Social Influence - Paper 1

minority influence AO1

“where 1 person/small group of people influence the behaviour and beliefs of other people”
→ most likely to lead to internalisation (where public and private belief are changed

1. consistency → synchronic (all agree)/diachronic (long time)

2. commitment → if action poses risk to minority it shows greater commitment: Augmentation Principle

3. flexibility → too consistent will be seen as dogmatic/rigid. be reasonable, accept counterarguments.

these factors increase likelihood of deeper processing → more likely to be converted
as more people convert to minority view, rate of conversion increases: snowball effect

minority influence AO3 research

Moscovici: 6 ppts, blue green slides. consistent confederates saying green led to ppts agreeing 8.42% of trials. inconsistent (green 24 times, blue 12) led to agreement 1.25%. Control was 0.25%
Nemeth: group of 3 ppts + 1 confederate, given scenario of ski-lift accident, confederates argued for lower compensation rate. flexible: higher success in majority, inflexible: little affect on majority

minority influence AO3 general

low mundane realism for both research studies: not a real situation, so low stakes, little salience to ppts, minority influence takes up to years so one experimental session isn’t enough. Also often majority may be hostile → more money + power, minority is very passionate as facing hostility So low external validity as not representative of real world.

real world examples: women’s suffrage: lasted very long time (diachronic consistency), commitment: Emily Davison was hit by King George’s horse and died.

conformity to social roles AO1

“the parts people play as members of various social groups”
Zimbardo: 21 male students of Stanford University (volunteer sample). Randomly assigned prison guard/prisoner.
They were given uniforms: prisoners - smocks, caps + identifying numbers to cover hair. guards given mirror shades.
meant to cause de-individuation by removing personal identity.
guards treated prisoners harshly. day 2: prisoners rebelled, but the guards diffused the conflict via fire extinguishers. they harasses prisoners, conducted frequent headcounts even at night. One prisoner was released due to psychological disturbance. two more were released after 4 days, and one went on hunger strike. As the behaviour became increasingly aggressive, study was ended on day 6 instead of 14

conformity to social roles AO3 research

McDermott: 90% of conversations were about prison lives → discussed believing it impossible to leave the prison before sentences were over.

conformity to social roles AO3 general

methodological issues: beta bias, volunteer sample
exaggeration of findings → only third of guards acted cruelly. a third were fair, a third helped, offering cigarettes/reinstating privileges. overexaggeration of conformity to roles.
— instead of zimbardo’s suggestion of ppts naturally conforming to roles (passive process), social identity theory suggests that we first categories ourselves in a social role and choose to identify with it (active process which we have control over). Explains why 2/3 of guards were not aggressive + prisoners rebellion