Main SI studies

Asch’s baseline study - aim

wanted to see the levels of conformity

Asch’s baseline study - sample

• 123

• American

• male

Asch’s baseline study - procedure

• were in groups

• there was 1 real participant

• everyone else was confederates (actors)

• there were shown

  • 1 standard line

  • 3 comparison lines

• the confederates would give the wrong answer

Asch’s baseline study - findings

• participants conformed 30% of the time

• 25% of the participants never conformed

Asch’s baseline study - evaluation - individual differences

• 25% of the participants never conformed

• some people may have a stronger sense of self-confidence and will place more trust in their answers than others might

Asch’s baseline study - evaluation - research support

• Perin and Spencer

  • repeated the study

  • only found 1 instance of conformity

Asch’s baseline study - evaluation - cultural and temporal bias

• study took place in 1950 America - this was a period of political repression

• people would often find it difficult to speak out meaning they were more likely to conform

• whereas now, people are more expressive of their opinions

Asch’s variables study - aim

wanted to see what factors affects conformity

Asch’s variables

• group size

• unanimity

• task difficulty

group size

• increased number of confederates (actors)

• after 3 confederates, conformity levels stayed the same

unanimity

• added one confederate to give the right answer

• now the real participant was not alone

• conformity dropped to 5%

task difficulty

• lines were made similar in length

• conformity increases

Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo) - Haney et al - aim

to see if the situation you are in influences behaviour

SPE - sample

• 21

• male

• American - set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford university

SPE - procedure

day 1

• prisoners were not taking experiment seriously

• guards were unsure of what to do - lacked control over the prisoners

day 2

• prisoners had rebelled e.g. ripped their ID tags (numbers) - they did not want to be deindividualized

• guards started to become frustrated and angry

day 3

• guards humiliated prisoners to assert their authority e.g. guards made them do push ups, restricted bathroom use, made them use buckets

day 4

• some prisoners started to show signs of distress

• some prisoners were removed from the experiment

day 5

• this day was scheduled for visits from family and friends

• Christina visited - was distressed about what she saw - her challenges prompted Zimbardo to end the experiment the next day/earlier than intended

day 6

• due to Christina, family concerns and the increase in brutality from the guards, Zimbardo stopped the experiment

SPE - findings

• both the prisoners and the guards quickly embraced and internalised their assigned roles

• your surroundings influence human behaviour

SPE - evaluation - research against

• BBC study

• the guards and the prisoners in this study did not conform to the social norms and rules

• SPE = guards had more control over the prisoners

• BBC = prisoners had more control over the guards

• prisoners had shared goals and values so they worked as a group

• guards were less organised

SPE - evaluation - cultural limitations

• police brutality is extremely common within the US

• due to the publication and how common police brutality is within the media, the guards may have felt that they need to abide by those social pressures and exert their dominance over the prisoners in a violent manner

SPE - evaluation - ethical issues

• was supposed to be 2 weeks long but was cut short to 6 days

• was identified by both the family members and Christina that there was harm occurring

• prisoners were affected both physically and psychologically

• some had dropped out even before the 6 days ended because of their condition

Milgram - aim

• wanted to know why the Nazi’s had obeyed the orders of Hitler even though they were murderous actions

Milgram - sample

• 40

• males

• American

Milgram - procedure

• participant was placed in a room with another confederate (authority figure)

• in the other room, there was a confederate who sat in an “electric chair”

• the participant would ask the confederate a question, and if they got it wrong, the participant would have to “shock” them

• if the participant refused the confederate with them (authority figure) would tell them 4 times to shock the person

Milgram - findings

• every single person shocked them until 300 volts

• 65% shocked them to the maximum level - 450 volts

Milgram - evaluation - ethical issues

• strength

  • debrief - participants were debrief - around 80% said they were glad they took part in the study

• counterpoint/limitation

  • harm - 3 people had seizures

  • lack of informed consent - participants were told they were taking part in a memory study, when it was in fact about obedience

Milgram - evaluation - real world application

• helped people understand why people obey

• reduced judgement towards the Germans

Milgram - evaluation - research against

• Perry

• discovered that many of Milgram’s participants had been sceptical about whether the shocks were real

• those who believed the shocks wee real were more likely to disobey the confederate and deliver low intensity shocks

• therefore, this shows how desired characteristics affect Milgram’s results and the reliability of his results

Milgram situational variables - aim

• wanted to see what situation factors lead to obedience

Milgram’s situational variables

• proximity

• location

• uniform

Milgram’s situational variables - proximity

• baseline = teacher (participant) and learner (confederate) were in separate rooms

• variation = teacher and learner were in the same room

• results = obedience dropped to 40%

Milgram’s situational variables - location

• baseline = Yale University - symbol of legitimacy and authority

• variation = run down office block

• results = obedience dropped to 47%

Milgram’s situational variables - uniform

• baseline = the experimenter wore a lab coat - symbol of authority

• variation = experiment wore normal everyday clothes

• results = obedience dropped to 20%

• supporting research Bickman

  • 3 people asked strangers to complete a task - guard, milkman and civilian

  • people obeyed more to the guard