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Social influence mind maps for psychology
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Detailed summery mind maps for all the content in the social influence unit for psychology A-level
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Conformity Zimbardo's Prison Study (1973)Conformity is a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or Aim: To investigate how people conform to roles they are given - in this case how quickly people would adopt the roles of prisoners and guards. To test the dispositional vs situational hypothesis of prison
group of people violence.
Participants: 24 male student volunteers recruited from a newspaper ad. Were paid $15 a day (about $88 in todays money) to take part in the 2 week study . All tested as 'emotionally stable'. Were randomly
Types of conformity assigned to the role of guards or prisoners to remove researcher bias.
Compliance The lowest/shallowest level, superficial and temporary, outwardly going along with majority view but
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Procedure: study took place in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford university - this was converted into a mock prison. The prisoners were 'arrested' at home to add realism. They were
privately disagreeing, only lasts as long as being monitored by the group. blindfolded and taken to the 'prison'. They were then strip searched and given smocks and a prison number to wear. This process is known as dehumanisation. The social roles of the prisoners and guards was
Identification Middle level of conformity, publicly changing opinions/behaviour to fit in with group as we value
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strictly divided. The prisoners daily routines were heavily regulated. The guards had their own uniform with clubs, handcuffs etc, even mirror shades so they could not make eye contact. They were told they
membership - but privately disagree, only lasts as long as we are with the group. had power over the prisoners - no physical aggression was allowed.
Internalisation Highest/deepest level of conformity, occurs when we genuinely adopt the norms of the group as our own,
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Findings; the guards took up their roles with enthusiasm, treating the prisoners harshly. Within 2 days the prisoners rebelled by ripping their uniforms and shouting at the guards. The guards used 'divide and
change views publicly and privately, permanent as becomes part of a persons thinking and are present without the group. rule' tactics by playing the prisoners off against each other. They constantly harassed them to remind them of the powerlessness of their role such as by doing headcounts in the middle of
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the night. They started to adapt to the role of prisoner by day 4-5. The prisoners became subdued, anxious and depressed. One was told they couldn't leave at first but was later released due to
Asch (1956) research into conformity psychological distress. One prisoner went on a hunger strike - the guards tried to force feed him and then punished him by pu!ing him in 'the hole' - a tiny dark closet. Zimbardo ended the study
after 6 days rather than 14 due to many prisoners leaving because of distress.
Aim: To see whether participants would conform to the majority and give obvious wrong answers in an unambiguous situation/task. Conclusion: Revealed the power of the situation to influence peoples behaviours. The guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their roles within the prison and seemed to stop treating it
Participants: 123 male American students were organised into groups of 6. The groups consisted of 1 true participant and 5 confederates. like a psychological study and more like a real prison.
Procedure: the participants and confederates were shown 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line. They were asked which of the Evaluation:
3 lines was the same length as the standard line. The participant was always seated last or second to last. In 12/18 of the trials (known as One strength of the study was that it was well controlled. For example, Zimbardo randomly allocated the roles of prisoner and guards and chose participants who were most stable to
critical trials) the confederates would always give the same incorrect answer. Asch observed how many times the participants also gave minimise the effects of personality differences as an explanation of the findings. This is a strength as it increases the validity of the findings that conformity to the social roles occurs and can be
the same incorrect answer as the confederates compared to the correct answer. used as an explanation for guard brutality. Counterpoint: however, in the experiment the behaviour of the guards varied dramatically, although some demonstrated sadistic behaviour, others
Findings: Asch found that participants conformed to the majority and gave the wrong answer 32% of the time (on 190/600 critical trials). helped the prisoners. This suggests that situational factors are not the only cause for conformity to social roles, and dispositional factors such as personality can also play a role, implying that
74% of participants conformed at least once with 26% of participants never conforming. 5% conformed on all trials. Zimbardo's conclusion may have been over-stated.
Conclusion: the findings show that participants conformed to the majority even when the situation was unambiguous. On follow up However it has been argued that perhaps the participants were play acting rather that genuinely conforming to a social role. Participants may have shown demand characteristics and
interviews, most said they conformed to avoid rejection from the group and had the desire to fit in (normative social influence) behaved how they thought Zimbardo wanted them to, one of the guards said he had based his behaviour on a film called 'cool hand Luke' this is a limitation as it questions the validity of the
Evaluation: findings and could question whether these truly reflect conformity to social roles. Counterpoint: however there is also evidence to suggest that the study was real to the participants as emphasised
A strength of Asch study is that is provides evidence for normative social influence which is a key explanation of conformity. In by the distress experienced by prisoners - prisoner 416 said he felt like it was a real prison but run by psychologists instead of the government and 90% of prisoner talk was about prison life.
follow up interviews after the study, participants stated that they often conformed to fit in and avoid rejection from the group. This is a One of the major criticisms is that the study broke many ethical guidelines. Participants were subject to physical and psychological harm during the course of the study such as prisoners being
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strength as it supports the idea that normative social influence is a valid reason for why some individuals may conform. asked to engage in humiliating acts and being denied access to toilets. Participants were initially denied their requests to leave by Zimbardo. Some continued to be so distressed they left and the
The experiment was a lab experiment which mean there was strict control over confounding and extraneous variables such as study was eventually cut short. They also didn't give their informed consent to being arrested.
timings. This means that replication of the experiment would be easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings and
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means they are more consistent.
Explanations of Conformity
Social Influence
A weakness of Asch's study is that it can be argued to lack generalisability. The sample was unrepresentative and only consisted of
American male students meaning it was both gender and culture biased. The results can't be generalised to females or individuals from
a different culture.
