Social Influence (AQA AS-Level Psychology)

Outline two different types of conformity

Compliance is a superficial type of conformity where an individual changes their behaviour publicly, but privately they still disagree with the group’s views. It is usually temporary and driven by a desire for social acceptance or to avoid rejection (NSI).

Internalisation is a deeper form of conformity where an individual genuinely adopts the beliefs/behaviours of a group, both publicly and privately. This occurs because they believe the group’s views are correct (ISI), so the change is more permanent.

Describe explanations for conformity

Normative social influence is when people conform to gain approval and avoid social rejection from a group. Often associated with compliance, it does not lead to the changing of private beliefs.

Informational social influence is when people conform because they believe the believe the group is correct. Often associated with internalisation, it leads to changing of both private and public beliefs.

Evaluate explanations for conformity

+ Asch’s variation of his 1951 study where participants wrote down their answers to the line-judgement task. When fear of social rejection was removed, conformity rate dropped to 12.5%. Supports NSI.

+ Jennes beans-in-a-jar study, participants individually estimated number of beans in a jar, then discussed as a group and made a second estimate each. The range lessened. Providing support for ISI.

- Both of these are lab studies, meaning they have low mundane realism which reduces external validity.

Asch’s conformity study (method & generic results, no variations)

Asch 1951 investigated conformity with a line judgement task. He used 123 male American participants. Each participant was in a group with 5-7 confederates, each person was asked to state the matching line aloud in order (the participant was always 2^nd to last). There were 12 critical trials out of 18, where the confederates all gave the same wrong answer.

75% of participants conformed at least once. The average conformity rate was 32%. 25% of participants never conformed.

Asch interviews participants afterwards and found most participants had given the incorrect answer to avoid disapproval from other group members (compliance).

Factors affecting conformity

Group size affected conformity. With 2 confederates, conformity rate was 13%. With 3 confederates, conformity rate was 32%. Then conformity plateaued, regardless of how many over 3 the group size was.

Unanimity affected conformity. When unanimity of the group is disturbed, by one confederate agreeing with the participant, conformity fell to 5%. When a confederate gave an alternative incorrect answer, conformity still dropped to 9%. Suggesting it’s not having someone agree with you that affects conformity, but its breaking the unanimity.

Task difficulty increases conformity. Asch made the lines more similar in length, making the correct answers less obvious. Conformity increased due to informational social influence, as people question their ability and look to the group for guidance.

Evaluate Asch’s conformity study

- Low temporal validity. Perrin and Spencer replicated this experiment in 1980 with British engineering students and found only 1 instance of conformity in 396 trials.

- Low population validity, male participants, beta gender bias, androcentricity of the research means we cannot generalise findings to females.

+ Lab study with a standardised procedure, good replicability, tight control.

Outline Milgram’s obedience study (1963)

In 1963 Milgram investigated levels of obedience to an instruction from an authoritative figure. Participants were told they were taking part in a memory task, with one participant as a teacher and another as a learner (who was actually a confederate). The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks to the learner when they gave a wrong answer, increasing in 15V increments each time, all the way up to 450V. The learner provided voice feedback (shouts of pain or banging on the wall) up to 315V, and then went silent. When Ps ask to leave, instructor offers verbal prompts e.g. the experiment requires you to continue.

Milgram found 100% of participants administered at least 300V. 65% of participants administered the full 450V.

Evaluate Milgram’s obedience study

+ Milgram used a standardised procedure which is easily replicable, tight control

- Questionable internal validity, some people have argued that participants knew the shocks were not real, causing them to go to a higher voltage shock, therefore decreasing the internal validity as Milgram was not truly testing obedience.

+ Application in fields such as the military and schools, by manipulating the environment to increase obedience. E.g. wearing uniforms in schools.

Situational factors affecting obedience

Proximity - When teacher and learner in the same room, obedience dropped to 40%. When teacher had to force learner’s hand onto the shock plate, obedience dropped to 30%. When teacher received instructions over the phone, obedience dropped to 20%.

Location - When the experiment was moved to a run-down office block (as opposed to Yale university) the percentage of participants administering the full 450V dropped to 48%.

Uniform - Bickman 1974, when asked to put money in a car metre, 89% obeyed someone dressed as a guard, and only 33% obeyed someone dressed as a civilian. Milgram variation with instructor in civilian clothes rather than lab coat, obedience dropped to 20%.

