social influence case studies

asch (1951)

- groups of 8-10 men w real participant being second to last

- six control rounds and then 12 rounds where confederates gave wrong answers

- 75% of participants conformed at least once

asch variables

GROUP SIZE - conformity is curvilinear with group size, more than three confederates = no extra conformity beyond 33% conformity rate

UNANIMITY - even one dissenter can decrease conformity bc social support

TASK DIFFICULTY - conformity increases with difficulty due to informational social influence

asch eval

• participants may have guessed the purpose and just did what they thought the researchers wanted bc low mundane realism

• highly controlled and standardised

• women and collectivist cultures may conform more than men

• may not be temporally valid and the high conformity may reflect the cold war american attitudes of wanting to fit in

isi and nsi eval

- doesn't consider individual differences like nAfilliators (people who need to feel more affiliation)

- the distinction between nsi and isi might not be necessary as they likely usually work together irl

- research support for isi increasing with task difficulty (asch)

zimbardo (1973)

- 21 mentally stable male students randomly assigned to the prisoner or guard role

- identification numbers + prisoner uniform for prisoners and they were arrested at their homes which caused deindividuation

- uniforms, reflective glasses and wooden clubs for the guards caused deindividuation

- study ended after only six days due to violent punishments, hunger strikes by prisoners and psychological damage meaning some prisoners had to be let out early

zimbardo eval

- random assignment of roles to participants checked to be emotionally stable increased the internal validity and high control

- can be compared to abu ghraib as rwa

- zimbardo was not an objective researcher bc he was playing as the prison superintendent

- participants may have just been play acting and imitating prison life seen in movies, like a guard imitating the movie ‘cool hand luke’

- however 90% of prisoners conversations were about prison life, showing how they started to believe the prison was real and some believed it was a real prison but the government was tricking them into thinking it wasn’t

- zimbardo may have exaggerated what happened, only 1/3 of guards acted brutally while the others supported the prisoners and resisted pressures to conform

• severe psychological damage and participants felt they didn’t have the right to withdraw

milgram (1963)

- 40 american men in a Yale University study

- asked to give shocks up to 450 volts whenever the learner made a mistake in memory tests

- 65% delivered to 450 volts + trembling, sweating, stuttering etc. 100% to 300 volts

- psychology students estimated only 3% would be fully obedient

- 84% of participants said after debrief that they were happy to have participated

milgram eval

- this study actually shows SIT as nobody obeyed when given the fourth prod (you have no choice) due to social identity theory = we only obey when we identify with the aims

- ethical issues of deception and psychological damage

- demand characteristics + play acting from participants esp in the variable where another confederate took the role of the scientist. milgram admitted himself that the uniform variable was a bit contrived.

- research support = french docu where participants obeyed when giving fake shocks to actors live on tv, most participants gave what they thought was a fatal shock to a puppy

- entirely male sample so might one be generalisable to women

milgram variables

PROXIMITY - obedience dropped when teacher could both see and hear learner (40%), had to force learners hand onto an 'electroshock plate' (30%), when experimenter left room and gave instructions over phone (20%)

LOCATION - run down office block, obedience fell to 47%

UNIFORM - when a ordinary confederate took over for the experimenter, obedience fell to 20%

litter + nurse study

- nyc study about picking up street litter - public was twice as likely to obey someone in a security guard outfit then a suit and tie or milkman's outfit. legitimacy of authority + ecological validity + mundane realism

- 22 real nurses in a hospital called up claiming to be a real doctor saying to give twice the daily dose of an unfamiliar drug to a patient. 21/22 obeyed showing la + ev + mr. placebo drug given.

adorno (1950)

- 2000 middle class white americans took the f-scale test

- those who scored highly were highly authoritarian and had a prejudiced, black and white cognitive thinking style

adorno eval

- f-scale only measures a tendency towards far right political ideology

- 1950s were a time of mccarthyism and a tendency towards being obedient and authoritarian due to red scare

- when given to milgram participants, those who shocked to 450 had higher f-scale scores than those who didn’t

• still can’t explain things like nazi germany because its not realistic that an entire country would have ap’s

locus of control eval

• milgram - only minimal differences in those who were obedient to 450 volts vs those who weren’t when it comes to loc

• loc is only a partial explanation for resistance to social influence

• other dispositional factors are important too, like sense of personal morality or social anxiety levels

• twenge - americans have become more external but also more resistant to obedience, which suggests loc is not a core aspect of resisting social influence

social support eval

• program aimed at reducing smoking in adolescents

• adolescents who had an older mentor / buddy were significantly less likely to smoke than those without buddies

dissenting peer influence:

• participants asked to help produce evidence for an oil company to run a smear campaign

• high resistance and majority rebelled, likely because participants were in groups and could discuss with each other

moscovici (1969) + eval

• group was shown a set of 36 blue coloured slides of various shades and asked if the slides were blue or green

• two confederates consistently said the slides were green

• participants agreed with confederates 8% of the time

• second group had inconsistent confederates

• participants only agreed 1% of the time

• does show that consistency is a part of improving minority influence

• 8% is still very low and suggests minority influence is very rare

• artificial task

martin (2003)

• participants shown a viewpoint and their agreement was measured

• one group saw a minority agree with the view and one saw a majority agree

• finally both groups saw a conflicting viewpoint

• group that sae minority was less willing to change their view to the conflicting one, suggesting the minority view was internalised more deeply, perhaps through augmentation principle

minority influence eval

• minority views create deeper processing if we disagree with their views bc we expect to fit in and be correct (nsi / isi), so when we dont we search for more information as to why

• people can resist minority influence if they dont want to be associated with the minority even if they agree with them, bashir (2013) people not wanting to engage in environmentally friendly behaviour bc they dont want to be associated with ‘tree huggers’

• nolan (2008) study on changing energy use habits through social influence. one group of houses had signs saying that most residents were trying to reduce energy use. another groups signs had no reference to other people. first group saw a bigger decrease in energy reduction (because of perceived synchronic consistency)

nemeth (1987)

• supports flexibility as part of minority influence

• 3 real participants and one confederate about compensation for an imaginary serious ski lift accident

• when the confederate was too inflexible and dogmatic the ppts would not agree to low compensation of $50k

• confederate could get ppts to agree to a flexible but still lower compensation of $100k