Flashcards

Key Terms

Agentic state - a state of feeling controlled by an authority figure, and therefore lacking a sense of personal responsibility.

Authoritarian personality - identified by Adorno et al. as someone who is more likely to be obedient. These people tend to hold rigid beliefs, and to be hostile towards other groups and submissive to authority.

Autokinetic effect - a visual illusion where a small spot of light in a darkened room appears to be moving when in fact it is stationary.

Autonomous state - being aware of the consequences of our actions and therefore taking voluntary control of our behaviour.

Buffers - aspects of situations that protect people from having to confront the results of their actions.

Collectivistic cultures - cultures (such as many in the Far East) in which the emphasis is on group solidarity and interdependence.

Commitment - an individual's involvement in, and motivation for, a given viewpoint.

Compliance - conforming to the majority view in order to be liked, or to avoid ridicule or social exclusion. Compliance occurs more readily with public behaviour than private behaviour, and is based on power.

Conformity - changes in behaviour and/or attitudes occurring in response

Consistency - the extent to which the same opinions are expressed by all minority group members (interindividual consistency) and over time (intra-individual consistency).

Conversion - the influence of the minority on the majority. This is likely to affect private beliefs more than public behaviour.

Deindividuation - the loss of a sense of personal identity sometimes experienced by individuals in groups or crowds; it can lead to violent or aggressive behaviour especially when individuals are anonymous and so experience a loss of a sense of personal responsibility.

Demand characteristics - features of an experiment that help participants to work out what is expected of them and that lead them to behave in certain predictable ways.

Disposition - an individual's basic character, temperament, or personality.

Dispositional explanation - deciding that other people's actions are caused by their internal characteristics or dispositions.

Emotional labour - the requirement of a role to express positive emotions (and suppress negative ones).

Experimental realism - the use of an artificial situation in which participants become so involved they are fooled into thinking the set-up is real rather than artificial.

Experimenter bias - the effect that the experimenter's expectations have on the participants and therefore the results of the study.

External validity - the validity of an experiment outside the research situation itself; the extent to which the findings of a research study are applicable to other situations, especially "everyday" situations.

F (Fascism) Scale - a test of tendencies towards fascism. High scorers are prejudiced and racist.

Flexibility - the ability to express a given point of view while varying the specific arguments used to support it.

Identification - conforming to the demands of a given role because of a desire to be like a particular person in that role.

Independent behaviour - resisting the pressures to conform or to obey authority.

Individual differences - the characteristics varying from one individual to another; intelligence and personality are major ways individuals differ.

Individualistic cultures - cultures (mainly in Western societies) in which the emphasis is on personal responsibility, individual needs, and independence.

Informational social influence - when someone conforms because others are thought to possess more knowledge.

Ingroup bias - the tendency to view one's own group more favourably than other groups.

Internal validity - the validity of an experiment in terms of the context in which it is carried out; concerns events within the experiment as distinct from external validity.

Internalisation - conformity behaviour where the individual has completely accepted the views of the majority.

Locus of control - a personality dimension concerned with perceptions about the factors controlling what happens to us.

Minority influence - the majority being influenced to accept the beliefs or behaviour of a minority.

Mundane realism - the use of an artificial situation closely resembling a natural situation.

Normative social influence - when someone conforms in order to gain liking or respect from others.

Obedience to authority - behaving as instructed, usually in response to individual rather than group pressure, often in a hierarchy where the instructor is of higher status so the individual feels unable to resist or refuse to obey, though their private opinion is unlikely to change.

Participant reactivity - the situation in which an independent variable has an effect on participants merely because they know they are being observed.

Right-wing authoritarianism - a personality type consisting of submissiveness towards authority figures, authoritarian aggression, and strict adherence to social norms.

Roles - expectations, responsibilities, and forms of behaviour associated with a given position within a group.

Situational explanation - deciding that people's actions are caused by the situation in which they find themselves rather than by their personality.

Snowball effect - the way in which a minority advocating social change grows in number over time.

Social change - an alteration in the social structure of a society; minorities often try to produce social change to enhance the status of their group.

Social cryptoamnesia - accepted social change in which the source of the minority influence instrumental in producing that change has been forgotten.

Social identities - each of the groups with which we identify produces a social identity; our feelings about ourselves depend on how we feel about the groups with which we identify.

Social influence - how we are influenced by others, either by a group (majority influence), a small part of a group (minority influence) or an individual (e.g. obedience) to change our behaviour, thinking, and/or attitudes.

Social norms - agreed standards of behaviour within a group (e.g. family; organisation) to which an individual is expected to conform.

Social norms - the explicit and implicit rules that specify what forms of behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes are acceptable within a given society.

Social roles - the parts we play as members of social groups based on certain expectations about the behaviour that is appropriate.

Social support - the supportive resources provided by other people; these resources can be emotional (e.g. affection), informational (e.g. advice or guidance), tangible (e.g. providing financial assistance) or can involve companionship (e.g. sense of belonging). Social support can be divided into perceived (an individual's subjective judgement of the assistance that is or might be provided) and received (specific supportive actions provided by others).