Explanations for obedience

The agentic state is when someone denies responsibility for their actions, often blaming the person who instructed them to do it. The process of shifting responsibility is called the agentic shift (from autonomous to agentic state). The agentic state helps people maintain a positive self-image. Social etiquette acts as a binding factor, keeping people under the influence of the agentic state.

Legitimacy of authority is when we obey because the person asking is in a position of perceived social power - often having a power to punish - and are above us in the social hierarchy. For a person to have power through legitimacy of authority, they must give an order within some sort of institutional structure (a location where they have power).

Evaluate explanations for obedience

Agentic State:

- Milgram claimed we shift back and forth between agentic state and autonomous state. But Lifton found in a review of the Holocaust, that doctors working in Auschwitz showed a gradual irreversible change from caring professionals to people carrying out lethal experiments on prisoners.

+ In Milgram’s study, when participants asked who is responsible if Mr Wallace is harmed, the experimenter replied, “I am”. This supports the agentic state as participants could deny responsibility.

Legitimacy of Authority:

+ Data from the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) was studied and it was found that 19/37 aircraft accidents occurred when the co-pilot depended on the captain’s experience/rank and didn’t question risky actions, due to the legitimacy of authority held by the captain.

- Cultural variations, Mantell found 85% of German participants went to the full 450V. We cannot generalise how people perceive authoritative figures across cultures, therefore it is not a universal explanation.

Dispositional factors affecting obedience

The authoritarian personality is characterised by conventionalism, authoritarian aggression (towards those who disagree) and authoritarian submission (to legitimate authorities).

Adorno’s F-scale (fascist-scale) was a measure of the authoritarian personality type. A high score showed strict adherence to social rules and hierarchy. Adorno also found that people who scored high on the F-scale tended to be less close to their fathers during childhood (often having experienced physical punishment).

+ Elms and Milgram 1966 selected 20 Ps from Milgram’s study who went to 450V and 20 Ps who were defiant. They found obedient Ps scored higher on the authoritarian personality scale.

- There may be other factors affecting obedience, such as education and home town.

Describe 2 factors affecting resistance to social influence

Social support:
Resisting social influence is easier if you have an ally to stand firm against peer pressure together. Asch found giving a participant an ally decreases conformity from 32% to 5%. An ally gives someone confidence in their decision and makes them better able to stand up to the majority. Milgram found when participants were in a group of 3, and the 2 others both refused to continue, the real participants who continued to 450V dropped to 10%.

Locus of control:
A person with a strong internal locus of control typically believes they have control over events in their lives, and that their own ability and effort have an impact on their life. They rely less on the opinions of others and are better at resisting social influence. However, a person with a high external locus of control tends to believe what happens to them is determined by external factors such as luck and fate and is largely out of their control. They are more likely to be influenced by the behaviours of others.

Evaluate factors affecting resistance to social influence

Social support:
+ Rosenstrasse protest, a group of German women protested against the Nazis who were holding 2000 Jewish men, many of whom were married to the women. The Gestapo threatened violence, but the women stood strong and the Jewish men were released. The presence of disobedient peers gives others courage to defy authority.

Locus of control:
+ Spector’s research supports the idea that an internal locus of control results in a higher resistance to social influence.
+ Oliner and Oliner interviewed non-Jewish survivors of WWII and found people with an internal LOC were more likely to rescue and hide Jews than people with an external LOC.

Describe how a minority influence can change the majority view

In order for the minority to influence and convert the majority, they must be consistent, committed and flexible.

Consistency - in order for minority influence to be effective, all members must hold the same viewpoint that remains stable over time. This causes others to consider the issue more carefully rather than be dismissed as an error.

Commitment - members must be dedicated, the greater the sacrifice, the bigger the impact on the majority. Commitment suggests certainty, confidence and courage, which may persuade the majority to take them seriously.

Flexibility - the minority must be willing to compromise, negotiating their position rather than attempting to enforce it on the majority. Refusal to compromise risks being perceived as dogmatic. However, a minority that is too willing to compromise is seen as weak and inconsistent.

Evaluate minority influence

+ Moscovivi 1969’s research supports ideas that a minority must be consistent. Participants were show colours (all various shades of blue), if confederates were consistent, saying green ever time, naïve participants said green 8% of the time. However, when they said green only 2/3 of the time, participants only said green less than 2% of the time.

+ Nemeth and Brilmayer found flexibility is effective at changing the majority opinion if a compromise is suggested late in negotiations (ski-lift accident compensation simulation court case).