Psychology - Social Influence

AO1 - What is the definition of conformity?

A change in an individuals behaviour or opinion as a result if real or imagined pressure from a perosn or group of people.

AO1 - What are the three types of conformity and who proposed them?

Kelman proposed 3 types of conformity:

• Internalisation = A genuine shift in an individual’s thoughts and beliefs, leading to changes in their public and private behaviours and views, which is long-term and remains even when the influencing group is no longer present

  • Example - being brought up in a religious household and becoming religious

• Identification = Public and private change to beliefs and attitudes, driven by the desire to be part of a valued group, however it is temporary.

  • Example - wearing the same clothing style as friends at their school bur reverting to their old style after graduating

• Compliance = Following other peoples ideas or going along with a group’s ideas to gain approval. You publically agree but privately disagree. Compliance stops when there are no group pressures to conform.

AO1 - What is Informational Social Influence?

ISI - when someone conforms because they want to be right, therefore they follow others to have the right answer. When a person is uncertain they would look to others for information because they believe they are more knowledgable and have more expertise. Often leads to internalisation.

• Example - a person following the direction of a crowd in an emergency even though they don’t actually know where they are going

AO3 - Evaluation of Informational Social Infleunce

Strengths - Supporting Evidence

• Fein et al. (2007) asked participants to vote for a US presenditial candidate afyer they saw others voting for someone else. Most changed their mind because they wanted to be ‘correct’

  • High ecological validity

• Lucas et al. (2006) asked students to give answers to maths questions that were easy or more difficult. There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easy.

  • People conform when they feel they don’t know the answers

Weaknesses - Individual Differences

• Assumes that we all perceive reality correctly. However, Asch (1955) found students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%)

AO1 - What is Normative Social Infleunce?

NSI - when someone conforms because they want to be liked and be a part of a group, they wanted to be accepted or gain approval, and oftne to avoid embarassment of disagreeing with the majority

• Example - a person starting to smoke as they are surrounded by people who smoke

AO3 - Evaluation of Normative Social Influence

Strength - Supporting Evidence and Real-Life Application

• link between NSI and bullying, suggesting real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity.

  • Garandeau and Cillissen foynd a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising other children because the bully provides a common goal for the boys group of friends, the boy will victimise others to avoid disapproval from friends

AO1 - What was Asch’s study investigating?

Variables affecting conformity

AO1 - What were the variables Asch investigated?

Group size, unanimity and task difficulty

AO1 - What was the sample for Asch’s study? How were they organised/grouped?

123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6, consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates

AO1 - Procedure of Asch’s study

• Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines

  • 3 were comparison lines and 1 was a standard line

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

• The real participants 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 asnwer as the confederates versus the correct answers

AO1 - Results of Asch’s study

• 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 and perception as an extraneous variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)

AO1 - Group Size Variable in Asch’s Study (PEEL structure)

Point - Asch identified group size as a variable that influences conformity

Evidence - He found that as the size of majority increases, conformity levels increased. With 2 confederares, conformity occured on 12.8% of trials, and with 3 confederates it rose to 32%.

Explanation - this suggests that as group size increases, so does the pressure to conform to social norms and larger groups tend to have more social influence. However, Asch did find that after increasing the number of confederates to 3 in the group, any more did not make a significant difference to the rate of conformity

Link - this shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence, but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all cases to bring conformity

AO1 - Unanimity of majority in Asch’s Study (PEEL structure)

Point - Asch identified unanimity as a variable that influences conformity

Evidence - He found that an individual was more likely to conform when the group is unanimity (all give the same answer). Asch found that if one of the confederates dissented and gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped from 32% to 5%. He also found if one confederate gave a different incorrect answer from the other confederates, then conformity dropped to just 9%.

Explanation - this suggests the more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participants will have that they are correct and therefore the participants answer is more likely to be incorrect

Link - Unanimity is vital for establishing a consistent majority view which is particularly important by providing normative social influence through preventing any conflicting views arising

AO1 - Task Difficulty in Asch’s Study (PEEL structure)

Point - Asch identified task difficulty as a variable that influences conformity

Evidence - Asch altered the comparison lines to make them more similar in length and since it was harder to judge, conformity increased

Explanation - When the task is difficult and we are more uncertain of an answer we look to others for confrimation or support (informational social influence)

Link - This suggests that ISI is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the individual doesn’t obtain enough knowledge for an informed decision without others support

AO3 - Evaluation of Asch’s Study: Strengths

Strengths:

• High Internal Validity

  • strict control over extraneous variables such as timing of assessment and type of task used. The participantd did the experiment before without the confederates to see if they actually knew the correct answer, removing the confounding variable of lack of knowledge

  • this suggests a valid and reliable ‘cause and effect’ relationship can be established as well as valid conclusions

• Lab Experiment

  • extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning replication of the experiment is easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings because it reduces the likelihood of the results being a ‘one-off’

• Supports Normative Social Influence

  • participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group, which supports the idea of NSI, which states people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority

• Ethical Issues

  • The researchers breached the BPS ethical guideline of deception and consequently the ability to give informed consent

  • however the participants were debreifed and ethical issues dont threaten the validity or reliabilty of findings, but rather suggest that a cost-benefit analysis is required

