Social influence

social influence studies

Asch’s Participants + aim

123 American male undergraduates in groups of 6 consisting of one participant and 5 confederates to investigate conformity and majority influence

Asch’s procedure

• participants and confederate presented with 4 lines 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line

• asked to state which of the three lines was the same length as the stimulus line.

• real participant always answered last or second to last

• Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials

• Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer

Asch’s findings

36.8% conformed

25% never conformed

75% conformed at least once

In a control trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were

incorrect (which eliminates eyesight/perception as an extraneous

variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)

Asch’s Variations

• size: 3 confederates conformity rose but more of them made little difference 

• Unanimity: presence of dissenting (confederate who didnt agree with majority) meant conformity was reduced

• Task difficulty: harder the task more conformity 

Asch Evaluation - strength

→ strengths
-high internal validity strict control over extraneous variables
-lab experiment variables strictly controlled, replication is easy
-supports normative influence: participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group

Asch Evaluation - weakness

→ weaknesses
-lacks ecological validity based on peoples perceptions of lines so cannot be generalised to real lise lscks complexity to real life conformity
-ethical issues: deception as participants were tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance couldnt give informed consent
-lacked validity social context of 1950s may have affected results Perrin and spencer critisised the study statiting the results because it was at a time people were scared to be different (McCarthyism)

Milgram participants + aim

Randomly selected participants - 40 male volunteers, to see whether people would obey a figure of authority

Milgrams procedure

• participant rigged to always be the teacher and a confederate the learner.

• teacher asks learner a series of questions, whenever the confederate gets it wrong (which they did on purpose) teacher had to give shocks in 15 volt increments up to 450, 330 marked as lethal.

• participants thought the shocks were real when really there were no real shocks administered as the confederate is acting.

• When participants asked to stop a man in a white coat prodded them to continue “you have to continue”

Milgrams Findings

• All participants went up to 300

• 65% went up to 450

• No participants stopped below 300V

• 12.5% stopped at 300V

Milgrams variations

• proximity: participants obeyed more when the experiment was in the same room (62.5%) and was reduced to (40%) when the experimenter and participant were in separate

• location: when the study was set at a prestigious school such as Yale obedience was higher, prestige of a location makes obedience higher

• Uniform: attitre such as a uniform makes people more likely to comply e.g lab coat

Milgram Strengths

• Highly replicable – The procedure has been repeated all over the world, where consistent and similar obedience levels have been found.

• High External validity has been established by supporting studies –Hofling et al (1966) observed the behaviour of doctors and nurses in a natural experiment (covert observation).

Milgram weakness

Ethical issues:

• There was deception and so informed consent could not be obtained

• Lack of internal validity – The experiment may have been about trust rather than about obedience because the experiment was held at Stanford University.

• Lack of ecological validity – The tasks given to participants are not

  like those we would encounter in real life e.g. shooting somebody in

  the face is different from flicking a switch,

obtained.

Adorno’s procedure

2000 mc white americans and their unconcious attitudes towards other racial groups were measured using the F-scale and other questionnaires.

Adorno’s findings

suggested that authoritarian personalities are more likely to hold prejudiced views and display obedience to authority figures.

Authoritarian characteristics

include rigid adherence to rules, hostility towards out-groups, and a submissive attitude toward in-group authority.

evaluation of Adorno’s Study

involves analyzing the methodology, sample size, and potential biases in Adorno's research. Critics argue that the F-scale may not adequately capture complex attitudes towards race. Other: research support, limited explanation, correlation not causation

Two explanations of resistance

social support and locus of control

Locus of control

The locus of control is a measurement of an individual’s sense of control over their lives, i.e

to what extent they feel that events in their lives are under their own personal control, versus

under the control of other external powers like fate.

what do you do to measure locus of control

Rotters Scale

High external locus of control

High External locus of control - (less control) - behavior is caused by luck or fate (more likely to be leaders not follows since they believe majority events are beyond their control)

High internal locus of control

(more control) - behavior is caused by their own personal decisions and effort (conform and obey less as they take responsibility for their own actions)

Evaluations of the links between locus of control and existence to obedience

• Holland repeated milgrams baseline study measuring if people were internal or external, only 37% internals did not continue to highest voltage, 23% of externals did showing internals showed greater resistance to authority
  
  Some evidence shows contradictory research, not all research supports the link between loc and resistence Twenge et al analysed data from american obedience studys showinh people have become more resistent to obedience and more external, if resitence is linked internal loc we would expect more internal challenging the link between them

Dispositional explanation

internal explanation i.e personality factors/individual reasons why

someone obeys.

Minority Influence

Where a small group or individual persuades others to adopt their beliefs and behaviors

Moscovici’s Study

pariticpants:randomly selected + confederates
aim: to observe how minorities can influence a majority
procedure: in lab in groups with two confederates (minority) and four participants (majority)
- shown 36 blue slides in dif shades, asked to say if blue or green, confederates deliberately said green 2/3 of the time producing minority view,
-control group used consisting of participants only
findings: when confederates consistent in their answers 8% of particpants said slides were green but when incosistent 1% of particpants said it was green showing consistency is crucial for minority to influence majority

what does the minority need to influence the majority

consistency, commitment, flexibility

limitations of Moscovici

Moscovici used a bias sample of 172 female participants from America. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations

Moscovici has also been criticised for deceiving his participants, as participants were told that they were taking part in a colour perception test. This also means that Moscovici did not gain fully informed consent.