Social Psychology

Edexcel

Milgram (1974)

Milgram (1974)

Obedience: Form of social influence where an individual follows a direct order from a figure of authority and person receiving order responds in a way they usually would not.

• Necessary for smooth running of society

• Hierarchically organised social groups

Agency Theory:

Autonomous State → Behave independently and self-directed, take responsibility for actions, exercise moral compass, usually with peers or people who are below in social hierarchy.

Agentic State → Carry out orders from authority figure regardless of moral compass. Absolve blame for negative consequences.

Agentic Shift → Shift from autonomous to agentic state, allowing authority figures to control our behavior.

Moral Strain → State of mental discomfort or anxiety when actions conflict personal morality.

WEAKNESSES FOR AGENCY THEORY

Perry (2012)

• Many participants were suspicious whether shocks were real

• More than 60% of participants disobeyed experimenter

• Agentic shift is not inevitable

Rank & Jacobson (1977)

• 16/18 (89%) of nurses failed to obey orders to administer a deadly overdose of Valium (drug)

• Nurses were in the autonomous state despite being given instructions from a higher authority figure - shows agentic shift is not inevitable.

WEAKNESS OF MILGRAM’S BASELINE STUDY

Perry (2012)

• Film footage shows participants were suspicious about authenticity of shock machine

Orne & Holland (1968)

• Claimed participants guessed shocks were fake but went along.

Latané (1981)

Social Impact Theory - How sources impact targets

Impact on Target = SIN

Strength → Perceived power and authority of source.

Immediacy → Closeness. of sources and targets. Physical or psychological barriers might affect this.

Number → Number of sources.

Multiplicative and divisional effects:

• Multiplicative → More sources than targets, stronger effect

• Divisional → More targets than sources, weaker effect

• Law of diminishing returns → More than 3 targets for 1 source has less influence because of individual differences. The bigger the group, each additional person has less of an influence.

Sedikides & Jackson (1990)

STRENGTHS OF SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY:

Obedience at the zoo study - studied visitors responses to being told to not lean on a railing

Findings of obedience levels:

• 58% - confederate dressed as zookeeper instead of t-shirt

• 61% - same room instead of adjacent room

• 60% - 1 or 2 targets

Hofling et al. (1966)

• Arranged for an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses and ask each of them to administer an overdose of a drug not on their ward list.

• 95% obeyed

• This challenges SIT by supporting how immediacy is less important than the strength of a source.

Milgram’s Baseline Study (1963)

Aim:

• To understand behavior of Germans who followed destructive acts of obedience in the Holocaust.

• Developed a method to test obedience to legitimate authority.

Procedure:

• Only 1 real shock - 45V to make participants believe it was real

• Participants - 40 men, 20-50 years of age with varying professions

• Local newspaper - volunteer sampling

• Participants paid $4.50 for each hour

• Participants automatically teacher

• Mr Wallace - Learner

• Mr Williams - Experimenter

Findings:

• 65% - 450V shock

• 100% - 300V shock

• 12.5% - stopped after 300V shock

Tarnow (2000)

Showed how first officers were hesitant to question captain in pilot training despite risk due to obedience to higher authority.

STRENGTHS OF AGENCY THEORY

Supported by 1963 baseline study

• High tendency to carry out destructive orders of obedience - 100% used 300V whilst 65% went to 450V (extreme danger)

Application to military

Experiment 7 - Telephonic instructions

Milgram’s Variation Studies:

General Aim - to see which situational factors encouraged dissent. New standardised procedures with more modest laboratory and Mr Wallace mentioned he had a mild heart condition.

• The experimenter gave instructions on the phone in another room

• Only 9/40 (22.5%) of participants were fully obedient

• Some participants lied

• Immediacy of authority figure is necessary to increase obedience

Experiment 10: Rundown office block

Milgram’s Variation Studies:

• Rundown building in downtown shopping district of Bridgeport, an industrial city.

• Participants told study was conducted in private firm

• Only 47.5% were fully obedient due to ‘scientific research’

• Setting undermined legitimate authority

Experiment 13: Ordinary man gives orders

Milgram’s Variation Studies:

• Tested whether legitimacy of authority or strength of command was a more important situational factor

• 2 confederates: 1 learner, 1 recorder

• Experimenter receives fake phone call so recorder takes over, suggesting shocks should be continually administered with 15V increments.

