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All Social Psychology Topics Essays
- Module
- Unit 1 - Social psychology
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
PAPER 1: Foundations in Psychology (Social Psychology)
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SECTION A: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY• Classic Study: Sherif et al (8 Marks)
• Contemporary Study: Burger (2009) (8 Marks)
• Milgram's Baseline Study (8 Marks)
• Milgram's Variation 7,10,13 (8 Marks each)
• Realistic Conflict Theory (8 Marks)
• Social Impact Theory (8 Marks)
• Social Agency Theory (8 Marks)
• Social Identity Theory (8 Marks)
• Personality and Gender, Culture affecting Prejudice (8 Marks each)
• Situation, Personality and Gender, Culture affecting Obedience (8 Marks each)
Evaluate the Classic Study of Sherif et al.
The Robbers Cave experiment that Sherif et al had conducted aimed to find how competition between two
groups lead to prejudice towards outgroup and ingroup favouritism. This is a field experiment that consists of a
sample of 22 middle-class 11-year-old protestant boys from Oklahoma, USA. Furthermore, the independent
variable of the study is cooperation or competition, while one independent variable is the number of friends in
the outgroup. The parents gave consent for the boys to participate in the experiment. Moreover, the experiment
starts with the boys being divided into two groups: Rattlers and Eagles. The first stage of the experiment is the
group formation, a non-competitive task or activities were given to each of the group to create bond such as
building campfires. The second stage is creating friction, the researchers created tournaments with prizes for the
winners, the activities include tug of war. Lastly, the third stage is reducing friction, both groups have more social
contact, they watch movies together and have superordinate goals or one goal that requires intergroup
cooperation such as mending a broken water tank. The experiment went on for three-works using a covert
observation, recordings, and questionnaires that led to both quantitative and qualitative data.
One strength of the experiment is the researchers carefully selected the sample of boys to be considered in the
experiment. For example, they did interviews, and they also tested the potential of the participants that they
allocated in groups based on matching personalities, skills, and interests which helps in ingroup favouritism. This
highlights that the study uses good controls in getting their samples increasing the internal validity of the study.
However, the samples are completely biased only consisting of middle-class and protestant American boys. This
is a weakness of the study since it is lacks representativeness, therefore findings are not generalisable to the
whole population such as for working-class, girls, over 11 years old and other ethnicities.
Furthermore, the findings from Stage 1 shows that leaders established in each of the groups. The groups also
differ in social norms such as Rattlers who are tough and who swore a lot, while Eagles cried more when injured
and were anti-swearing. In Stage 2, the groups developed hostility and are eager to challenge each other in
different activities, they also fight, trash each other's cabin, and name-calling. 6.4% of Rattlers were friends with
the Eagles and 7.5% Eagles are friends with Rattlers. They also show ingroup favouritism by ranking their
members as friendly, brave, and tough while the outgroup is seen sneaky and stinkers. Lastly, Stage 3 shows that
superordinate tasks had little effect in reducing friction in the beginning. The percentages had increased with
36.4% of Rattlers being friends with Eagles, and 23.2% of Eagles are friends with Rattlers.
On the other hand, one weakness of the study is there is evidence of failed replication of findings. For example,
Tyerman and Spencer (1983) conducted the experiment with sea scout troop of 30 boys who belongs to one of
four patrols and knew each other well. Findings show no increase of ingroup solidarity from the two-week long
camp, it even decreased a bit. The troops were not hostile towards each other and interacted as one troop. This
is important as it highlights that if people know each other very well, even if there is competition it could not
lead to prejudice only if they do not know each other.
,The study concluded that intergroup competition increases ingroup favouritism and outgroup hostility. They also
concluded that social contact is not enough to reduce prejudice, but a series of superordinate goals will.
Moreover, another strength of the study is its application in reducing prejudice in society. For example, Aronson
and Bridgeman (1979) developed a jigsaw classroom based on superordinate goals, where students work
together increasing likeness and empathy for the outgroup members which also increased academic
performance of black minority students. This is important as it highlights that the experiment had great impact
in increasing educational achievement and performance of ethnic minority students rather than being
discriminated by their own peers.
