Social Influence Studies

Asch (1951)

Asch (1951)

123 American Men judged line lengths, confederates gave wrong answers. Genuine participants conformed on 36.8% of trials and 25% never conformed

Asch (1955)

Factors affecting conformity: Group size, conformity increased to 31.8% up to three then levelled off. Unanimity, with social support conformity reduced to 1/4 of original rates. Task difficulty, more difficult, more conformity.

Lucas et al (2006)

Participants conformed more when the maths problems were more difficult. They didn't want to be wrong so they relied on the 3 answers given. However shows complexity of conformity.

Kelman (1958)

Proposed three types of conformity: Compliance Internalisation Identification

Deutsch + Gerard (1955)

Two process theory: informational social influence, normative social influence

McGhee + Teevan (1967)

nAffiliators more likely to conform

Zimbardo (1973)

Created a mock prison with 21 'emotionally stable' men assigned to guard or prisoner. Found conformity to social roles, guards abused roles to enforce rules relentlessly and prisoners became despondent. Study stopped within 6 days.

Banuazizi + Movahedi (1975)

Argued participants were play acting and so results aren't applicable.

McDermott (2019)

Argues that the participants did behave as if the prison was real, 90% of conversation about prison life , and discussed how it was impossible to escape before their sentences were over.

Fromm (1973)

Criticized Zimbardo's exaggerated power roles. one-third of the guards actually were brutal. the rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners and often sympathized with them. most of the guards were able to resist the power and avoid conforming to their roles.

Haslam + Reicher (2006)

Zimbardo's conclusion doesn't account for the behaviour of non-brutal guards

Milgram (1963)

Participants given fake electric shocks to a 'learner' in obedience to instructions from the 'experimenter' Findings: 65% gave highest shock of 450v, 100% gave shocks up to 300v, many showed signs of anxiety

Beauvois et al (2012)

'game show' participants asked to give shocks to other participants in front of an audience. 80% gave 460V to an 'unconscious' man

Orne + Holland (1968)

Argued participants didn't believe in the Milgram set up and so were 'play acting'

Perry (2013)

Listened to tapes of Milgram's study. 1/2 believed in shocks and 2/3 of these were disobedient.

Sheridan + King (1972)

Conducted study like Milgram's. All participants gave a shock to a puppy and 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock.

Haslam et al (2014)

Showed that Milgram's participants obeyed when the experimenter gave the first 3 verbal prods, but when given the last prod they all disobeyed. When ordered blindly by authority they refused. Shows that SIT is a more valid explanation of Milgram's experiment.

Milgram Variables

Proximity: teacher + learner in same room, O dropped from 65% to 40%. Touch proximity variation, O dropped to 30%. Remote Instruction variation, O dropped to 20.5% Location: run down office, O dropped to 47.5% Uniform: everyday clothing, O dropped to 20%

Bickman (1974)

Passers by were 2x more likely to pick up litter when asked by someone dressed as a security guard/policeman compared to a milkman or civilian.

Meeus + Raajmakers (1986)

Dutch participants ordered to say stressful things in an interview. 90% participants obeyed but when person giving orders left room, obedience decreased dramatically.

Smith + Bond (1998)

Found most Milgram-esque studies in culturally similar places so can't be generalised

Mandel (1998)

Suggests by focusing solely on obedience as an explanation for atrocities, gives perpetrators an 'alibi'

Milgram (1974)

Proposed the agentic shift: movement from autonomous state to agentic due to perception of someone having more power over them

Rank + Jacobson (1977)

16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed doctors orders to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient.

Kilham + Mann (1974)

Only 16% of Australian women went to 450V in Milgram-style study.

Mantell (1971)

Replicated Milgram in Germany - found 85% of German participants went to 450v

Kelman + Hamilton (1989)

Found real-world crime of obedience (My Lai massacre) can be understood in terms of power hierarchy in US Army

Adorno et al (1950)

Authoritarian personality; F-scale. Asked 2000 middle-class, white American their unconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups. Those higher on scale had 'black and white' thinking with strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.

Elms + Milgram (1966)

Interviewed sample of 20 fully obedient participants in original Milgram. They scored higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants.

Christie + Jahoda (1954)

Argued F-scale is politically biased and ignores extreme left-wing authoritarianism

Greenstein (1969)

F scale is a 'comedy of methodological errors' because allows anyone with a response bias to be assessed as having an AP

Moscovici et al (1969)

2 confederates and 4 participants were asked to estimate the colour of 36 blue cards (varying brightness) (1) Confederates called all slides green (Consistency) (2) Confederates called the majority green and some blue (Inconsistency)

(1) majority conformed 25% of trials (2) majority conformed 1% of trials

Wood et al (1994)

Meta-analysis of 97 studies of minority influence. Found those who were perceived as consistent were particularly influential.

Martin et al (2003)

Research showed that people were more likely to convert to a minority position if they had initially agreed with the majority; minority influence more powerful.

Nolan et al (2008)

Research supports social norms as those who received a sign saying their neighbours were using less electricity went on to use less themselves in comparison to those that had a poster simply asking them to reduce their energy.

Foxcroft et al. (2015)

Reviewed 70 studies where social norms were used to reduce student alcohol intake and found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no reduction in drinking frequency

Nemeth (2009)

Claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire.

Mackie (1987)

Limitation of deeper processing. A majority expressing a different view to ours causes much greater influence, as we tend not to bother processing the views of a minority. The importance of minority influence may therefore have been exaggerated.

Bashir et al (2013)

Found people resist social change due to negative stereotypes associated with the minority. So advice to the minority in order to be the most effective is to avoid behaving in ways that reinforce the stereotype as this will be off-putting to the majority.

Albrecht et al (2006)

Evaluated an 8 week program for pregnant teens resisting the pressure to smoke. Those who where assigned a buddy were significantly less likely to smoke. highlights the importance of social support.

Gamson et al (1982)

Asked participants to argue for the sacking of a person in a made up oil corporation on camera for court. 32/33 rebelled against suggested argument, 25/33 refused to sign release for court

Allen + Levine (1971)

In an Asch-style task, when the dissenter was someone with supposedly good eyesight, 64% of genuine participants refused to conform but with no dissenter, only 3% refused. However when the dissenter had obviously poor eyesight, resistance was only 36%

Rotter (1966)

Locus of Control: The sense of control people have over events in their lives, measured on a scale from high internal locus (own choices) to high external locus (uncontrollable factors eg. fate)

Holland (1967)

Found 37% of participants assessed as Internal LOC disobeyed in Milgram's set-up compared to 23% of those assessed as External LOC.

Twenge et al (2004)

Research found that students are becoming increasingly external yet are becoming more resistant to obedience.