majority)
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Minority influence can happen when the minority behaves in what ways?
1. Consistency 2. Commitment 3. Flexibility
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Moscovici stated that being consistent and unchanging in a view is more likely to influence the majority than if a minority is inconsistent and chops and changes their mind.A distinction can be made between two forms of consistency:
(a) Diachronic Consistency – i.e. consistency over time – the majority stocks to its guns, doesn’t modify its views. (b) Synchronic Consistency – i.e. consistency between its members – all members agree and back each other up.
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Why is consistency important? (part 1)
1. Confronted with a consistent opposition, members of the majority will sit up, take notice, and rethink their position (i.e. the minority focuses attention on itself).
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Why is consistency important? (part 2)
A consistent minority disrupts established norms and creates uncertainty, doubt and conflict. This can lead to the majority taking the minority view seriously. The majority will therefore be more likely to question their own views.
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What was Moscovici's experiment that supported that consistency was important? (part 1)
1. female participants were shown 36 blue slides of different intensity and asked to report the colors 2. There were two confederates (the minority) and four participants (the majority). 3. the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slide
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What was Moscovici's experiment that supported that consistency was important? (part 2)
4. In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.
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What was the conclusion of Moscovici's experiment?
When the confederates were consistent in their answers about 8% of participants said the slides were green. When the confederates answered inconsistently about 1% of participants Said the slides were green.
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Why is commitment important in minority influence?
When the majority is confronted with someone with self-confidence and dedication to take a popular stand and refuses to back own, they may assume that he or she has a point.
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A number of researchers have questioned whether consistency alone is sufficient for a minority to influence a majority. They argue flexibility is also important. Why is this?
If the consistent minority are seen as inflexible, rigid, uncompromising & dogmatic, they will be unlikely to change the views of the majority.
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What research has been used to prove that flexibility is important in minority influence: By neath: Part 1
The experiment was based on a mock jury in which groups of three participants and one confederate had to decide on the amount of compensation to be given to the victim of a ski-lift accident.
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What research has been used to prove that flexibility is important in minority influence: By neath: Part 2
When the consistent minority (the confederate) argued for a low amount & refused to change his position, he had no effect on the majority. When he compromised & moved some towards the majority position, the majority also compromised
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When does social change occur?
occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’.
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What types of social influence process is involved in social change?
Minority influence, internal locus of control and disobedience to authority
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What is social change usually a result of?
Minority influence
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It has been found that once the minority begin to persuade people round to their way of thinking, a snowball effect begins to happen. What is a snowball effect?
This means more people adopt the minority opinion, until the minority becomes the majority. Now the people who have not changed their opinion are the minority, and they will often conform to the majority view under group pressure
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What is crypto amnesia
Minority view becomes majority view which then becomes law which people obey to. Once this happens, the minority opinion has become the dominant position in society, and people do often not even remember where the opinion originated from
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Card 2

Front

What are the 3 different types of confromity?

Back

1. Compliance 2. Identification 3. Internalisation

Card 3

Front

What is compliance?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is identification?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What is internalisation?

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Preview of the front of card 5
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