SOCIAL INFLUENCE gcse psychology notes

Created by: mythstical
Created on: 06-03-19 14:35

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Social Influence
- obedience
  - blind obedience
    - complying with orders of an authority figure with out question.
    - milgram's shock experiment ( evidence )
      - at yale, participants told its a study of memory
      - introduced to mr wallace, a confederate who is strapped to a chair
        participants asked to give him increasingly higher shcoks if he failed word tests
        mr wallace in another room, can be heard. Asked to shock by lab coat guy
    - factors affecting blind obedience:
      - proximity of the victim
        obedience fell to 40% when wallace was in the same room
        
        proximity of the authority figure
        65% same room, 20% over telephone
      - authority figure
        obed fell 20% when not in lab coat
      - legitimacy of context
        og at yale, obed fell to 48% when not in yale
      - personal responsibility
        Untitled
      - not situational:
        paid, feel obligation to continue
        
        momentum of compliance : feel obliged to finish what u started
        
        external locus= more compliance
        
        authoritarian:rigid beliefs and respect authority, inferiors = aggression. F-SCALE to test it
      - support of others
        social support to withdraw
    - preventing blind obedience
      - social support
        around others who resist obedience=easier to disobey
      - familiarity of the situation
        more likely to conform, follow authority blindly as u don't know hwo to behave
      - distance
        further= authority figure impact lessened
      - education
        identifying blind obedience and dangers of it can prevent doing it
- conformity
  - compliance
    - going along w/ majority but u privately disagree
  - internalisation
    - looking at others and copying them as you don't know how to behave.
  - identification
    - change behavior when around group temporarily, change back when group not present
  - factors affecting conformity.
    - size of the majority
      - more people= more likely to conform
      - asch
        4 is optimal number
        
        1 confederate= 3% conformity, 3 confederates= 32%
        this shows normative social influence
    - unanimity of majority
      - social support in group=less likely to conform as group is less unanimous
    - task ambiguity/difficulty
      - more likely to conform for help if task is more hard ( informative social influence)
    - personality factors
      - locus of control
        external= external factors affect u, more likely to conform
        
        internal= more control, less likely to conform.
- deindividuation
  - loss of self awareness and responsibility as a result of being in a group
- bystander effect
  - = when we don't help as we think others will instead.
  - evidence: kitty genovese murdered outside her flat, nyc. No one around herlped.
  - bystander intervention
    - situational
      - diffusion of responsibility
        feel less personally responsible in larger crowds as others around could be helping.
      - noticing the event
        large crowds= less attention to surroundings, don't notice emergency
      - pluralistic ignorance
        interpret situation based on others reactions. eg: if others help we do too.
      - cost of helping:
        too dangerous: we don't help. cost of not helping high= we help to avoid guilt.
    - personal factors
      - competence
        less skilled= won't help or indirect help/
      - mood
        bad mood= focus on urself
      - similarity
        relate to a person, more likely to help them.
- crowds
  - prosocial: helpful, peaceful crowd
  - antisocial: aggressive behaviour
  - deindividuation: + (conforming)
    - members lose personal identity, so they are more likely to conform to behaviour of the crowd.
  - obedience:
    - authority figure can influence members= higher when he's closer, powerful and legitimate
- piliavin
  - field experiment, investigate bystander effect
  - 4500 people, NYC subway 11am-3pm
    - covert
    - 4 groups, 4 students from columbia
  - 2 male, 2 female,
    - females observe
    - males: 1 victim, 1 model passenger
      - victim: 2 types: drunk or holding cane
      - model doesn't help or helps at 4th or 6th stop
  - results
    - 81/103 times victim helped before model came in
    - men 90% helpers
    - cane got helped more than drunk.
    - large groups helped more as less cost of helping
    - same race helping
  - strengths
    - ecological validity, naturalistic environment
    - covert= no demand characteristics
    - weaknesses
      - covert= no consent. distress may have been caused.
- zimbardo's study
  - advert placed in paper to take part in study of prison life
    - in stanford basement
    - 10 prisoners, 11 guards, paid healthy males
    - debrief given before but not told how to behave
    - prisoners given number and jumpsuit, guards have uniforms
  - results
    - guards became very aggressive
    - some prisoners rebelled
    - study ended early, after 6 days as behaviour got out of hand- many prisoners showed depression and anxiety signs, begged to leave
  - conclusions:
    - prisoners and guards conformed
    - prisoners became passive, guards became aggressive
    - uniforms and numbers deindividuated them, lost their personal identity.
  - strengths
    - evidence shows participants weren't acting as they talked about prison life on cameras
    - explains prison conflicts
    - weaknesses
      - psychological harm to participants
      - lower ecological validity and demand characteristics as they knew its an experiment+ they could not cause physical damage.
      - not generalisable towards anyone who's not a male college student.

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SOCIAL INFLUENCE gcse psychology notes

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