In conclusion, Sherif et al's study has its strengths for having good internal validity from selecting their sample
and it also has good applications in education of black ethnic minority students. However, there are certain
limitations of the study such as having a non-generalisable sample and failed replication of the study that showed
different findings.
, Evaluate the Contemporary Study of Burger (2009).
Burger's study aims to test Milgram’s findings on obedience on whether it is still relevant today. He aims to find
whether personality (empathetic concern and desire for personal control) and gender has an influence on
obedience. His study is a laboratory experiment using an independent groups design. He gathered a volunteer
sample of 29 men and 41 women who has a mean age id 42.9. 60% of the sample has a degree, 55% were White-
Caucasian and 4% Black Afro-American. They were all obtained from distributed flyers around the community.
The procedure of the experiment replicates Milgram’s Variation 5 experiment with the confederate having a mild
heart condition. However, Burger on the other hand considered 6 ethical safeguards to protect his participants,
these include the shocks being stopped at 150V since in Milgram's experiment 79% of those who gave 150V
continued up to 450V. He also used a screening process who might be subjected to having negative impact from
the experiment, they were given reminders about their right to withdraw, the starting shock starts at 15V than
45V, they were also debriefed with a psychologist present in the trials. The participants also filled out
questionnaires about their personality if they have tendency to feel sympathy (empathetic concern) and desire
for personal control.
One strength of the experiment is it made sure that the participants have no knowledge about Milgram's
experiment. For example, all volunteers went to a two-time screening process which includes asking whether
the participants took any psychology classes, and anyone who took the classes were excluded from the
experiment. They ended up excluding 5 people who were aware about Milgram's study. This is important as it
highlights that the findings of the study are not biased and rigged from demand characteristics which increases
the internal validity of the experiment. However, since the study is done in a laboratory and controlled setting
it lacks mundane realism. The task is not realistic or does not reflect real-life situations that may demand
obedience from others. This is important as it highlights that the study lacks ecological validity there could be
different outcomes of obedience in real-life.
Moreover, the study shows a slightly lower obedience rate from Milgram's study. 70% of the participants pressed
until 150V. They also found no significant difference between the obedience rates of men at 66.7% to women at
72.7% who pressed up until 150V. The questionnaires show no significant difference between the scores of
defiant participants and obedient participants with the score of 19.25 and 19.20. In terms of desire for personal
control scores defiant participants scored 106.92 in comparison to obedient participants at 98.24.
Furthermore, one weakness of the study is it is not representative of the target population. For example, 38% of
the participants who may found the study distressing were excluded. This highlights that the final sample may
consist of people who are more psychologically robust than the general population who may find the situation a
bit more distressing. This shows that the findings may have been different such as having lower levels of
obedience leading to low generalisability of the findings to the population. However, Beauvois et al (2012) did
replicate Milgram's study in France without excluding any participants unless they have a medical condition that
requires medication. The study found 80% of obedience leading to a 460V shock to the confederate. This
highlights that even if Burger's study is not representative, another replication of Milgram's study shows similar
findings confirming that it his results may be generalisable.
Accordingly, Burger concluded that obedience levels today is like what it was over 50 years ago when Milgram
conducted the study. In addition, he also concluded that desire for personal control has likely determined
participant’s defiance.
Furthermore, another weakness is it has limited application in the real world. For example, Elms (2009) claims
Burger's research tells little explanation of obedience in real-world. It lost potency when participants were asked
to stop before suffering any real tension. This reduces the meaningfulness of the study, hence lack of application
in real-life situations that demands obedience.
In conclusion, Burger's study has its strengths for having good internal validity with the two-screening process.
However, the study lacks ecological validity for being a laboratory experiment, it also lacks generalisability to the
whole population, therefore having limited application in the real-world.
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