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Summary AQA Psychology Social Influence
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Summary of all lessons/topics in the social influence topic needed for aqa psychology a level
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Social influence -TYPES AND EXPLANATIONS:
3 types -
1) Internalisation - making the beliefs and attitudes of the group your own (LT change in public and
private behaviour).
2) Identification - short term change of behaviour only in the presence of a group.
3) Compliance - change in public beliefs around a group (private beliefs remain the same).
Normative Social Influence (NSI) Informative Social Influence (ISI)
Conforming to be accepted into a group. Conforming for knowledge or because someone else is
Conforms to social norms of a group. right.
Avoids not fitting in.
+Research support for ISI -Indv differences in NSI +Real life app of NSI +Research support for both
One strength is support from research People who are less concerned Link between NSI and bullying. Found Asch interviewed
evidence from Lucus et al (2006). Asked about being liked are less that a boy can be manipulated into participants conformity and
students mathematical problems and found affected by NSI than those who bullying by victimising another child found conformity was largely
conformity to incorrect answers was higher care more about being liked as it provides a common goal for a attributed to ISI and NSI.
with difficulty. Shows that people conform (nAffiliator). Afiliators have a group. Children would then bully to Supporting research
in situations when they don’t know the greater need for affiliation and gain approval from friends. therefore increases the
answer. Supports ISI are therefore more likely to validity of types of social
conform. Indv differences influences.
therefore impact generalisation
of the theory.
ASCH:
Aim - investigate conformity and majority influence
Procedure - participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines;3 comparisons and 1 standard. ASked to
state which one of the three was the same as the stimulus. The real participant always answered last.
Confederates would give the same answer and Asch would observe how often the participants would give the
same incorrect answer as the confederates.
Findings - 36.8% never conformed, 75% conformed at least once.
Conclusion - people were willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer to conform
Task difficulty Group size Unanimity
An individual is more likely to conform An individual is more likely to conform in a large An individual is more likely to conform
when a task is difficult. group. when the group is unanimous. With one
Asch altered the comparison lines to Lower conformity in small groups, rose by 30% in disaffected confederate, the
make them closer. This increased the larger groups conformity dropped. Unanimity is vital in
conformity. establishing a consistent majority view.
+High internal validity -Lab experiment. -Ethical issues +Supports NSI
Strict control over extraneous variables Lack of ecological validity. Based Deception as participants believed Participants reported they
such as timing of assessment and type of on a person’s perception of lines, the study was about perception not conformed to fit in with the
, task. Participants did the experiment which is not a real life situation. conformity. Informed consent was group. Provides research
before to remove confounding variables. Does not reflect the complexity never truly achieved - can lead to support for NSI which
Valid and reliable. of real life conformity. psychological harm (i.e states people conform to fit
embarrassment) in.
ZIMBARDO:
Aim - investigating conformity to social roles in a simulated environment
Procedure - basement of Stanford uni. 24 male students volunteered in response to the newspaper. Randomly
issued guard or prisoner. Given props (handcuffs). No one could leave env. Behaviour of participants was
observed.
Findings - identification occurred very quickly, guard dehumanised prisoners and harassed them. 5 PRISONERS
LEFT EARLY DUE TO ADVERSE REACTIONS TO TORMENT + EXPERIMENT TERMINATED EARLY
+Real life application +Ethical issues -Lacks population validity -Demand characteristics
Changed the way US prisons are Participants were fully briefed about the Only considered American male Participants knew they were
run. Younger and older prisoners aims and results of the study. Followed students meaning there is a lack of involved in a study, with most
are separated to prevent bad the BPS ethical guidelines. generalisation to other genders and predicting the outcome and
behaviour spreading. Constant Acknowledgement that the study should cultures. For example collectivist conclusion. Social desirability
surveillance is discouraged to have been stopped earlier however cultures may be more conformist to bias or change of behaviour.
prevent effects of debriefing meant that the experiment prescribed culture roles. Some claimed they were acting
institutionalisation. was more ethically acceptable. Means findings are culture bound. according to their role e.g
based on movie interpretations.
MILGRAM:
Aim - to investigate how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person.
Procedure - volunteers were recruited for a study investigating the effects of punishment on learning,
participants were introduced to another participant who was actually a confederate. The participant was
assigned the teacher and the confederate the learner. The participant has to administer an electric shock
every time a learner makes a mistake up to 450V.
Findings - all participants went up to 300V. 65% went up to 450V. Showed the majority of the participants
were prepared to give lethal electric shocks to a confederate.
Conclusion - ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of
killing.
+High reliability -highly unethical -socially sensitive -lack of ecological validity
Conducted in a lab setting and Deceived about the nature of the study, Milgram and his supporters have used Held in an artificial experiment.
replicated many times. For pressured to continue through prompts this research to explain the The situation may not have felt
example, Hofling et al, 21/22 when they wanted to quit. Caused atrocities during the Holocaust. This real to the participants, meaning
nurses conformed. This significant psychological harm. meant that the research could be that the artificiality meant that
demonstrates that the findings used as a justification. This raises participants may be displaying
could be generalised to a wide concerns that it removes the behaviour they thought was
range of situations. responsibility from many of the true. Methodology lacks
Nazis and their followers for their mundane realism.
part.
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