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Social Influence: Revision Booklet

Types of conformity:
Compliance: Weakest level of conformity: Person may publicly go along with the behaviour of the group to gain
approval or avoid disapproval
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Eg: Agreeing with a group that Arsenal are better than Chelsea when secretly disagreeing
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Temporary: behaviour changes when they leave group
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g
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However upon leaving team may
stop drinking with them
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Occurs when exposed to beliefs of others then decide themselves on own viewpoint
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Eg: Tom living with vegetarians at
university and accepting eating meat as wrong then continues to be vegetarian even when he leaves the group
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Their main motivation is to be accepted, liked and respected by the
group and avoid disapproval or rejection
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Even though they
publicly agree with groups viewpoint, internally/ in private settings, may disagree
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Ppts shown
stimulus line and asked one by one to say out loud which 3 sets of lines A, B or C matched the original line
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Results:
36% ppts conformed to majority groups incorrect answer
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Normative Social influence was the reason for conforming to the majorities incorrect view
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Allowed for the control
of extraneous variables so Asch could be certain the confederates were influencing the participant
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It’s unclear if similar
behaviour would occur in real world settings as it lacks mundane realism, decreasing its internal validity
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For
example, All participants were American students therefore the behaviour may be subject to cultural bias, being
ethnocentric
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Also
sample consists only of males which cannot be generalised to females thus becoming androcentric with low PV
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For example, the ppt were
deceived to the intention of the study with many believing it to be a test of vision
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However this could be argued to be necessary to create realistic behaviour and all were debriefed after,
preventing demand characteristics and encouraging natural behaviour, increasing the internal validity
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Occurs in unfamiliar settings with conformity to the crowd and avoid
standing out from the majority (due to embarrassment, rejection or lack of knowledge on the person's behalf on
appropriate behaviour)
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Lucas:
Gave ppts maths problems that were easy or difficult
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Looked to others who were confident in answers in order to be right
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High self-efficacy participants (those who were confident in their own abilities) were more
independent than low self-efficacy participants, even when the problems got more difficult
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Support: Asch for exemple, he concluded through his findings how people conform (36%) even though they
know the others are incorrect
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However, artificial task reduces natural behaviour produced in everyday life
conditions, lacking mundane realism and ecological validity
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Variables affecting conformity:
Group size:
As majority group size increases so does influence however only up to a certain point
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Two confederates = 13%
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15 confederates led to no further increase
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Asch investigated unanimity was introducing
confederates that would go against the majority and give the correct answer
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5%
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Task difficulty:
Conformity increases as difficulty increases and correct answer is less obvious
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Asch demonstrated this by increasing task
difficulty of “line experiment” by making lines very similar in length
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Evaluation:
● One weakness for measuring variables affecting conformity is that confounding variables may occur
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This is
because engineers are used to making accurate observations within their job
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●

One strength for explaining variables affecting conformity is that there is research support
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He found that high self-efficacy participants (those who were
confident in their own abilities) were more independent than low self-efficacy participants, even when the
problems got more difficult
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Conformity to social roles:
Zimbardo’s prison study was key example of conformity taking place through identification with “Social roles”
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Aim: to understand why dehumanising behaviour occurred in prisons, testing 2 possible explanations:
Dispositional hypothesis: due to guards and prisoners being “bad seeds” with sadistic, aggressive tendencies
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Stanford university
basement converted into a mock prison and scheduled to last 2 weeks
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“prisoners” were arrested by real police officers at home, all referred to by their numbers
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Violence was permitted and Zimbardo was prison warden and researcher
Findings:
Prisoners/ guards settled into roles with guards becoming more abusive
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Prisoners became submissive and didn’t question guards behaviours with some siding with guards
against other prisoners
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The
study stopped after only 6 days after it became clear significant harm was being caused by aggressive behaviour of
guards and submissive behaviour of the prisoners
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Behaviour between prisoners was not identical so we cannot generalise the findings
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Haslam & Reicher point out this shows
guards were choosing to behave this way rather than conforming to the social role itself, decreasing
experiments internal validity
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Also offers us the possibility to reduce this with
training, giving the experiment real life application
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Zimbardo’s also raised ethical concerns considering level of distress some ppts showed
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The study left long-term psychological effects on ppts although Zimbardo offered debriefing
for many years after
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Obedience: Milgram
Wanted to see whether people would obey to legitimate authority figures when given instructions to harm another
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Procedure:
2 ppts assigned to teacher or (learner, always the confederate)
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Teacher
asked by experimenter in lab coat to administer electric shocks to learner each time they gave a wrong answer which
teacher thought were taking part in a memory test
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The
experimenter would give prods: ‘you have no other choice but to continue’
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65% were willing to go to 450v
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Hofling replicated idea of obedience but in real life setting of a hospital
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Gives idea of obedience
external validity as it’s incorporated into everyday life and how people are blinded by obedience, high EV
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However Perry listened to tapes in experiment and found
participants doubted shocks were real
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Milgram reported 70% believed the shocks however creates extra manipulation
towards the experiment and going against an external researcher, decreasing its internal validity
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However had to occur to reduce DC and increase
natural behaviour
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This can be seen when they were
debriefed, 1
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Thus BPS guidelines won’t accept this experiment to
occur today
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Individual feels they have complete control: autonomous: see themselves responsible
for own actions
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They see the authority as
responsible for consequences and become deindividuated
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The Agentic state maintained due to the gradual commitment made by individual from giving early
shocks
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Legitimacy of authority: The Agentic state only achieved through individual believing person giving the orders has
legitimate authority
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Eg, police have power in regards to the law
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Therefore the person giving the order must be perceived to
have social power to give orders within context of what is happening for them to be seen as legitimate authority figure
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Students blamed experimenter than the participant and also recognised experimenter as
being in position of legitimate authority, giving agentic state as an explanation for obedience high internal
validity
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Some cultures authority are more likely to be accepted as
legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals
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Situational variables affecting obedience:
Proximity:
Proximity between the teacher and learner affects obedience as well as between authority and teacher
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The
closer people were to observing consequences of actions the lower obedience rates as more people resisted
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Status of Location:
Location and environment affect the amount of legitimate authority the person giving orders has
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Milgram recreated study in run down office and found obedience rates = 47
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Suggests legitimacy of
authority figure was lowered due to location and context, a rundown office suggests experimenter giving orders had less
authority than researcher at a respected university
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In Milgram's
study researcher wore a white lab coat which believed to have added to his perceived authority
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Increases internal validity
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Support: bickman: 3 confederates different uniforms: security, businessman, milkman
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More likely obey security as recognised role to society and moral principles
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These DC could cause a change in level of obedience
as natural behavior is prevented
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Contradictory research: for example Hofling replicated study with 22 nurses
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Shows how proximity isn’t as effective when in real life
situations
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Dispositional factor: Authoritarian personality
Behaviour caused by internal characteristics of an individual
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Adorno believed personality shaped in early childhood by parenting focused on hierarchical authoritarian parenting
styles
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Test AP, Adorno created the “F-Scale” questionnaire which comprised 30 questions assessing nine
personality dimensions
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Due to this we cannot
establish cause and effect for certain as may be other unknown variables may lay between personality traits
and obedience decreasing the explanations internal validity and increasing its determinism
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If these claims are correct then it is possible to conclude
that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics that lead to obedience, but levels of education
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It is possible
that the F scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where participants provide answers that are
socially acceptable
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Explanations for resistance to social influence:
Social support: If a person sees other people refusing to obey/ conform and go against social norm of the situation,
this makes it easier for individual to also resist social influence as would have increased confidence in own view
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Other confederates before gave incorrect response out loud
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5%
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Social support allows individuals to consider the possibility
of different ways of thinking about the situation and opens them up to the possibility of considering the majority view
may be wrong and giving confidence to go against this
Evaluation:

