Revision Session: Social Influence

Announcements

• Daily Live Streams: Until Paper 2, and a few before Paper 3.
  • Duration: 20 hours total.
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  • Preparation: Download and study the 2022 AS and AEV past papers from the AQA website.
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Conformity

• Asch (1958): Identified three levels/types of conformity:
  1. Compliance: External agreement, internal disagreement. Temporary behavior change due to normative social influence (NSI).
  2. Identification: Behavior and private values change only in the group's presence due to valuing group membership.
  3. Internalization: Genuine and permanent opinion change due to informational social influence (ISI).
• Normative Social Influence (NSI): Desire to be liked and avoid rejection; leads to superficial and temporary conformity.
• Informational Social Influence (ISI): Desire to be correct; looking to others for guidance when uncertain; leads to permanent change.

Asch's Line Judgment Experiment (1951)

• Participants: Groups of 8-10 male college students, with only one real participant and the rest as confederates.
• Task: Identify the matching line; confederates intentionally gave wrong answers in 12 critical trials.
• Results: 32% overall conformity rate; 75% conformed at least once; 5% conformed all 12 times.
• Variables Affecting Conformity:
  • Group Size: More confederates increased conformity (up to a point).
  • Unanimity: Conformity dropped to 5.5% when unanimity was broken.
  • Task Difficulty: Increased task ambiguity raised conformity levels due to ISI.
• Evaluations: High internal validity but criticized for lack of mundane realism and cultural variability.

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

• Setup: Fake prison in Stanford’s basement; 24 male students randomly assigned as guards or prisoners.
• Procedure: Realistic arrest, uniforms, assigned numbers for prisoners; guards had uniforms and authority tools.
• Results: Participants quickly adopted their roles; extreme behaviors observed; halted early due to ethical concerns.
• Evaluations: Insights into social roles' power but criticized for ethical issues and potential researcher bias.

Obedience

Milgram’s Study (1963)

• Participants: 40 male volunteers told it was a memory study.
• Procedure: “Teachers” instructed to shock “learners” (confederates) for incorrect answers; shocks ranged from 15 to 450 volts.
• Results: 65% administered the full 450 volts; situational factors influenced obedience.
• Variations:
  • Proximity: Obedience dropped to 21% when instructions were given via phone.
  • Location: Less legitimacy at a rundown office dropped obedience to 47.6%.
  • Uniform: Obedience dropped to 20% with a casually dressed experimenter.
• Evaluations: Supports agentic state and legitimacy of authority but criticized for ethical issues and lack of mundane realism.

Explanations for Obedience

• Agentic State: Belief of being an agent for authority, shifting responsibility.
• Legitimacy of Authority: Learned through socialization; visible symbols like uniforms enhance perceived legitimacy.
• Evaluations: Supported and criticized by various studies and real-life examples.

Resistance to Social Influence

• Social Support: Observing others resist pressures increases individual resistance.
  • Milgram: Obedience dropped with disobedient role models.
  • Asch: Conformity dropped with a non-conformist ally.
• Locus of Control: Internals (believe in personal control) are more resistant to social pressures compared to externals (believe in external control).
  • Holland (1967): Internals showed higher resistance to maximum shocks.
  • Spector (1983): Internals resist NSI but equally likely to conform to ISI.

Minority Influence and Social Change

• Key Factors:
  • Consistency: Repeating the same message over time.
  • Commitment: Suffering for one’s views (augmentation principle).
  • Flexibility: Balance of consistency and open-mindedness.
  • Snowball Effect: Gradual increase in minority influence leading to majority acceptance.
• Evaluations: Mixture of real-life examples and controlled studies.

Applications

• Knowledge from these studies and theories can be applied to understand and enact social change, such as civil rights movements and changes in social norms.

Final Notes

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