3. AQA A-Level Psychology Key Content

how did the original study affect conformity

6 confederates gave unanimous wrong answer - 36.8% conformity

how did the size of majority affect conformity

one real pts and 6 confederates, conformity is low but when there 3 real pts conformity increases sharply, beyond this there is no massive increase

what % did conformity rise when there were 3 real pts vs 1

12.8% to 31.8%

how did the mode of response affect conformity

when pts had to write down their answers rather than say aloud, conformity dropped from 36.8%

what study showed conformity depends on culture

meta analysis done by Smith and Bond in 1998

how did they do this

Asch style procedures

what’s the difference between collectivist and individualistic

collectivist cultures show more conformity and focus on the needs of the group

individualistic focus on self independence

which researchers asked a set of people with high desire for control to rank cartoons

burger and cooper (1979)

what did these high desire for control individuals show

those who had more desire were less influenced

which researcher found that pts with high scores in intelligence and leadership had less conformity

Crutchfield (1955)

what did Crutchfield do

sat pts in a booth out of sight of one another being able to only see stimulus cards, in each booth were a row of switches to give response and a row of lights to see other pts responses

what is obedience to authority

a type of social influence whereby someone acts in response to a direct order from a figure with percieved authority

give 2 differences between obedience and conformity

obedience is based on the idea of a person having power and conformity is based on regulating behaviour among those of equal status

obedience to someone is explicit but conformity to someone is implicit oftentimes

what was the aim of milgrams study

to investigate whether ordinary people will obey a legitimate authority figure even when required to injure another person

how did Milgram recruit his pts and how many, what was the aim

he advertised for volunteers to take part in an experiment on how punishment affects learning and recruited 40 males

what was the setup of the experiment

2 confederates, an experimenter and learner, the pts always ended up being the teacher and had to administer the electric shocks

what did the learner have to “do”

remember pairs of words and if he got it wrong he would be given electric shocks on increasing shocks that were stronger each time

what was the labelling on the shock device

slight shock, intense shock and dangerous

what happened at each voltage

at 300v the learner “pounded” on the wall and then gave no answer to the next question, same at 315v, was silent for the rest of the procedure

how many delivered the shocks and up to what voltage

every pts delivered upto 300v