Weblinks

General resource

http://www.learner.org/resources/series138.html is a series of 30-minute programmes, led by Professor Philip Zimbardo, which are free to watch/show. The programme relating to social influences is at http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/19/e19expand.html

Conformity

http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html is an article by Saul McLeod giving a very clear outline of the Asch experiment with photos and a video clip. It describes the main variables which could affect the level of conformity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA has Professor Philip Zimbardo introducing clips of the Asch experiment and definitions of normative and informational conformity, plus the powerful effect of having an ally or supporter—social support.

http://vimeo.com/61349466 This Candid Camera clip is an example of the well-known elevator experiment—though the covert filming is not something we would do nowadays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnAyr0kWRGE is a short scene from Dead Poets Society where Robin Williams talks to his class about conformity.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/conformity-unique-humans-integral suggests that conformity is an important and human behaviour, starting when we are toddlers, and that great apes such as orangutans and chimpanzees do not show this in spite of being our closest relatives in the animal world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0e6zG8IbE8 This very short clip introduces the concept of the influence of group size and conformity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9benxn_tDE could be a starter for a discussion on the pros and cons of conforming.

Obedience weblinks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g1MJeHYlE0 Here Professor Philip Zimbardo is discussing the Milgram obedience to authority experiment as part of a lecture.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/obedience%20in%20the%20real%20world.pdf This is a PDF of an article by Mike Cardwell about the Milgram obedience experiment and obedience in the real world.

http://submoon.freeshell.org/pix/valium/aadc/img5.png is a graphic showing the different rates of obedience in the variations of the basic Milgram study.

http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/bandura_moral.html This gives an overview of the findings of a Bandura study on why good people obey and do bad things, i.e. moral disengagement.

Independent behaviour: resisting conformity and obedience

http://www.mytonschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/5 is a PDF of very useful points with brief explanations and evaluations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXciZVUSFZ8 shows a society culturally different from the UK's, and a challenge being made to enforced conformity and obedience.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/refuse-resist-revolt/ has the spoken and written poem by Jacob Andrew Jarman encouraging independence.

Ethics in social learning and other topics

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/people-politics-law/politics-policy-people/sociology The Open University has some excellent resources useful for AS/A level. This page outlines the history of modern ethics, and leads to two pages giving the case for and the case against the Milgram experiment, which could be extrapolated to other social influence experiments. They could be the basis of class discussion and debate.

And for wider knowledge and application of social influence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg a TED talk, again from Professor Philip Zimbardo on The Psychology of Evil. NB This contains some photos from the Abu Ghraib trials which can be very upsetting.

Discussion Points

Throughout  AQA Psychology you may have noticed self-assessment questions in orange text in the margins. These are discussion points, designed to help you think about the key issues and research in the text, and to consider how you can apply psychology to real life. Although in many cases there is no correct answer to these questions, we have provided some example discussions that could arise from thinking about some of these points. They should also help you structure your thinking on the topic in question.

1. Asch’s participants weren’t told the true nature of the study on majority influence (1951). Was this ethical?

   Asch’s participants were deceived, therefore did not give fully informed consent. The experimental procedure also suggests they would have been subjected to some stress, therefore psychological harm.

   The level of stress endured in an Asch-type experiment has been tested. Bogdonoff et al. (1961) found that participants in this sort of experiment had hugely increased levels of autonomic arousal indicating they were stressed. Of course this begs an ethical question itself. Why repeat a study that is ethically questionable just to prove more physiologically that the participants really were harmed? This causes double the harm!

   However, Asch’s defence is strong for a number of reasons. The BPS guidelines stipulate that “Intentional deception over the purpose and general nature of the investigation should be avoided”. Asch’s deception was integral to the design; role play was not an option. The true participants had to be deceived or the demand characteristics at play would have been too strong to achieve any level of internal validity. Deception was therefore necessary and arguably more permissible.

   With respect to the psychological harm caused by the stress endured by participants, how bad was it exactly? Replications have suggested that the stress was enough to register increased autonomic arousal. However, most people experience increased arousal during an average day through occupational demands. Being asked a question, a meeting with conflict, or a driving disagreement can cause significant autonomic arousal. In Asch’s defence, we can argue his participants experienced no more than everyday levels of stress and these costs when compared to the potential scientific benefits of the study are reasonable.

2. To what extent can we generalise about human behaviour from these studies [Sherif, 1935; Asch, 1951, 1956]?

   Sherif's study has the issue that the participants were asked to do an impossible task, i.e. to make an estimate of how much a stationary object was moving. On the other hand, his research did show very clearly the influence of groups on individuals, suggesting that, at least for unimportant things, people will choose to conform to reach a group norm.

   Asch’s work looked at whether a majority could influence an individual to give an obviously wrong answer. At first glance it seems this influence worked to a fairly small extent, 37% of the time. However, when compared to a similar situation where there was no such influence and the wrong answer was given less than 1% of the time it is clear that the social pressure of a majority influence had a significant effect, though one does question whether the same effect would occur for an important task.