The study lacked ecological validity. It was an artificial task which took place in an artificial environment - this could result in unusual
Normative Social Influence: Desire to be liked. A person conforms because of their need to be accepted and belong to the group -
they want to fit in. People are more likely to conform to normative social influence when we are in a group which is important to us
and that we spend a lot of time in (e.g. peer pressure) or to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority. It is
behaviour. It was also based on people perception of lines and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life and the complexity of most likely to lead to compliance.
real life conformity. Informational Social Influence: Desire to be right. When a person is unsure how to behave or unclear as to what to feel about an issue, they look to others for information to have the right answer and
Asch's study can be argued to be unethical as participants were deliberately deceived into thinking the study was an eye test about copy or obey them. Most likely to occur in a new or ambiguous situation when a person does not have the knowledge or expertise to make their own decisions. It is most likely to lead to internalisation.
perception. This means they weren't able to give their informed consent properly. There could have been harm to participants as they Evaluation;
may have felt embarrassed after finding out the true aim of the study. However they would have been debriefed after and the deception Asch provided evidence for normative social influence with his famous conformity experiment. This is because when he asked participants in the follow up interviews why they went along with what
was necessary as the participants would have showed demand characteristics if they knew the true aim decreasing validity. was clearly the wrong answer, they said they felt self conscious and were afraid of disapproval. When they were asked to give answers privately - conformity fell to 12.5%. This is because giving
The study has been described as 'a child of its time'. It has been suggested that the high levels of conformity may have reflected the answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure. This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them (ie NSI). One of
norms of American society at that time as the research took place at a particular period of US history when conformity was high. This Asch's variations also provides evidence for informational social influence . When the task was made more difficult by making the lines more similar in length, conformity increased. The participants
post war era was a very conservative one in which there was a real fear of anyone who appeared to be anti-American or pro- wanted to be right and the test was harder meaning they may have not been as sure of their answer so conformed to the group.
communism and so individuals were more likely to conform. This means the research lacks temporal validity. Perrin and Spencer did a There is also research support for informational social influence from the study done by Lucas et al in 2006. In this study, students were asked to give answers to mathematical problems that were
separate study in 1980 using maths, chemistry and engineering students. They found that in only 1/396 critical trials did the participant either easy or more difficult. They found that there was greater conformity to the incorrect answers when the problems were more difficult. This is because when the problems were easy the
join the majority. This is a conformity rate of 0.25%. This may be because maths, chemistry and engineering students could be expected participants knew their own minds but when they were harder, the situation became ambiguous. They didn't want to be wrong so they relied on the answers they were given . This was most true for the
to be more independent or because America was a less conformist place in 1980 than 1956 participants who rated their mathematical ability as poor. This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict.
Latane and Darley's study demonstrated informational social influence in an emergency. Participants were tested either alone or in groups with confederates who had been instructed to ignore the
factors affecting Conformity - Asch's Variations smoke entering the room. It was found that when the participants were tested alone 75% had reported the smoke within 2 minutes, when tested with the group of confederates less than 13% reported the
smoke. This could because because they didn't want to stand out from the group and wanted to fit in (NSI) or because they were unsure of what to do and looked to the majority as they thought they
Group size/size of majority: An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group. were right (ISI)
Asch's Evidence: Conformity rates were 3% with one confederate, 13% with 2 confederates and 32% with 3 to 15 confederates. However, one weakness of the explanations of conformity is that it doesn't account for individual differences in conformity. Although the two explanations can explain conformity, it can be questioned
This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all whether they can explain all instances of conformity as there appears to be individual differences in whether people are more or less likely to conform, for example people who are less concerned
instances. about being liked are less influenced by NSI. This is a weakness as it suggests the explanations are not valid for everyone. Counterpoint: The study done by Perrin and Spencer can be used to
Explanation: A person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the correct answer demonstrate the importance of individual differences. They used maths, chemistry and engineering students and found a conformity rate of only 0.25%. This could be because these students may be
because it will increase their confidence in the correctness of the group and decrease confidence in their own answer. expected to be more independent so supports the idea of individual differences.
Unanimity: An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous and all give the same answer as opposed to Deutch and Gerrard proposed that conformity is either due to normative social influence or informational social influence . However one criticism is that it is likely that both processes are involved
different answers. in conformity. For example, conformity is often reduced with a dissenter from the group, but it could be that the dissenter reduces the power of normative social influence as they provide social support.
Or that they reduce the power of informational social influence as an alternative source of information. This ma!ers because it questions the validity that the two explanations work independently of
Asch's Evidence: When the group contained one dissenter who disagreed with the majority and agreed with the participant each other.
conformity rates were 5.5% and when the group contained a dissenter who disagreed with the majority and the participant it
was 9%. This is because the participant was no longer a minority of one and had someone to back them up. The dissenter Situational variables:
doesn't need to be in agreement with the participant though as long as they go against the majority. These are features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a persons behaviour (such as proximity, uniform, location). The alternative is
Explanation: Unanimity is important in providing a consistent majority view, which provides normative social influence. dispositional variables where behaviour is explained in terms of personality.
Task Difficulty: An individual is more likely to conform when the task is more difficult.
Asch's Evidence: When the task was made more difficult by using lines closer to each other in length conformity rates Dispositional Variables:
increased. The task was more ambiguous so the right answer was less obvious and participants were less sure of their own Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality (I.e. their disposition). Such explanations are often contrasted with
answer. They believe the majority to be right so use them as a source of information and conform - informational social situational variables.
influence.
Explanation: Informational social influence is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the
Obedience:
participant doesn't have enough of their own knowledge to make an informed decision independently . Obedience is when someone acts in response to an order from an authority figure.
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