Social Influence 16 markers AQA exam board PDF

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Social Influence topic for first year a level. 16 mark essays with A01 and A03....

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Outline and evaluate explanations of why people conform (16 marks)` With normative social influence it is argued people conform because they feel the need to gain acceptance and to belong to a group. They accept the groups views publicly, but privately they disagree. For example, laughing at a joke that they don't find funny because of the need to fit in with the group and avoid rejection. This type of conformity is compliance and we will only do it when we believe the group is watching us. Normative social influence is supported by Linkenbach and Perkins who found adolescents exposed to the message that the majority of peers their age did not smoke were then less likely to take up smoking themselves. This shows how people conformed to the norms of society. Further evidence supports NSI as Asch conducted a study where a group of confederates would clearly the answer the question as to ‘what line matches the example’. 33% of the participants conformed to the obviously wrong answer. It can be assumed that the participants changed their answers in order to be accepted by the group. The fact that Asch’s findings support the idea of normative social influence suggests that this explanation of conformity can be seen to be valid. However there appears to be individual differences which suggests that NSI does not affect people in the same way; some people are less concerned with being liked and so they are less affected by it. McGhee and Teevan found students high in the need for affiliation were more likely to conform. This research clearly shows that normative social influence cannot be seen as a reliable explanation for conformity. Another explanation of why people conform in informational social influence, where you go along with the majority because you think they have more information about a situation than yourself and you believe they are correct. It is linked to our need to be right. ISI is most likely to happen in situations that are new or when there is some ambiguity. The individual changes their opinion both publicly and privately, which os described as internalisation which is a cognitive process. Informational social influence is supported by research done by Lucas et al. He found greater conformity to incorrect answers to difficult mathematical problems than easier ones. This shows how people conform when they don't know the answer as predicted by ISI. Further support comes from Fein et al who found that participants opinions of political candidates were influenced by the reaction of other participants. They observed the views of others, and changed their opinions accordingly, which supports the idea of ISI as it shows people can influenced if they are unsure about what they believe. However, a criticism of ISI would be that N~SI and ISI work together for many people. For example, some people may conform as they want to be liked by others and they want to be right. Both of these reasons make it difficult to distinguish which explanation is actually at play and may mean any findings from research into this cannot be clearly interpreted. This challenges ISI as the explanations for conformity may not be valid.

Tasnia Discuss research into compliance (16 marks) Compliance is short term conformity where people change their external views and behaviours but not their internal views. This is the weakest level of conformity as individuals only change their external views for social acceptance. For example, agreeing with a group opinion that Man United are better than Liverpool when secretly disagreeing with this. Evidence to support compliance comes from Asch as he showed 50 male college students a standard line and three comparison lines and had participants say out loud which one matched the standard line. They were all confederates apart from one naïve participant, who answered second to last. 74% of people conformed at least once. This gives evidence to compliance as it shows how people conformed to the majority’s opinion even though the answer was clearly wrong. Asch’s research may be a child of its time. Perrin and Spencer attempted to repeat Asch’s study in the 1980s and found that there was only one conformist. This shows that Asch’s findings are unique because the research took place in a particular period of US history when conformity was high. However, this study lacks ecological validity. As the study was conducted under controlled variables and participants knew they were being researched this weakens the ecological validity of Asch’s research. The line test is not representative of real world situations and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life and doesn’t show how people would conform on a daily basis. Another issue with this research is that it lacks population validity. As the study was conducted on only male students who belonged to the same age group, the findings cannot be generalised to other genders or people of different ages. This means Asch’s research lacks population validity as we cannot apply the results to everyone else. Another piece of research comes from Jenness which involved asking participants individually to estimate how many beans were inside a glass bottle. Participants were then put in a a group and were asked to provide a group estimate through discussion. Then participants were then asked to estimate the number individually again to find out if their initial estimates had altered based on the influence of the majority. It was found that almost all participants changed their individual guesses and had conformed towards a ‘group norm’. The biggest effect was on the range of scores, which dropped from 1875 to 474, indicating conformity to a group norm. As this study was conducted in a lab it is highly controlled as a standardised procedure was used. This means extraneous variables were minimised meaning there was more chance of determining a cause and effect relationship. The standardised procedure allows for the study to be easily replicated again which means the findings can be tested to see if people would conform to the majority estimate again. However, this study lacks ecological validity as it was conducted in a lab. The highly controlled variables weakens the ecological validity as it is not representative of real world

Tasnia situations and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life. Therefore this study does not tell us anything about majority influence in non ambiguous situations. Jenesses’ experiment may be showing internalisation instead of compliance. It is difficult to distinguish between the two as participants may have conformed to the group norm because their internal views about the number of beans has genuinely changed because they believe the group norm is more accurate. This means the participants may have internalised the views of the group instead of complying.