AO3 - Evaluation of Asch’s Study: Weaknesses

• Lacks Ecological Validity

  • it was based on peoples perceptions of lines and so the findigns cannot be generalised to real life as it doesnt reflect the complexity of real life conformity (i.e where there are many other confounding variables and majorities exert infleunce irrespective of being a part of a large group

• Lacks Population Validity due to the sample used

  • participants were only American male undergraduates and so the study was subject to gender bias (generalising to females was assumed)

• Ethical Issues

  • there was deception as participants were tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance so they couldn’t give informed consent

  • could have been psychological harm as the participants may have been embarassed after realising true aims

• Lacked Validity

  • Social context of the 1950s may have affecred results

  • Perrin and Spencer criticised the study by stating that the period the experiment was conducted in influenced the results because it was an anti-Communist period in America when people were more scared to be different

  • thus the study can be said to lack temporal validity because the findigns cannot be generalised across all time periods

AO1 - What was Zimbardo’s study into?

Conformity against Social Roles

How readily people would conform to the social roles in a stimulated environment and specifically, to investigate why ‘good people to bad things’

AO1 - What was the sample of Zimbardo’s study?

24 American male undergraduate students

AO1 - What was the procedure of Zimbardo’s experiment?

• The Basesment of Stanford University psychology building was converted into a stimulated prison

• Volunteers were paid to take part in the study

• They were randomly issued one of two roles; guard or prisoner, both provided with uniforms

• Prisoners were only referred to by their assigned numbers and guards were given props like handcuffs, sunglasses (to make their eyecontact with prisoners impossible and reinfoced boundaries between social roles and establish social hierarchy) and batons

• No one was allowed to leave the prison

• Guards worked eight hour shifts while others remained on call

• Prisoners were only allowed in the hallway which acted as their yard, and to the toilet, with guards controlling such behaviour in order to emphasise thier complete power over the prisoners

• No physical violence was permitted, in line with ethical guidelines and to prevent complete overruling

• the behaviour was observed

AO1 - What were the findings of Zimbardo’s study?

• identification occured very fast

  • both prisoners and guards adopted their new roles and played their parts in a short amount of time, despite the apparent disparity between the two social roles

• Guards began to harrass and torment prisoners in harsh and aggressive ways

  • they later reported to have enjoyed doung so and relished in their new-found power and control

• Prisoners would only talk about prison issues

  • forgetting thier previous lives, they would snitch on other prisoners to guards to please them, suggesting they found it to be real and werent acting simply due to command characteristics

• prisoners defended the guards when other prisoners broke the rules

  • reinforces social roles as prisoner and guards despite not being real

• guards became more demanding of obedience and assertiveness to the prisoners while they became submissive

  • suggetss respective social roles became increasingly internalised

AO3 - Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Study: Strengths

• Real Life Applications - Research changed the way that US prisons are ran

  • Young prisoners are no longer kept with adult prisoners, to prevent the bad behaviour perpetuating

  • beehive-style prisons where all cells are under constant surveillance from a central monitoring unit, are also not used in modern times

• Debreifing - ethicality

  • participantd were fully debriefed about the aims and results of the study, which is important when considering that the BPS ethical guidelines of deception and informed consent had been breached

• Ecological Validity

  • Realistic reactions, where despite the artificial setup, participants displayed genuine emotional and psychological responses: breakdowns, panic, identity loss and submission

  • this suggests the enviornment was sufficiently powerful to elicit authentic behavioural changes

AO3 - Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Study: Weaknesses

• Lacks Ecological Validity

  • the study suffered from demand characteristics, for example, the participants knew they were participating in a study and therefore may have changed their behaviour, either to please the experimenter or in response to being observed (confounding variable)

  • knew the study wasn’t real so claimed they simply acted according to expectations associated with their role

  • one participant interviewed after said he based his performance from the stereotypical guard role portrayed in the film Cool Hand Luke, thus further reducing the variety of the findings

• Lacks Population Validity

  • the sample only consisted of American male undergraduates so the findings cannot be generalised to other gender and cultures.

  • for example, collectivist culture, such as China and Japan, may be more conformist to their prescribed social roles because such cultures value the needs of the group over the individual

  • this suggests that such findings may be culture-bound

• Ethical Issues

  • lack of fully informed consent due to the deception required to avoid demand characteristics and participant reactivity, however Zimbardo himself did not know what was to happen, so couldn’t inform the participants, meaning no justification for a breach of ethical guidelines

  • psychological harm - participants were not protected from stress, anxiety, embarassment and emotional distress (one participant was released due to excess distress and uncontrollable screaming and crying. this study was deemed unacceptable according to modern ethical standards

AO1 - What is agentic state?

The Agentic State is a mental state where a person feels no personal responsibilty for thier behaviour because they are acting on the behalf of an authority figure.

AO1 - What is Autonomous State?

Where a person is free to behave according to their own princfiples, so they feel personal responsibilty for their actions

AO1 - Why does Milgram propose a person may stay in their agentic state?

Binding factors, which are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the effect of their hevaiour, reducing the moral strain.

AO1 - Legitimacy of Authority

How credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right, and legitimate (legally based or law abiding). This is why students are more likely to listen to their parents or teachers than other unknown adults. In Milgram’s study, the people saw the experimenter as legitimate as they knew he was a scientist and therefore is likely to be knowledgable and responsible - this is called expert authortity. This authority was legitimate because the researcher held the highest position within the social hierarchy of the experimental scenario