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Social influence, image, image - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Results: Real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.
      - Procedure: those in the study asked to identify which lines match up. In each group there was only one real participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.
    - - Ethical limitations. Deception used meaning no informed consent and participants may feel embarrassed when told the true nature of the study. This could lead to psychological harm.
      - Sampling issues regarding this study as the study was only carried out on men thus the sample was gender bias and therefore the results cannot be applied to females.
      - This study lacks ecological validity as it was based on peoples’ perception of lines, this does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity.
  - - - AO1
        
        Procedure: Zimbardo turned a Stanford University basement into a mock prison, and randomly allocated student volunteers to be prisoner or guard. Guards wore a uniform and dark glasses, as well as carrying handcuffs and a whistle. Prisoners also had a uniform, and were referred to as their number only. Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted as prison warden.
        
        Findings: guards and prisoners almost immediately fitted into their roles. Guards were brutal, sadistic, and would torment and harass the prisoners. The prisoners would snitch on one another to the guards to try and win their approval, and would often speak about prison issues. As time went on prisoners became more submissive and guards became more aggressive and assertive.
      - AO3
        
        Lacks population validity. As the sample is comprised of US male students, it cannot be applied to women or people from other countries.
        
        A strength of the study is that it has altered the way US prisons are run. For example, juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them).
        
        Low ecological validity. They all knew that it wasn't real, as they signed up to take part. This therefore doesn't reflect real prison life.
        
        Lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable). Also, the prisoners did not consent to being 'arrested' at home.
        
        Demand characteristics. Many guards later claimed they were acting.
        
        Another strength of the study is that the harmful treatment of participant led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines. Studies must now gain ethical approval before they are conducted.
- - - - Status of location: When Milgram moved his experiment to a set of run down offices rather than the impressive Yale University obedience dropped to 47.5%. This suggests that status of location effects obedience.
      - Proximity of authority figure: When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%. Many participants cheated and missed out shocks or gave less voltage than ordered to by the experimenter.
      - Authority figure wearing a uniform: when the experimenter dressed in everyday clothes obedience was very low. The uniform of the authority figure can give them status.
    - - AO1
        
        There were 4 prods said by the experimenter in the lab coat to the 'teacher'. If one wasn't obeyed, the next would be used: 1= please continue. 2= the experiment requires you to continue. 3= It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4= you have no other choice but to continue.
        
        Procedure: lab experiment in which two participants were assigned either the role of a teacher (this was always given to the true participant) or learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace). Teacher was asked by the experimenter in a lab coat to administer electric shocks to the learner each time he gave the wrong answer. These shocks increased every time the learner gave a wrong answer, from 15 - 450 volts.
        
        Results: all participants went to 300 volts and 65% were willing to go all the way to 450 volts.
        
        Post Nazi-Germany experiment. Were the soldiers to blame or were they simply following orders? Milgram thought Germans were evil and that Americans were built different, and that they wouldn't administer the shocks.
        
        Milgram carried out 18 variations of his study.
        All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV). For example, when the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.
      - AO3
        
        Gives insight into why people under the Nazi reign were willing to kill Jews when given orders to do so. It also highlights how we can all be blind to obedience often doing things without question.
        
        High reliability: used a standardised procedure because it was a lab experiment. This is good because it improves the reliability of the study and also helps establish a causal relationship.
        
        Biased: Milgram only used males in his study and this means we cannot generalise the results to females.
        
        ETHICAL ISSUES: Deception, although Milgram saw this as necessary in order to obtain real results. Protection of participants, very stressful situation which can cause psychological harm. Many showed extreme signs of distress. Milgram argued that these effects however were short term, and after seeing that the confederate was okay, the participants were fine. Debrief, Milgram did a debrief, and a follow up after a period of time to ensure there was no harm.
        
        Lacked ecological validity as it was carried out in a lab under artificial conditions.
  - - - A person who favours an authoritarian social system and, admires obedience to authority figures. Hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status.
      - Adorno investigated 2000 middle class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using the F-scale to measure Authoritarian personality
    - - Adorno found many significant correlations (e.g. Authoritarianism correlated with prejudice against minority groups) but we cannot say that one variable causes another – Adorno cannot claim that a harsh parenting style caused a development of an Authoritarian personality, we must consider other explanations like legitimacy of authority.
      - Millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient behavior but didn’t have the same personality, it is unlikely that the majority of Germany’s population possessed an authoritarian personality – An alternative explanation like social identity theory (people identify with groups they are apart with and discriminate against ones they are not) may be more realistic.
      - Theory lacks internal validity as it assumes obedience is caused by dispositional explanations when it may be situational variables.
      - Biased sample. Only used 2000 middle class white Americans who are more likely to have an Authoritarian personality due to demographics and the time of the study – Research lacks population validity and historical validity, so conclusions cannot be generalised to people outside the sample.
  - - - Procedure: female participants were shown 36 blue slides of different intensity and asked to report the colours. There were two confederates (the minority) and four participants (the majority).
      - In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. They were totally consistent in their responses. In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. In this case they were inconsistent in their answers. A control group was also used consisting of participants only – no confederates.
      - Findings: When the confederates were consistent in their answers about 8% of participants said the slides were green. When the confederates answered inconsistently about 1% of participants Said the slides were green.