Social Psychology

New Specification for Psychology 2016

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What are the three types of conformity?
Compliance, Identification and Internalisation
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What is compliance?
Involves publically acting in accords with social pressure but privately disagrees
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What is identification?
Adopting a behaviour because you value group membership, is both private and public and is only temporary
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What is internalisation?
A true change of private views to match group views and are permanent so become part of one's own value system
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What are the two explanations of conformity?
Normative Influence and Informational Influence
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What is normative social influence?
An individual conforms to gain approval and avoid social disapproval. Individuals must believe they are under surveillance
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What is informational social influence?
Result in the desire to look right and gain evidence about reality, need to feel confident in their beliefs and in ambigous situation that look towards experts
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Why is it hard to distinguish between compliance and internalisation? (AO3)
As a person who argee in public but disagrees in private must be showing compliance. Although this acceptance has occured it may disappear later due to forgetting
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What is the research into normative social influence? (AO3)
Adolscents exposed to a non-smoking poster were less likely to smoke later in life. This suggests the idea that people shape their behaviour to fit in with the group
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Why is exposure to other people's beliefs important for influence? (AO3)
Participants exposed to negative views about African American later reported more negative views. This suggests the individuals accept the information as reality
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What is the key study for variable affecting conformity?
ASCH
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What is the procedure in ASCH?
123 male undergraduates looked a 3 line and were asked to state which line was the same length. Participants answered second to last
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What are the findings in ASCH?
Conformity rates were 33% (1/3) and 2/3 of participants never conformed
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What are the variables affecting conformity?
Group Size, The Unaminity of the Majority and The Difficulty of the Task
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How does group size affect conformity?
Conformity jumped by 30% with 3 confederates, but further increases had no effect
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How does the unaminity of the group affect conformity?
When given support from an ally conformity went from 33% to 5.5%
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How does the difficulty of the task affect conformity?
High self efficiancy were more independant than low self efficiancy participants
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How were ASCH findings due to the period they were taken in? (AO3)
In 1960 people were afraid to go against the majority due to communism. This suggests that if the study was done again the findings would be different
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Why is there a problem with determining the effect of group size? (AO3)
No other studies have tested group size bigger than nine other than ASCH. This suggest we know very little about group size on conformity
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Why did only 1/3 of participants conform? (AO3)
2/3 of participants stuck to their original judgements despite an overwhelming majoirty. This suggests a tendency to stick to what they believe is the correct judgement
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What is the study for conformity to social roles?
Stanford Prison Experiment
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What is the procedure in the Stanford Prison Experiment?
24 students played either the guard or prisoner. Prisoner were given a uniform and ID number, guards were given a uniform, clubs and reflective sunglasses
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What are the findings in the Standard Prison Experiment?
Guards grew tyrannical and abusive, guard became increasingly passive and 5 prisoners got early release due to extreme reactions
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What happened in the BBC Prison Experiment?
The prisoners identified increasingly as a group which lead to a collapse in the prisoner-guard system
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Why may have conformity to social role not been as automatic as Zimbardo believed? (AO3)
Some guards did not chose to degrad the prisoners showing that the guards choose how to behave rather thabn blindly conforming
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Why may the response shown be due to demand characteristics? (AO3)
A large amount of participants were given the method and correctly identified the aims suggesting pariticipants showed demand characteristics
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How ethical was Zimbardo's study? (AO3)
He acknowledges that the study could have been stopped earlier before the extreme reaction. This suggests he wanted to create a testing but not harmful environment
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What was the study for situational factors affecting obedience?
Milgram
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What was the procedure in Milgram?
40 participants administered 15-450 volts to a learner, after 300 volts the learner stopped responsding but the experimenter encourgaed psrtcipants to carry on
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What were the findings from Milgram?
Predicted very few would go beyond 150volts, 65% gave 450volts and only 5 participant stopped when the learner first objected
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What were the variations in Milgrams study?
Proximity, Location and The Power of Union
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How did proximity affect obedience?
Learner and teacher in the same room was 40%, forcing the leaners hand in the plate was 30% and over the phone was 21%
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How did location affect obedience?
Moved to a run-down building and obedience fell to 48% givning the maximum shock level
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How did power of union affect obedience?
Police officer was 72%, Executive was 52% and beggar was 48%
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Why was Milgram's study criticised? (AO3)
Because of his lack of concern for participants as they didn't know the true aims of the study and they felt like they didn't have the right to withdraw. This suggest ethical issues
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Why have participants learnt to distrust experimenters? (AO3)
As in the study the experimenter remains cool and distant suggesting the study lack internal validity as participants didn't know the learner was in no pain
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Why may have individual differences played a role in obedience? (AO3)
There is a belief that women were more susceptible but women and men produced the same obedience rates suggesting gender does not affect obedience
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What is agentic state?
The process of shifting responsibilities for one's own actions onto someone else
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What is self-image and agentic state?
People adopt the agentic state to maintain a positive self image as once shifted the action no longer reflect their self image
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What are binding factors?
Social factors play a part in regulating behaviour so if subject fear looking rude they will not stop the experiment
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What is the definition of the situation?
The tendency for people to accept the definitions of a situation if it is provided by legitimate authority so let them define the situation
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Why does legitimate authority require an institution?
If the commands are potentially harmful then they must be percieved as legitimate
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Why does the agentic state fail to explain the irrevsible and rapid shifting of states? (AO3)
German doctors in Auschwitz performed potentially lethal experiments on prisoners suggesting rather than the agentic state being responsible it is the experiences of carrying out the acts that changed their views
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Why do social scientist believe Milgram detected cruelty rather than the agentic state? (AO3)
As in the SPE there was no obvious authority figure suggesting that it was unflattering human nature rather than agentic state
