Social influence studies

Conformity

Asch

123 American male lots had to choose a comparison line that was closest in length to a standard line. Had 1 naive ppt and rest of the group were confederates who gave fake answers.

On average, the genuine ppts agreed with confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time. 25% of ppts never gave a wrong answer (individual differences)

Task difficulty

Lucas

Asked their pots to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems. Ppts were given answers from 3 other fake students. Ppts conformed more often when problems were harder

Conformity to social roles

Zimbardo - Stanford Prison Experiment

Set up mock prison in basement of Stanford Uni. Had 21 male student volunteers who were tested as emotionally stable. Randomly assigned either prison guard or prisoner role. Encouraged to conform through uniforms (deindividuation) and behavioural instructions.

Guards treated prisoners harshly. Within 2 days, prisoners rebelled. Guards harassed prisoners (did headcounts sometimes at night). After rebellion was put down, prisoners became depressed/anxious. One released bc he was showing symptoms of psychological disturbance. 2 more released on day 4. One went on hunger strike. Ended experiment after 6 days instead of intended 14

Ppts believed prison was real

McDermott

Found 90% of prisoners’ conversations were about prison life. Discussed how it was possible to leave the SPE before their ‘sentences’ were over. Prisoner 416 later explained how he thought the prison was real but run by psychologists not the gov

Obedience

Milgram

Used 40 American male volunteers. Assigned them ‘teacher’ role and a confederate the ‘learner’. Learner had to rememebr pairs of words. When he made an error, teacher had to shock him. Volts increased to 450V in 15V intervals.

All ppts delivered all shocks up to 300V. 12.5% stopped at 300V. 65% continued to 450V.

Obedience in real life

Beauvois

Focused on game show. Ppts paid to give ‘fake’ electric shocks to other ppts in front of audience. 80% delivered maximum shock of 460V to unconscious man.

Obedience using real shocks

Sheridan and King

Ppts gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite distress of the animal, 54% of men and 100% of women gave fatal shock.

Proximity

Milgram

Teacher could hear the learner but not see him in original. In proximity variation, teacher and learner were in same room. Obedience dropped from 65% to 40%

In touch proximity variation, teacher had to force learner’s hand onto electroshock plate. Obedience dropped to 30%

In remote instruction variation, experimenter gave instructions to teacher by telephone. Obedience dropped to 20.5%, also pretended to give shocks

Location

Milgram

Conducted variation in a run-down office block rather than Yale uni. Obedience dropped to 47.5%

Uniform

Experimenter wore grey lab coat in original. In variation, experimenter was called away and role was taken over by ‘member of public’ in ordinary clothes. Obedience rate dropped to 20%

Uniform - support study

Bickman

Had 3 confederates dress in different outfits - jacket/tie, milkman’s outfit, security guard uniform. Stood in street and asked people to do tasks like picking up litter. People were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard than dressed in jacket/tie

Milgram study replicated in other cultures

Meeus and Raajmakers

Studies obedience in Dutch ppts. Ordered to say stressful things in an interview to someone desperate for a job. 90% of ppts obeyed. When the person giving the orders was not present, obedience decreased drastically

Replications of Milgram’s research was not cross-cultural

Smith and Bond

Identified only 2 replications between 1968 and 1985 that took place in India and Jordan. Other countries involved were culturally similar to the US, e.g. Spain, Australia

Agentic shift doesn’t explain findings about obedience

Rank and Jacobson

Found that 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. Doctor was an obvious authority figure but almost all nurses did not comply.

Legitimacy explanation accounts for cultural differences

Kilham and Mann

Found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450V in a Milgram-style study.

Mantell

Found German participants had 85%

Authoritarian Personality

Adorno

Studied more than 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes. Measured fascism on F-scale.

People with authoritarian learnings (who scored high on F-scale) identified with strong person, were contemptuous of the weak, conscious of status, showed extreme respect for those who are higher status

Authoritarian Personality - support

Milgram and Elms

Interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and been fully obedient. These 20 obedient ppts scored significantly higher on the overall F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient ppts.

Positive effects of social support

Albrecht

Evaluated Teen Fresh Start USA, a programme to help pregnant teens aged 14-19 resist peer pressures to smoke. Social support was provided by an older mentor. After the programme, those with a mentor were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group of those who didn’t.

Role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience

Gamson

Opts told to produce evidence to help an oil company. Found higher levels in their study than Milgram did in his. Probably because his ppts were in groups so could discuss what they were told to do. 29/33 groups of ppts rebelled against their orders.

Link between LOC and obedience

Holland

Repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured ppts’ LOC. He found that 31% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level. Only 23% of externals did not continue.

Internals showed greater resistance to authority

Link between LOC and resistance

Twenge

Analysed data from American LOC studies done over a 40 yr period. Data showed that, over time, people became more resistant to obedience but also more external.

Consistency

Moscovici

Group of 6 ppl asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity then share whether they were blue or green. There were 2 confederates per group that consistently said the slides were green. Pots have the same wrong answer on 8.4% of the trials.

A second group had an inconsistent minority (confederates said green 24 times and blue 12 times). Agreement on green fell to 1.25%

Control group with no confederates were only wrong on 0.25% of the slides.

Consistent minority opinion has greater effect on changing views of others

Change in majority view involved deeper processing of minority’s ideas

Martin

Presented a message supporting a viewpoint and measured ppts’ agreement. One group of ppts heard a minority group agree and another heard a majority agree. Then exposed to a conflicting views. Attitudes measured again.

People were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group than a majority one.

Social influence processes based on psychological research do work

Nolan

Aimed to see if they could change people’s energy-use habits. Researchers hung messages on doors of houses in San Diego every week for a month. As a control, some residents had a message asking them to save energy but no reference to others’ behaviour. Significant decreases in energy usage in first group compared to second

Behaviour not always changed through exposure to social norms

Foxcroft

Reviewed social norms interventions as part of the ‘gold standard’ Cochrane Collaboration. Review included 79 studies where social norms approach was to reduce student alcohol use. Found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency