Contains notes for A Level/iAL Psychology Topic one: Social and Cognitive Psychology notes.
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Psychology
Topic one: Social and Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
Topic overview: Students must show an understanding that social psychology is about aspects of human
behaviour that involve the individual’s relationship to other persons, groups and society, including cultural
influences on behaviour.
Interactions between individuals
● Individuals interact with others and affect one another’s behaviour.
● Agency theory suggests that people are agents for society and therefore they will do things
to fit in.
● People send signals to other people by the way they look and behave, and they obey certain
people and not others.
The effect of being in groups within a society
● People live within a culture and society and their behaviour is affected by their experiences
within society, where they are members of certain groups.
● Social identity theory suggests that by identifying oneself as being a member of a group, a
person can be prejudiced against for being part of that group.
● Prejudice, peer pressure and crowd behaviour is situated within the social approach.
The effect of the social situation
● Social situations can affect behaviour.
● Social construction is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that
examines the development of jointly-constructed understandings of the world that form the
basis for shared assumptions about reality.
○ Social constructs can be different based on the society and the events
surrounding the time period in which they exist. An example of a social
construct is money or concept of currency as people in society have agreed
to give it importance/value.
Social roles
● People have social roles and those roles have expectations attached to them.
● People act in accordance to their social roles
Milgram’s study- found that authority figures obeyed more than ordinary people.
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,Obedience
➢ Obedience: form of social influence that involves performing an action under the orders of
an authority figure.
➢ Conformity: A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined
pressure from a person or group of people. It is when individuals alter their actions,
behaviours or beliefs to gain the acceptance of a group. (It is doing something which is
against one's own inclinations but not doing it with the intention of matching the behaviour
of the majority).
➢ Compliance: refers to any situation in which individuals change their behaviour because
they’re requested to do so. This is a unique social situation in as much as it is partially
voluntary. A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with
the majority view, but privately disagree with it. The change in our behaviour only lasts as
long as the group is monitoring us. (going along with what someone says, while not
necessarily agreeing with it.
➢ Internalisation: A deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we
accept it as correct. It leads to a far-reaching and permanent change in behaviour, even
when the group is absent. (obeying with agreement)
Theories into obedience:
There are two theories of obedience: agency theory and social power theory.
Agency Theory
➢ Agency theory: suggests that humans have two mental states
It suggests that the participants obeyed because they were agents of authority. The theory
says people are agents of others in society because that is how society works. There is no
evidence for this other than it is a claim that makes sense.
In Milgram’s study of obedience, participants who stayed to the end tended to say that they were
just doing what they were told and would not have done it otherwise. They knew what they were
doing was wrong.
The participants showed moral strain, in that they knew that obeying the order was wrong, but
they felt unable to disobey.
Moral strain: experiencing anxiety, usually because you are asked to do something that goes
against your judgement. Moral strain occurs in between the two states and is relieved when shifted
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,into the agentic state. This is because the individual places the responsibility onto the authority
figure.
In Milgram’s study:
- The participants heard the cries of the learner (victim)
- They might have feared retaliation from the victim
- They had to go against their own moral values
- There was a conflict between the needs of the victim and the needs of the authority figure.
- The participants would not want to harm someone because this would go against their
opinions of themselves.
This is the idea that our social system leads to obedience. If people see themselves as individuals,
they will respond as individuals and will be autonomous in that situation.
For example, in a threatening situation, many people avoid aggression and turn away to avoid
getting hurt and aid survival.
➢ Evolution theory: is the idea of natural selection- any tendency that aids survival would lead
to gene or gene combination for that tendency being passed on.
Early humans had a better chance of survival if they lived in social groups, with leaders and
followers. A tendency to have leaders and followers may also have been passed down genetically. A
hierarchical social system, such as the one that Milgram’s participants were used to, requires a
system in which some people act as agents for those ‘above’ them.
According to the agency theory, the agentic state involves a shift in responsibility from the person
carrying out an order to the person in authority giving the order- the responsibility is ‘given’ to the
one doing the ordering.
Miligram proposed that we exist in two states:
➢ Autonomy: acting on one’s own free will. They feel responsible for their own actions.
In an autonomous state, individuals see themselves as having power and they see their
actions as being voluntary.
➢ Agency: when one acts as an agent for another. They see themselves as an agent or an
authority figure. They give up their free will in order to follow instructions and displace
responsibility for their actions to the authority.
In an agentic state, individuals act as agents for others and their own consciences are not in
control. They do not feel responsible for their actions. They feel as if they have no power, so
they might well act against their moral code
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, People are in an agentic state when they see the person giving an order as having legitimate
authority and when they see that person as taking responsibility for them following the
order.
● Milgram observed that society was hierarchical by nature and this has evolved for a survival
function. He thought that its function was to create social order and harmony- obedience is
needed to maintain this
● We are prepared to be obedient as we are exposed to authority figures through socialisation
○ Socialisation is the process by which we learn the rules and norms of society
(parents, teachers). Milgram believed that this prepares us to be obedient.
Evaluation of the agency theory of obedience:
Strengths:
➢ It explains the different levels of obedience found in the variations to the basic study. In the
basic study, the participants did not take responsibility and said that they were just doing
what they were told. However, as they were made to take more responsibility (for example,
holding the victim’s hand down), the obedience level decreased.
Agency theory has supporting evidence from Milgram’s original and variation studies of
obedience. In the original study, the participants were in the agentic state and didn’t take
responsibility for their own actions; that’s why 65% obeyed to 450V
➢ The theory has real life applications to explain obedience including verbal reports by General
Eichmann following WW2 as to why they obeyed destructive orders to kill innocent people
without question. They saw themselves as agents to the person giving the orders and
displaced responsibility for their actions into him. Eichmann said that he was just obeying
orders. Agency theory, which is rooted in the theory of natural selection, helps explain
inexplicable actions like the Holocaust and the My Lai massacre (Vietnam).
Weaknesses:
● Doesn’t explain individual differences
● Hard to define and measure agency and autonomy
● It is more of a description of how society works than an explanation. Doesn’t explain
motivational issues behind obedience
● It is an oversimplified explanation of obedience as it is reductionist. There could be other
reasons why a person obeys or disobeys an authority figure such as their genes and
personality
● The theory could have negative contributions to society. This is because it could be used by
individuals as an excuse for bad behavior where hateful acts are allowed to take place
without judgement.
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