AQA GCSE Psychology Unit 5 - Social Influence

Conformity

when a persons behaviour or thinking changes as a result of social influence

Obedience

a type of social influence which causes a person to act in response to direct orders from an “authority figure“

Asch’s conformity(1955)

• 123 american male college students placed towards the end of a line with 6-8 confederates

• ppt arrives “late“

• everyone in line asked to verbally give answers to a question

• in 12/18 trials all confederates give wrong answers

• 25% of ppts never conform

• ov avg ppts conform 37% of time

• only 5% conformed 12/12 times

Evaluation of Asch’s Conformity Study (1955)

+ good reliability as it was repeated many times with lots of diff ppts
+ lab exp so good control of ext variables

-artificial setting so low ecological validity

Informative Conformity

People conform because they want to be right. This occours when people are unsure and so follow the majority

Normative Conformity

People conform because they want to be liked. They may not always agree with the behaviour theyre imitating

Dispositional Factors Affecting Conformity

• Locus of control: the belief that you either do or dont influence what happens to you

• Expertise: your skill in the respectve area

Social Factors Affecting Conformity

• Anonymity: whether you are distinguishable in the crowd

• Group size: how big the group is

• Task difficulty: how hard the task is

Milgram’s Study of Obedience

• fourty 20-50 year old male volunteers

• shocked with electrode and then sees confederate get attatched to it

• tested the confederate on words if confed got anything wrong theyd be “shocked” with increasing intensity

• confeds gave wrong answers on purpose to see how far ppts would go

• ppts were told they could leave but were given verbal prompts to stay

• 100% continues to 300v

• 65% continued to 450v

• 12.5% stopped at 300

Evaluation of Milgram’s Study of Obedience

• - low mundane realism

• - participants were paid for taking part

• + all participnts went through the same process

Milgram’s Agency Theory

• People act as agents of people because they think the person giving them orders will takw responsibility for their actions

• People are either in the

  • Agentic state - act on behalf of someone and follow orders blindly

  • Autonomous state - behave according to their own principles

• Shift to the agentic state occours hen a person percievs someone else as an authority figure

• Culture and proximity impact obedience

Evaluation Of Milgram’s Agency Theory

• - not all blindly follow orders

  • social factors do not fully explain obedience

• - theory diffuses responsibility from the perpetrator

  • nuremburg defence was not accepted at trials

• + evidence to support the theory from milgrams study

  • 65% of ppts in milgram’s study obeyed the Authority Figure’s instructions as the experimenter was the one taking responsibility

Description of Piliavin’s Study of Prosocial Behaviour

• 2 confederates - ‘victim’ and ‘model’

• male “victim” enters subway car either smelling of alcohol or carrying a cane

  • 38 trials of alc

  • 65 trials of cane

• 4 different helping conditions

• 1- model was in the area victim collapsed and helped after the fourth station

• 2- model was in the area victim collapsed and helped after the sixth station

• 3- model was a little further away from victim and helped after the fourth station

• 4- model was a little further away from victim and helped after the sixth station
  

Evaluation of Piliavin’s Study of Prosocial Behaviour

• + good eco validity

• - low control of ext variables

• - ppts werent able to give informed consent

Social Factors Affecting Obedience

• Authority - fear punishment or trust expertise of auth figures

• Culture - different culures put different weights on obedience

• Proximity - the closer the authority figure the higher the chance of obediencek

Adorno’s Theory of Obedience

• Authoritarian personality

  • a strong desire for social order

  • a tendency to submit to authority

  • shaped by harsh parenting

  • rigid cognitive style

Evaluation of Adorno’s Theory of Obedience

- based on a flawed questionairre (F scale) which has a response bias

- we cant claim that an authoritarian personality causes greater obedience

-idea of auth personality cant explain why millions in nazi germany obeyed while all having different childhoods

Social Factors Affecting Prosocial Behaviour

• bystander intervention goes down if others are present due to diffusion of responsibility

• if cost of time, energy or safety are high bystander intervention goes down

Dispositional Factors Affecting Prosocial Behaviour

When similarity to victim is higher e.g. share features or have a common interest

having greater expertise helping people gives more confidence to help someone

Social Factors Affecting Crowd and Collective Behaviour

• deinduviduation - feel anonymous, change behaviour

• social loafing - make a reduced effort

• social facilitation - make a greater effort

• culture - more effort in people from collectivistic cultures

Dispositional Factors Affecting Crowd and Collective Behaviour

• Locus of control

  • people with an internal locus of control are less likely to be influenced by a crowd

• Morality

  • if the actions of the collective went against someone with a high moral strength’s morals, the chance of them resisting social pressure would be higher