• Awkward withdrawal of experimenter.

• 80% of participants refused to continue, showing how strength of source is essential

Adorno (1950)

Authoritarian personality: FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE - INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

• Measured using f-scale - higher score = more obedient

• Derived from strict, harsh parenting and conditional love during childhood - common during Germany in early 20th century

• Children are more likely to scapegoat and shift blame onto others out of fear of punishment, leading to increased outgroup hostility.

Rotter (1966)

Internal & External Locus of Control:

Internal LOC → People who take responsibility for their actions and act in control. More likely to defy destructive acts of disobedience.

External LOC → People who take less responsibility and instead blame consequences on other people or chance, less likely to defy destructive acts of disobedience.

Miller (1975)

Experimenter instructed participants to grasp dangerous live wires, people with external LOCs were more likely to obey.

Elms & Milgram (1966)

STRENGTHS OF AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY:

• Used F-scale with 20 fully and non fully obedient people, obedient participants scored higher.

Schurz (1985)

Weakness of LOC - Does not predict defiance:

• Participants instructed to blast student with painful ultrasound.

• Fully obedient participants did not differ significantly from resistant participants in LOC store.

• Personality has little impact on obedience.

Sheridan & King (1972)

Women are more obedient to men - real electric shocks to a live puppy

• 100% of females were fully obedient VS 54% of males

Kilham & Mann (1974)

Men more obedient than women.

• Replicated Milgram study in Australia

• Unusually low obedience rate of 28%

• 40% of male participants and 16% of female participants were fully obedient

Gilligan (1982)

Moral reasoning - Men & Women were guided by different principles

• Ethic of justice - MALES, equality + fairness, detached outlook to avoid bias

• Ethics of care - FEMALES, nurturing, supporting

Gilligan & Attanucci (1988)

Males favored justice orientation whereas females favored care orientation, gender differences in moral reasoning.

Blass (1999)

No significant difference in obedience between 9 Milgram studies between males and females

Meeus & Raajmakers (1995)

STRENGTHS OF SITUATIONAL FACTORS:

Asked participants to deliver increasingly unkind insults to a confederate applying for a job. More than 90% gave all 15 insults, 36% when experimenter left the room and 16% when witnessing 2 rebellions. Obedience can be significantly reduced by adjusting situation.

Hofstede (2017)

CULTURE - POWER DISTANCE INDEX (PDI)

PDI - A measure of how accepting people are of hierarchal order and inequality in society.

In high PDI cultures, citizens are told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat.

Delinski (2017)

STRENGTHS OF PDI:

Very high level of obedience in Poland (90%), a country with a high PDI score (68%).

This suggests there is a close relationship between PDI and obedience levels.

Blass (2012)

WEAKNESSES OF PDI:

Calculated mean of 66% obedience rate for 8 non-US Milgram replications & 61% for US replications.

Obedience may be a universal social behavior and many nations have similar obedience levels.

Tajfel & Turner (1979, 1986)

Prejudice → Self-Identity Theory

Prejudice is a negative pre-judgment or biased belief held about an individual or group prior to direct experience. Discriminatory attitudes are based upon stereotypes and group characteristics whilst individual attributes are ignored.

SIT suggests people have a strong innate desire to belong and that self-esteem is derived from group membership and the acceptance of others.

1. Social Categorisation → separating individuals into ingroups and outgroups, little control over automatic sorting process

2. Social Identification → Individuals adopt beliefs, attitudes and values of ingroups. Behavior is altered to fit in. Change in self-concept.

3. Social Comparison → Self-esteem can be boosted with comparisons between ingroup and outgroup. Quest for positive distinctiveness - differences emphasised, similarities minimised leading to discrimination. Ingroup seen as superior, achievements exaggerated and outgroup as inferior, achievements denigrated.

Tajfel (1970)

STRENGTHS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY: MINIMAL GROUP EXPERIMENT

• 15 year old school boys, ingroups and outgroups were created

• Boys asked to allocate points in exchange for cash and found more points awarded to ingroup members.