   The Sherif and Asch studies have limitations such as ignoring other influences, for example whether the group included friends or strangers. But a major limitation is the zeitgeist; in their time conformity was a powerful social norm and to challenge this would usually bring disapproval. Nowadays in normal life it is generally acceptable to be able to question norms and to choose not to conform, so their findings and conclusions are less generalisable, whereas the minority influence findings and conclusions seem more applicable to and demonstrable in everyday life, though like the conformity studies the cultural bias and lack of mundane realism reduces useful generalisation.

3. How can the concept of “demand characteristics” be used to explain the behaviour of the participants in Zimbardo’s (1973) study?

   Demand characteristics are features of an experiment that help participants work out what is expected of them and lead them to behave in predictable ways.

   Zimbardo’s aim was to make the participants’ experience as real as possible. This was done by strip searching them, delousing them, and making them wear a uniform. They were only allowed to eat at certain times and needed permission from guards to do very simple things. This was designed to ensure the experimental realism of the situation, meaning that although the set-up was artificial, the participants were fooled into thinking it was real and easily got carried away.

   However, the artificial set-up in the basement of Stanford University and the role-play procedure may have resulted in demand characteristics, and therefore threatened the internal validity of the study. The participants agreed to act as guards and prisoners in a mock prison, so knew Zimbardo’s expectations of them.

   Accusations that the participants were play-acting are often based on the idea that people have such strong stereotypes of how prison guards behave that participants simply played a role. Points of view such as this often forget how easily we can get carried away when watching a film or playing a game. We know that it is not real but our reactions are still genuine and the outcome has real importance to us. There are many findings which suggest that participants were not play acting:

   • Participants did not behave in a stereotypical way from the outset as if they were assuming a role, the guards’ and prisoners’ behaviour became progressively more aggressive and submissive respectively over time.
   • The behaviour of the guards became more aggressive when they felt they were not being watched. You might expect the opposite if they were merely acting.
   • The severe emotional distress shown by the prisoners and their abuse enjoyed by the guards were more intense than you would expect from someone in control of their behaviour who knows they are play-acting.

   These factors suggest that the behaviour of Zimbardo’s participants cannot be explained by demand characteristics to any large extent.

   See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, sixth edition, pages 144–145 and 225–226.

4. Why do you think that the setting in which Milgram’s (1963) experiments took place made such a difference?

   Our environment has an influence on how we feel. This phenomenon can be seen in everyday life. For example the temperature, the décor, or the tidiness of an environment can affect how we think, feel, and behave. We attribute characteristics to companies, shops, and houses, and the people that inhabit them, based on our view of the environment. The environment of Milgram’s initial study and the subsequent variations reflect this phenomenon.

   Critics of Milgram’s research suggest that both the internal and external validity were threatened by the experimental setting.

   First, participants expect to be given instructions to obey in an experiment. Therefore, it is possible that the obedience was merely the function of the participants being in an experimental setting.

   Second, Yale University would have been a very imposing environment for American participants in the 1960s. Only top academics attended universities and Yale drew the elite; it was most prestigious. This may have had an effect on the participants similar to if you went on a trip to the Houses of Parliament; you would feel it more necessary to behave well and obey instructions than you would in other settings.

   Finally, this environment may have also made the “social contract” that participants had entered into (having agreed to take part and received $4.50) appear less easy to escape. Furthermore, the researcher may have had more perceived authority coming from a prestigious university; this may have discouraged participants from disobeying because they may have felt they would have been violating a social structure.

   Milgram’s variations shed light on these criticisms. When the experiment moved to a run-down office block, the obedience level reduced from 65% to 48%. This 17% drop in obedience tells us that something about the effect of the Yale experimental setting. Given that obedience still occurred, it may be that the setting wasn’t the only cause of the 65% level of obedience but that it compounded the urge that participants had to obey.

5. What are the main factors determining whether or not there is obedience to authority?

   Most of us are brought up to respect and obey the authority of our parents, and then our teachers, and we learn to know other authority figures and generalise our obedience to include them. But there are many other influences on behaviour such as obedience and it is difficult to assess which are the main ones. They would include the following:

   • Situational factors such as the prestige of the location, for example the world famous Yale University in Milgram’s original study.
   • An individual judgement on the authority figure's legitimacy and expertness.
   • Whether enough information has been received to make obedience acceptable.
   • Whether or not the individual feels there is the choice to obey or not.
   • How big a step has to be taken in obeying—the foot in the door concept.
   • Whether the individual can see the consequences of this obedience/disobedience, especially if this would lead to reward or punishment.
   • Whether the individual feels autonomous, responsible, or in the agentic state when the authority figure takes responsibility.
   • Whether the individual wishes to be like the authority figure.
   • The individual’s personality, how authoritarian this is.

   Also, the individual’s own experiences and beliefs are bound to have an effect on behaviour