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Why does legitimate authority serve as a basis for justifying harm? (AO3)
People no longer feel that their own morals are relevant e.g. shown by history. This suggests how extreme obedience is adopted in the military
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How many participants did the F scale use?
2000 White middle class Americans
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What are the qualities of an authoritarism personality?
Rigid thinkers, see the world in black and white, have contempt for lower social classes, follow authority and a hierarcy
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What is the study for the authoritarian personaility?
Elms and Milgram
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What is the procedure in Elms and Milgram?
Carried out a follow up study on 20 obedient and 20 disobedient participants from Milgrams study. Asked them to complete the F scale, MMPI and asked questions about relationships between parents
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What are the findings from Elms and Milgram?
Very little difference on MMPI variables, higher levels of authoritarianism amoung obedient participants and obedient participants described their fathers in more negative terms
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What is the problem with research coming from obedient participants and high scores on the F scale? (AO3)
Although there may be a link it is not a cause and effect suggesting other factors e.g. education may play a part
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Why was the fact that Milgram believed dispositional factor were responsible incorrect? (AO3)
He showed that the social context of the study was the cause rather than personality. This suggests the social situation caused them obey or disobey regardless of their personalities
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What important characteristics did Elms and Milgram present? (AO3)
Obedient participants reported good relationships with their parents rather than growing up in a harsh environment. This suggests that most paticipants didn't grow up with a harsh father
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What is support and resisting conformity?
When social support is present conformity dropped from 33% to 5.5% showing they feel more confident in their decisions
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What is social support and resisting obedience?
Individuals are more confident is resisting to majority with a disobedient role model
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What is internal high locus of control?
Believe what happens to them is down to ability and effort, are information seekers so are less susceptible to influence
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What is external high locus of control?
Believe what happens to them is down to luck, take less responsibilty so are more susceptible to influence
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Why is there a historical trend in locus of controls? (AO3)
Young Americans believe that thing are out of their control so have higher external locus of control scores. This suggests that social factors e.g. divorce may increase the view that things are out of their control
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What was there research into the position of the person providing social support? (AO3)
Social support was more effective in position 1 rather than position 4 suggesting that a correct answer first produces initial committment to the answer
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What relationship between locus of control scores and social influence? (AO3)
Meta analysis shows a positive correlation between scores of internality/externality of persuasion and conformity. This proves that external locus of controls were easily persuaded
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Who studied minority influence?
Moscovici
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What is the conversion theory for minority influence?
Argument creates a conflict, individuals are motivated to understand to reduce this conflict, minority directs the attention on the message so increases the likelihood of internalisation
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What must a minority be to influence the majority?
Committed, Consistent and Flexible
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What is consistency?
If they keep a consistent approach others reassess the situation and consider the issue more carefully as there must be a reason to sustain this view over time
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What is committment?
Committment suggests certainty, confidence and courage in the face of a hostile majority
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What is flexibility?
Flexibility is more effective as they must negotiate their position rather than inforcing it
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What is the procedure for Moscovici?
4 naiive participant and 2 confederates had to judge whether the slides were blue or green. In the consistent condition the confederates said green.
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What are the findings in Moscovici?
The consistent minority influenced participants to say green on 8% of trials. When asked to individually create a threshold for 16 discs participants in the consistent conditions said more were green
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What is the research into the role of flexiblity? (AO3)
In a jury situation when a confederate showed some degree of flexiblity it influenced the rest of the group suggesting flexibilty is an important factor in minority influence
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Why might minority influence be due to the openness of the mind? (AO3)
Exposure leads people to search for information so consider more option and make better decision suggesting minority influence leads to improved decision making skills
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Why do the views of the minority not create greater processing compared to the majority? (AO3)
People believe that the majority have similar views to us so if they are different then they want to know why. This suggests people don't try and process the minorities view so it is less influencial
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How does the minority bring about social change?
Draw attention to the issue, create cognitive conflict, remain consistent, augmentation principle and the snowball effect
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What is an example of drawing attention to the issue?
Suffragettes used education, political and militants tactic to draw attention
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What is an example of cognitive conflict?
Suffragettes advocated their position so some people began to support them
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What is an example of consistency of the positon?
Suffragettes remained consistent regardless of attitudes around them
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What is an example of the augmentation principle?
Suffragettes willing to risk prision or death
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What is an example of the snowball effect?
Universal voting was finally accepted
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How does the majority bring about social change?
Behaviour is based on the perception of what people think is the norm so correction of this misperception is done by social norms interventions
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What is social norms intervention?
The identification of a misperception relating to behaviour within a target population using media campaigns
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Why does history challenge the view that minorities bring about social change quickly? (AO3)
As there is a strong tendency to conform to the majority rather than engage in social change which creates the potential for change. This suggests that social change is very gradual
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Why is the potential for minority influence limited? (AO3)
Members of the majority don't want to align themselves with the minority as they don't want to be seen as deviant. This suggests that minorities face the challenge of being portrayed as deviant while making people embrace their views
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Why may social norms intervention not lead to social change?
When placing a lower drinking poster in a college, after 3 years drinking levels did not lower suggesting the normative information did not correct the misperception
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is compliance?

Back

Involves publically acting in accords with social pressure but privately disagrees

Card 3

Front

What is identification?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is internalisation?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What are the two explanations of conformity?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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