• Showed how social categorisation can trigger ingroup favouritism and outgroup discrimination

STRENGTHS OF RCT: MINIMAL GROUP EXPERIMENT

• prejudice & discrimination can come from perceiving individuals as part of an outgroup.

• Prejudice can be more about self-concept and comparison with others than competition for limited resources.

Fein & Spencer (1997)

STRENGTHS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY:

Application to reducing prejudice by increasing self-esteem

• Students given false feedback on an IQ test. Students with lower self-esteem rated Jewish applicants for a job less favorably than an Italian candidate.

• Students increased self-esteem by writing about something they valued, reducing anti-semitism.

Wetherell (1982)

WEAKNESS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY:

Lacks mundane realism, reductionist by limiting possible factors affecting discrimination

• May only explain intergroup behavior of Western Societies and fails to predict behavior for other collectivist backgrounds or minorities.

• Replicated Tajfel’s experiment using 8 year old boys from New Zealand and found that indigenous Polynesians were more generous to allocation of points than white classmates.

Sherif (1966)

Realistic Conflict Theory → Explanation of prejudice which sees competition for limited resources as key determinant of intergroup relations.

• Negative Interdependence → Conflict of interests caused by how only one goal can be achieved by one group. Increased suspicion and hostility between groups. Each group will try and obstruct the other’s achievements while one has to lose for the other to win.

• Limited resources → Food, territory, symbolic resources, fiercest conflicts

• Positive Interdependence & Superordinate Goals → Intergroup cooperation is required to achieve shared desired goal. Mutualism and improved intergroup relations.

Sherif (1961)

STRENGTHS OF RCT: ROBBERS CAVE EXPERIMENT

• Intergroup competition where only one group can win prizes.

• Proved Negative interdependence led to increased violence and prejudice between groups.

• Competition can cause intergroup hostility

Allport (1954)

ALLPORT’S AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY:

• Compared to more generalised tolerant types who have inner security and confidence from unconditional parental love.

• People with this personality are more receptive to political arguments that target their insecurities.

• Parents are more deviant and relaxed, raising more liberal and defiant children.

Altemeyer (1988)

RIGHT WING AUTHORITARIANISM (RWA):

• Focused on authoritarian submission, aggression & conventionalism.

• Prejudice against various groups like women.

• Reaction to fear & uncertainty by seeking security through preserving existing social order.

Pratto (1994)

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO):

• Motivated to seek out ingroup power and superiority

• Competitive outlook on the world

• Tough-minded but not agreeable or empathetic people

• More common in men which develops by exposure to high levels of competition & inequality

Cohrs (2012)

STRENGTHS OF PERSONALITY & PREJUDICE:

Supported by research & application to reducing prejudice by regulating media sites

• RWA & SDO are positively correlated to prejudice.

• RWA - resistance to openness

• SDO - resistance to agreeableness

Levin (1996)

WEAKNESSES OF PERSONALITY & PREJUDICE:

• Prejudice is hard to predict in the real world.

• Ashkenazi Jews have higher SDO scores than other types of Jews.

• differences in SDO disappeared when Jewish groups were asked to think about relationship with Israel & Palestine.

Louis (2003)

WEAKNESSES OF PERSONALITY & PREJUDICE:

• Ignores social norms and situational factors

• RWA & SDO do not include items heavily affected by norms & social attitudes

• 72% of Australians disagreed with white supremacy

Cantril (1941)

FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE → SOCIAL NORMS (SITUATION):

• Unwritten rules about what is socially desirable in social groups.

• Suggested group identity is central to formation of prejudiced views.

Minard (1952)

FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE → SOCIAL NORMS (SITUATION):

• Difference between White and Black coal miners in the USA. Friendly and worked well together underground but were prejudiced above ground.

Esses & colleagues (2001)

FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE → COMPETITION FOR RESOURCES (SITUATION):

• Prejudice arises between ingroup & outgroup when situation is zero-sum by showing outgroup’s lack of worthiness.

STRENGTHS OF FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE - SITUATION & CULTURE:

• Targeting zero-sum beliefs was effective although high SDO individuals had more negative attitudes.

Baldwin (2017)

FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE → NORM OF INTOLERANCE (CULTURE):

• All cultures are ethnocentric.

