Topic 4 - Social Influence

What is obedience?

A form of social influence where an individual responds to and follows a direct order from an authority figure.

What are the 4 factors that influence obedience?

1. Proximity to the authority figure

2. Prestige of the authority figure (uniform)

3. Deindividuation (the loss of individuality and susceptibility for peer pressure)

4. Peer support (mob mentality, trusting in numbers)

What are the 2 features of an experimental design?

1. An independent variable is manipulated

2. It takes place in a fabricated environment

What are the advantages and disadvantages of an experimental design?

Advantages: clear cause and effect, can be replicated

Disadvantages: ethicalities, cost, external validity (chance of social desirability and difficult to generalise)

What is an example of an observation design for investigating obedience?

Research which involves observing obedience and authority within a natural setting (i.e. school and workplace)

What is an example of a qualitative design for investigating obedience?

Collecting anecdotes and answers regarding obedience and authority (i.e. focus groups, interviews, survey)

What is the Milgram Experiment of 1963

An experiment done to to understand why Germans followed Hitlers orders during WW2, specifically regarding Jews. The participant had to administer shocks for every wrong answer given by ‘the learner’ (a confederate of the experimenter) who was sat behind an wall. The shocks would increase in voltage and ‘the learner’ would pretend to scream in pain and resist. The experimenter would urge the participant to continue administering shocks even if they refused.

65% of participants did what in the Milgram Experiment?

Continued to administer shocks up to 450 volts upon command from an authority figure.

What were the 5 ethical guidelines Milgram was said to have broken?

1. Cause of excessive distress

2. Cause of psychological harm

3. Deception

4. Cause of physical harm

5. Dubious right to withdraw

What was the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971?

An experiment led by Zimbardo involving a fabricated prison environment with participants playing the roles of ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards.’

What happened to the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

They began to embody their roles. ‘Guards’ became violent and manipulative while ‘prisoners’ became submissive and obedient

How long was the Stanford Prison Experiment meant to go for and how long did it last?

It was meant to go for 2 weeks but ended after 6 days due to psychological harm.

How was the Stanford Prison Experiment slightly skewed?

Guards were allegedly prompted or directly influenced by experimenters

Why did the Stanford Prison Experiment have such a low external validity?

The sample of participants all shared very specific characteristics. They were all mentally stable, Caucasian, and prestigious Stanford students.

What is conformity?

When individual yields to group pressures (real or imagined) by changing behaviours/beliefs

What are the 3 levels of conformity from shallowest to strongest?

1. Compliance - publicly changing your behaviour but not changing your mind

2. Identification - publicly changing your behaviours and beliefs only in the presence of a group (short term changes based on social or situational aspects)

3. Internalisation - publicly changing your behaviour because others have convinced you to change your private beliefs, involves cognitive dissonance (doing something even if you are actually against it)

What are the 3 factors which influence conformity?

1. Normative social influence

2. Informational social influence

3. Individual characteristics (AKA dispositional factors)

What is normative social influence?

Conforming to be accepted or belong to a group, focusses on social reward, a fear of ridicule and isolation

What is informational social influence?

conforming to the belief or behaviour of someone you believe is more informed/wise, centres around the desire to be right and can be permanent or semi-permanent

What are 7 individual characteristics which may influence conformity?

1. Newness to a group

2. Self-monitoring → to what extent one is focussed on social image and perception of others

3. Concerns with being right

4. Leadership capabilities → people who are assertive leader types vs more meek subordinate types

5. Culture → the type of society one belongs to

6. Gender roles and expectations

7. Prejudice

Fill in the blanks:

	Change in public behaviour?	Change in private behaviour?	Short or Long term?
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation

	Change in public behaviour?	Change in private behaviour?	Short or Long term?
Compliance	Yes	No	Short
Identification	Yes	Yes	Short
Internalisation	Yes	Yes	Long

What is the difference between conformity and obedience?

Conformity involves blending in with a group while obedience is following orders from authority

What was the Asch Conformity Experiment of 1951?

An experiment done to investigate whether people will say the same answer as the group even if they know it is wrong.

What were the 8 situational factors which influenced conformity in Asch’s experiment?

• Anonymity → (linked to normative social influence) if one did not feel attached to their answer they were less likely to conform

• Difficulty of task → (linked to informational influence) if one found the task hard they assume the group is more correct

• Importance of the task

• Ambiguity → if the answer requested was open-ended or worded, people become more reliant on other people’s opinions

• Group unanimity → note that it only takes one person to disagree with the group and break conformity trends

• Group size → bigger groups led to more conformity, though it is only applicable to groups of 2 to 5 people

• Status of the majority → linked to informational influence

• Group cohesiveness → people were more likely to conform if they had personal or familial ties with the rest of the group members

What was the Waiting Room Experiment?

An experiment where a group of confederates and one participant were in a waiting room (the participant believed they were there for an eye test). A periodic beep would play to which the confederates would all stand up and then sit back down, after only 3 beeps, the participant began following their lead despite being confused and questioning it.

What was the main conclusion from the Waiting Room Experiment?

That conformity can occur within the same environment and situation even if the group is gone and that a person who conforms can cause a new group to comply to the ‘norm’ as well (when new participants entered, the behaviour of the first conformed participant caused them to also stand at the beeps)

What is an attitude?

A set of emotions, beliefs, and subsequent behaviours towards something (person, place, event, object, etc) which can be positive or negative

What are the 3 components of attitude?

The ABC model

1. Affective (feeling)

2. Behaviour

3. Cognitive (beliefs)

What are 2 influences of attitude formation and change?

1. Source, message, audience

2. Peripheral and central route processing

What is the source, message, audience influence?

Who is providing the information, what they are saying (as well as how it is done), and the characteristics of their audience which may impact how they interpret and respond to the message. The source involves considering favourability and trustworthiness.

What approach is the source, message, audience influence linked to?

The Yale Attitude Change Approach

What is peripheral route processing?

A persuasive technique which relies on drawing positive emotion through peripheral cues like beauty and pleasure (short-term)

What is central route processing?

A persuasive technique which makes audience think through logic driven techniques (long-lasting)