Social Influence Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Milgram's obedience study, situational and dispositional explanations, Asch's conformity research, types/explanations of conformity, and resistance to social influence.

Obedience

Following direct orders from an authority figure.

Authority

Power or control held by a person or organization.

Confederate

A researcher's assistant posing as a genuine participant in a psychological study.

Debriefing

Post-experiment disclosure of study aims and a participant well-being check.

Milgram's Experimental Setup

The arrangement in Stanley Milgram's 1963 study where the true participant was always assigned the role of Teacher, while confederates acted as the Learner ('Mr Wallace') in an adjoining room and the Experimenter in a grey lab coat.

The Shock Generator

The mock instrument panel used in Milgram's study with switches starting at 15V and increasing in 15-volt increments up to 450V, labelled from 'Slight Shock' to 'Danger: Severe Shock'.

Verbal Prods

Four standardized phrases used by the Experimenter in Milgram's study to urge hesitating participants to keep going, ranging from 'Please continue' to 'You have no other choice, you must go on.'

Milgram's Baseline Findings

The quantitative findings of Milgram's 1963 baseline study showing that 100% of participants reached 300 volts, 12.5% (5 people) stopped at 300V, and 65% continued to the maximum 450V.

Agentic State

A mental state where individuals feel no personal responsibility for their actions, viewing themselves as an agent carrying out another person's wishes.

Autonomous State

A mental state of independence where individuals direct their own actions and accept personal responsibility for the outcomes.

Agentic Shift

The psychological transition from an autonomous state to an agentic state upon perceiving someone as an authority figure in a social hierarchy.

Moral Strain

Anxiety and distress experienced by an individual in an agentic state when ordered to perform actions that conflict with their personal conscience.

Binding Factors

Aspects of a situation that allow an individual to ignore or minimize the damage of their actions and remain in an agentic state, such as shifting responsibility to the victim.

Legitimacy of Authority

Power granted to specific figures (such as police, doctors, or teachers) that is agreed upon by society as necessary for social order and smooth functioning.

Situational Variables

Environmental factors that influence behaviour, which Milgram operationalized into proximity, location, and uniform.

Proximity (Milgram)

The physical closeness between the Teacher and the Learner or Experimenter; obedience dropped to 40% when sharing a room, 30% under touch proximity, and 20.5% under remote instruction by phone.

Location (Milgram)

The status or prestige linked to where an order is given; moving Milgram's study from Yale University to a run-down office block reduced obedience from 65% to 47.5%.

Uniform (Milgram)

Outfits representing legitimate authority; replacing the lab-coat Experimenter with an ordinary member of the public in everyday clothes reduced obedience to 20%.

Dispositional Explanation

Explanations that attribute behaviour to internal personality traits rather than external situational pressures.

Authoritarian Personality

A distinct personality profile identified by Theodor Adorno characterized by strict obedience, rigid conventionality, exaggerated respect for authority, and contempt for those perceived as weak.

F-Scale

The Potential for Fascism Scale created by Theodor Adorno (1950) to measure antidemocratic and authoritarian attitudes on a 6-point Likert scale.

Psychodynamic Mechanism of Authoritarianism

Adorno's proposal that hostility felt toward strict parents during childhood is repressed and displaced onto weaker, low-status social groups.

Elms and Milgram (1966)

A follow-up study on 20 fully obedient (450V) and 20 disobedient participants from Milgram's research, finding that fully obedient participants scored significantly higher on the F-scale.

Conformity

A change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Internalisation

A deep form of conformity involving a permanent change in both public behaviour and private beliefs that persists even when the group is no longer present.

Compliance

A superficial, temporary form of conformity where an individual publicly agrees with the group while privately maintaining their own opinions.

Informational Social Influence (ISI)

A cognitive explanation for conformity driven by the desire to be correct, occurring most often in new, difficult, or ambiguous situations.

Normative Social Influence (NSI)

An emotional explanation for conformity driven by the desire to gain social approval, fit in with group norms, and avoid rejection.

Asch's Baseline Study (1951)

An experiment assessing conformity in 123 American male undergraduates using a standard line and comparison lines task, finding an average conformity rate of 36.8% across critical trials.

Group Size (Asch)

A variable tested by Asch where majority size ranged from 1 to 15 confederates; conformity was 3% with 1 confederate, rose to 31.8% with 3 confederates, and levelled off with larger majorities.

Unanimity (Asch)

The degree of consensus among group members; introducing a dissenting confederate broke unanimity and reduced conformity to less than a quarter of the baseline level.

Task Difficulty (Asch)

An operational variation where line lengths were made closer together, increasing ambiguity and elevating conformity through Informational Social Influence.

Resistance to Social Influence

Withstanding social pressures to conform to majority judgments or obey direct orders from authority figures.

Social Support

The presence of an ally who breaks group unanimity or models disobedience, empowering independent behaviour in others.

Internal Locus of Control

A personality dimension proposed by Rotter (1966) where individuals believe their achievements and life outcomes are governed by their own efforts, decisions, and choices.

External Locus of Control

A personality dimension proposed by Rotter (1966) where individuals believe their life outcomes are dictated by external forces such as luck, fate, or powerful authority figures.

Holland (1967)

A study replicating Milgram's baseline procedure after assessing locus of control, finding that 37% of internals refused to give the maximum 450V shock compared to only 24% of externals.

Rotter's Familiarity Caveat (1982)

Rotter's assertion that locus of control primarily influences decision-making in novel or unfamiliar situations, whereas past habits override personality in familiar settings.

Rank and Jacobson (1975)

A hospital study replicating nurse obedience under realistic conditions, finding that 16 out of 18 (89%) nurses resisted a doctor's order to give a Valium overdose when allowed to consult colleagues.

Bickman (1974)

A New York field experiment demonstrating the power of uniform, where passers-by were twice as likely to obey orders to pick up litter or pay parking meters from a security guard compared to a civilian.

Social Identity Theory Explanation of Obedience

An alternative view proposed by Haslam et al. (2014) suggesting participants obeyed Milgram's first three prods because they identified with science, but rebelled against the fourth prod because it was an explicit order.

The Obedience Alibi (Mandel, 1998)

Mandel's critique arguing that situational explanations excuse evil behaviour, pointing to Battalion 101 where individuals given the choice not to participate still chose to murder autonomously.