• Individualist cultures - encourage discrimination, microaggressions and benevolent intolerance . Whites in South Africa were racist from 1948-1994.

• Collectivist cultures - Higher tolerance of diversity and acceptance is encouraged.

Akrami (2009)

STRENGTHS OF FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE - SITUATION & CULTURE:

• Swedish study - manipulated social norms

• Some participants heard a confederate express skepticism with sexist statement

• Mean levels of sexism were lower than control group

• Participants who read a short article about a bleak social & economic future had more prejudice

Orpen (1971)

STRENGTHS OF FACTORS AFFECTING PREJUDICE - SITUATION & CULTURE:

• F-scale scores were not correlated with prejudice in a group of white South Africans.

• Social conformity and cultural pressure are also important factors.

Classic Study: Sherif (1954, 1961)

ROBBERS CAVE EXPERIMENT:

Aim:

• How competition & frustration of a group’s goals can lead to outgroup prejudice and hostility whilst encouraging ingroup cooperation.

Procedure:

• I.V. - Atmosphere

• D.V. - Number of friends identified in outgroup

• Participants - 22 boys, middle-class, protestant, 11 year olds from Oklahoma, USA. All socially & emotionally well adjusted while none knew each other prior. Divided into 2 groups.

• 2 groups: Rattlers VS Eagles

• STAGE 1 → Group formation: Non-competitive activities for bonding.

• STAGE 2 → Friction. Tournament with medals and trophies (limited resources). Contests - tug of war, baseball & tent-pitching, extra points for cabin inspections & treasure hunts.

• STAGE 3 → Reducing friction. Superordinate goals like repairing truck or making dinner.

Findings:

• STAGE 1 → Differing social norms established, Rattlers were tough & swore a lot whereas Eagles cried a lot and were more anti-swearing.

• STAGE 2 → Outgroup hostility developed rapidly. One group burnt the other’s flag. Only 6.4% of Rattler’s friends were eagles and 7.5% of eagles friends were rattlers.

• STAGE 3 → Initially insults were still thrown and lots of friction when fixing water supply but greatly reduced with other activities.

• Outgroup friendships increased: 36.4% of rattlers friends were now eagles and 23.2% of eagles friends were rattlers.

Tyerman & Spencer (1983)

WEAKNESSES OF Classic Study: Sherif (1954, 1961):

• Failed to replicate findings

• Sea scout troop of 30 boys from 1 of 4 patrols and knew each other well. Less hostility and ingroup solidarity decreased.

• Suggests competition only triggers prejudice from people who don’t know each other well.

Contemporary Study: Burger (2009)

Aim:

• Replicating Milgram’s findings to see if it was era-bound.

• To determine whether obedience was affected by gender & personality traits like empathetic concern & desire for personal control.

Procedure:

• Participants: 70 adults (29 male, 41 female), aged 20 to 81 (mean age 42.9)

• 60% university degrees

• 55% white caucasian & 4% Black Afro-Americans

• Flyers & advertisements

• 6 ethical safeguards

• Highest shocks was 150V to avoid high levels of anxiety.

• Ethics - 2 step screening process for heart conditions checking. 3 reminders to withdraw and participants debriefed immediately. 15V instead of 45V administered as starting shock.

• Clinical psychologist supervised and self-report questionnaires were used.

• Trial terminated when participant refused to continue after 4 prods.

Findings:

• Obedience rate only decreased slightly

• 70% pressed 150V

• No significant difference in obedience rates between men (66.7%) and women (72.7%)

• No significant difference in empathetic concern but defiant participants had higher desire for personal control.

Elms (2009)

WEAKNESSES OF Contemporary Study: Burger (2009):

• Limited application to real world obedience

• Low shocks administered and participants stopped before any real anxiety or cognitive dissonance was suffered from due to ethics.

Aronson & Bridgeman (1979)

Proved that Sherif’s classic study could be applied to tackling racial prejudice in American schools. Students worked together and took responsibility for different parts of the group project, increasing empathy for outgroup members and improving academic performance of black minority students.

May be less effective for some groups. USA is individualist and more competitive, while the participants were all male American children so gender differences were not measured.

STRENGTHS FOR AGENCY THEORY

Milgram’s 1963 study - found that 100% of participants administered 300V shock and 65% went up to 450V.