Social Influence: Revision Booklet

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Allen and Levine found social support caused resistance to social influence even if the support appeared
invalid
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Even when study was recreated using confederate without visual impairment, highlights
any form of social support whether deemed valid or not can resist conformity but most effective when it was
deemed credible, causing the explanation of resistance to have high internal validity
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Individuals with high internal LOC = more
confident /self-assured in beliefs and more aware how own actions affect them
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Individuals with high external LOC externalise control they have believing it is down to luck, fate
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Such
individuals less likely to resist social influence or display independent behaviour
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Comparing to people who didn’t, found those
“rescued” jews had high internal LOC and scoring high social responsibility
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weakness: research based on
correlational research
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It may
be that personality variables are actually the cause with high internal LOC being the effect of certain personality
traits, decreasing its internal validity
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Twenge found more young americans
showing higher rate external LOC in children sample 1960-2002
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provides us
with real world applications as if high external LOC is linked with negative consequences, developing ways to
increase perceived control through CBT programmes should help address this, giving the explanation of
obedience beyond explanatory power as well as high ecological validity
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For conversion to take place, minority group must adopt behavioural traits involving
commitment, consistency and flexibility
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This takes longer to effect change as requires time for people to question/examine own
believes unlike majority influence, based on compliance and causes instant conformity
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Lab study involving females
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However two members (confederates) always
answered incorrectly either all the time/ most of the time to measure impact consistency has on majority
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When
confederates gave inconsistent answers varying from blue and green influence = 1
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Supports consistency
as important element for social influence to occur from minority groups
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On the other hand, Moscovici concluded reason more
people didn't conform in his original study was due to the pressure to conform being greater however when
allowed to give answer in secret, more likely to agree with minority, causing credibility when explaining the
effects of minority influence
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Those who
remained most consistent were seen to have most level of influence supporting consistency as valuable trait

Social Influence: Revision Booklet

for minority influence
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May be unknown factors affect influence which are
unaccounted for, decreasing the research internal validity
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Firstly minority group draw
attention to particular issue they wish to address to gain public attention
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If group
bringing the issue is seen credible, likely to create deeper conflict and majority forced to examine the minorities
argument in greater detail which lead to move towards minority position publicly or privately for some
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Eg: suffragettes: used various tactics to draw attention to issue of only men having voting rights
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Another explanation: Augmentation
principle: if group put themselves forward at risk to themselves, likely gain greater support
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Eg: MLK put himself forward for his causes at great personal risk which lead
to greater recognition from majority and effecting social change for equal rights for ethnic groups
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Snowball effect: Minority opinion becomes widely
adopted leading to tipping point where leads to wide-scale social changes
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Evaluation:
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Moscovici support: consistency in minority influence
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Groups asked to identify
color presented which was always blue but varying shades
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Results: when the confederates consistent in responses (slides were green) 8% of the majority agreed
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25%
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However, the
sample may be alpha bias
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Therefore, if it was replicated with men results would show no sense of conformity to minority lacking PV
and EV as both genders interact daily
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As the world becomes a wealthier place it is likely that the number of
individualistic societies will increase
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However, this does not seem to be in accordance with Twenge’s findings that in the USA (a most individualistic
society), external locus of control is on the increase
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Therefore, although this explanation doesn't specifically state the differences between cultures, there’s evidence
which supports how social change is universal and able to generalise to other cultures

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