Tasnia Outline and evaluate Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles. (16 marks) Zimbardo conducted a study on conformity to social roles. The aim of his experiment was to examine whether people would conform to given social roles when placed in a mock prison environment. His sample consisted of male university students who were randomly assigned to one of two social roles: prisoner or guard. The ‘prisoners’ were arrested by local police, given a numbered smock to wear, and chains were placed around their ankles. Guards were given a uniform, handcuffs and mirrored sunglasses. The experiment was set to run for two weeks but it was terminated after only six days. Zimbardo found that both the prisoners and guards quickly conformed to their social roles. Within days the prisoners rebelled and the guards grew increasingly abusive towards them. The guards dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands; the prisoners became increasingly submissive and began to have breakdowns. A recent replication of Zimbardo’s experiment, carried out by Reicher and Haslam contradicts the findings of Zimbardo. They found the participants did not conform to their social roles automatically. For example, the guards did not identify with their status and refused to impose their authority and the prisoners identified as a group to challenge the guard’s authority. These results clearly contradict the findings of Zimbardo and suggest that conformity to social roles may not be automatic, as Zimbardo originally implied. The study also has real life application. The behaviour of the guards in the study has been witnessed countless times in institutions. For example, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where a number of American soldiers were found to have sadistically abused Iraqi prisoners. Zimbardo said the guards were victims of situational factors such as lack of training and boredom were present in both his experiment and Abu Ghraib. These factors combined with the role of a ‘guard’ lead to abuse in both situations. However the study had demand characteristics that made the guards and prisoners respond how they did, not the prison environment. Details of the study were presented to a large sample of students who had never heard of it before. The majority of them correctly guessed that the purpose of the study was to show how ordinary people would conform to the social roles that were assigned to them. This means the participants behaved according to the researchers expectations and not because of the prison environment. Zimbardo’s experiment has been heavily criticised for breaking many ethical guidelines, especially protection from harm. Five of the prisoners left the experiment early because of their reactions to the physical and mental torment. Furthermore, the fact that Zimbardo only used male participants in his sample shows a beta bias, as his research may have ignored or minimised the differences between men and women in relation to conformity to social roles and therefore we are unable to conclude whether females conform to social roles in a similar way.

Tasnia Outline and evaluate research into minority influence. (16 marks) Minority influence is most effective when they are consistent, committed and flexible with their views. The minority influence is most effective when there is stability in the expressed view over time and agreement from all members of the minority group (consistent). It is important for all members to show that they believe with the cause as it suggests certainty (commitment). By listening to others and adjusting arguments slightly can increase the minority influence but they cannot be too flexible as this will seem inconsistent (flexibility). Moscovici conducted a study where his aim was to discover whether consistency was an important factor in explaining the process of minority influence. He had a sample of 172 female participants, in groups of 6 and they were asked to estimate the colour of 36 slides. All of the slides were blue and all the participants had good eyesight. 2 out of 6 participants were confederates. In the consistent condition confederates said that the slide was green on every condition and there was a conformity rate of 8.24%. In the inconsistent condition confederates sometimes said the slides were blue and sometimes green which led to a conformity rate of 1.25%. This shows that a consistent minority is key. A strength of Moscovici’s study is that all the participants had good eyesight. This rules out colour blindness and controls this variable which means the study has high temporal validity. It can be established that the results are valid and therefore conclude that consistency is an important factor in explaining the process of minority influence. However, the size of the minority is ⅓ in this experiment which is too large. The size of this minority does not represent society and so the results of Moscovici’s study cannot be generalised to real world minority influence. The minority groups are usually under 10% therefore as the minority group in this study was too high the results cannot be generalised to real life conformity. Moscovici used a biased sample of 172 female participants. As a result, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations such as men as we cannot conclude that male participants would respond to minority influence in the same way. Therefore, Moscovici’s research shows beta bias as the research could have ignored or minimised differences between men and women’s conforming behaviour. Another limitation of this research is that the two colours blue and green are too similar. This means that a cause and effect relationship cannot be established as people may genuinely think they are seeing blue/green and not conforming. Furthermore the artificial task conducted in a laboratory makes the study lacks mundane realism as minority groups in wider society seek to change the majority’s opinion on real-world social issues such as women rights instead of establishing the colour of a slide. Therefore Moscovici’s study lacks ecological validity.

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Discuss research into obedience as investigated by Milgram (16 marks) Milgram investigated whether ordinary people would obey an order to inflict pain on an innocent person. His sample of 40 male American volunteers went to Yale University, where they met the experimenter and another participant (a confederate). It was fixed so that the real participant was assigned the role of ‘teacher’ and instructed to give an electric shock of increasing strength (from 15–450 volts) to the ‘learner’ every time he made a mistake on a list of word pairs. At 300 volts the learner could be heard complaining, but after that there were no further responses. The experiment continued until either the participant refused to continue, or the maximum of 450 volts was reached. If they tried to stop, the experimenter would offer a verbal prod, e.g. ‘ T  he experiment requires that you continue’. Milgram found that all participants went to 300 volts and 65% administered the full 450 volts. In addition, qualitative observations report participants showing signs of distress and tension: sweating, stuttering and trembling. One criticism of Milgram’s study is that it broke several ethical guidelines. Milgram deceived his participants as they believed that they were taking part in a study on how punishment affects learning, rather than on obedience. Due to the nature of the task, Milgram did not protect the participants from psychological harm, since many of them showed signs of real distress during the experiment and may have continued to feel guilty following the experiment, knowing that they could have harmed another human being. Therefore Milgram’s study is highly unethical. Another criticism of Milgram’s study is that it lacks ecological validity. As it was conducted in a lab it is very different from real-life situations of obedience. In everyday life, we often obey far more harmless instructions, rather than giving people electric shocks. Therefore, we are unable to generalise his findings to real life situations of obedience and cannot conclude that people would obey less severe instructions to the same degree. Milgram’s study also lacks population validity. This is because Milgram used a biased sample of 40 male American volunteers.Therefore, we are unable to generalise the results to explain the behaviour of females since it cannot be concluded female participants, would respond in a similar way to that observed originally by Milgram. Therefore Milgram’s study shows a beta bias as his research may have ignored or minimised the differences between men and women. Finally, Milgram’s study lacks internal validity. Perry found that many of the participants were sceptical about whether the shocks were real. Doubters were more likely to obey, and believers were more likely to disobey. Therefore the lack of realism means that the findings of Moscovici’s study has low internal validity.

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Tasnia Outline and evaluate the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience. (16 marks) Dispositional explanations for obedience focus on internal (personality) characteristics within humans that contribute to obedience. One particular explanation focuses on the authoritarian personality which was proposed by Adorno. Adorno et al. ( 1950) believed that the foundations for an authoritarian personality were laid in early childhood because of harsh and strict parenting. This creates resentment within the child as they grow up and, since they cannot express it at the time, the feelings are displaced onto others who are seen as ‘weak’ or ‘inferior’. According to Adorno, this personality type is correlated with prejudice and discrimination as well as obedience. Adorno et al. c onducted a study using 2000 middle-class, Caucasian Americans to find out their unconscious views towards other racial groups by developing a number of questionnaires including the F-scale, which measured fascist tendencies. Those high on the F-scale were status-conscious, more obedient to authority figures and showed an extreme submissiveness and respect. They also believed that society requires strong leadership to enforce rigid, traditional values, hence their dispositional preference for obedient behaviour. There is research support for the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience. Milgram and Elms (1966) conducted post-experimental interviews with participants who were fully obedient in Milgram’s original study, to see if there was a link between high levels of obedience and an authoritarian personality. It was found that the obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale in comparison to the disobedient participants. Furthermore, the obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s study, which was quite the opposite for disobedient participants. It was concluded that the obedient participants in Milgram’s original research displayed more characteristics of the authoritarian personality. There may be individual differences that contribute to the development of the authoritarian personality. Research by Middendorp and Meleon (1990) has found that less-educated people are more likely than well-educated people to display authoritarian personality characteristics. If these claims are correct, then it is possible that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics alone that lead to obedience, but also other factors, including levels of education. There may be methodological criticisms associated with the measures used to determine authoritarian personality traits. It is possible that the F-scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where participants provide answers that are socially acceptable. For example, participants may appear more authoritarian because they believe that their answers are socially ‘correct’ and consequently they are incorrectly classified as authoritarian when they are not. This, therefore, reduces the internal validity of the questionnaire research method used in determining the degree of authoritarianism, suggesting that other factors/explanations may be responsible for obedient behaviour. Adorno et al. c ame to believe that a high degree of authoritarianism was similar to suffering from a psychological disorder, with the cause lying within the personality of the individual

Tasnia (nature) but originally caused by the treatment they received from their parents at a young age (nurture). Obedient behaviour is, therefore, determined by our socialisation experiences and not a result of free will. However, some psychologists (e.g. humanistic psychologists) would dismiss these claims and argue that humans have the capacity for free will and change and that dispositional explanations are overly determinstic.

Outline and evaluate the role of social influence processes in social change. (16 marks)

Tasnia Social change refers to how, over time, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of a society are replaced with new norms and expectations. There are many processes that are involved, the first of which is consistency. Displaying a consistent viewpoint is beneficial in bringing about social change, as the message appears more credible and can help to convinc...