SOCIAL INFLUENCE
MILGRAMS OBEDIENCE STUDY
recruited 40 males 20-50 years, jobs ranged from unskilled to professional
a confederate was always the learner and the participant was the teacher.
learner strapped in a chair with electrodes, learner told to give increasing higher shock each time the learner got an answer wrong. the shocks were not real.
started at 15 and rose to 450. when. it got to 300, the learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response thereafter.
'absence of a response should be treated as a wrong answer'
4 prods- saying how they must continue.
FINDINGS
no participant stopped below 300 volts, 12.5% stopped at 300 volts., 65% continues to the highest level
qualitative data also collected- extreme tension- sweat tremble stutter groan- three even had seizures.
all participants were debriefed, assured their behaviour was entirely normal. 84% reported that they felt glad to have participated.
EVALUATION
low internal validity
holland argues that participants acted the way they did because they did not believe that the shocks were real
milgram not testing what he intended to test.
however a similar study was conducted where real shocks were given to a puppy. 100% of the females delivered what they thought to be a fatal shock. this suggests that milligrams study was genuine because people behaved the same way with real shocks.
Good external validity
milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life. Other research supports this argument.
studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were very high. (21 out of 22 obeying)
can be generalised to real life situations.
ethical issues.
milgram led the participants to believe that the allocation of roles were random however they were fixed.
most significant deception involved was leading the participants to believe that the shocks were real when they were intact fake
SITUATIONAL VARIABLES OF OBEDIENCE
proximity
in milligrams study, the teacher and learner were in adjoining rooms, so the teacher could hear the learner but not see him.
when they were in the same room the obedience rate dropped from 65% to 40%
in another variation, the teacher had to force the learners hand onto a electroshock plate, in this condition the obedience rate dropped a further 30%.
in another variation- the experimenter left the room and gave the instructions via telephone. In this remote condition, a further reduction in obedience to 20.5%.
location
in one variationhe conducted the study in a rundown building, obedience fell to 47.5%.
Uniform
one variation he was called away because of an inconvenient telephone call and the experimenter was taken over by a member of the public in regular clothes. obedience dropped to 20%.
EVALUATION
lacks internal validity
even more likely that participants in milgrams variations realised it was faked because of the extra manipulation- especially the uniform variable.
even milgram recognised this situation was so contrived that some participants may have worked out the truth.
limitation as its nuclear whether the results are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS OF OBEDIENCE
agentic state
a person does not take responsibility for what they are doing, they believe they are acting for someone else- as an agent. they experience high anxiety- but feel powerless to disobey.
autonomous state- person feeling free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility
shift from autonomy to agency is the agent shift. occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority. when one person is in charge, others defer to this person and shift from autonomy to agency.
binding factors- most of participants spoke as if they wanted to wait but were unable to. this is because of binding factors- aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour. thus reducing the 'moral strain'.
for example, milgram attempted to shift the responsibility onto the victim- he was foolish to volunteer.
DISPOSITIONAL EXPLANATIONS OF OBEDIENCE
legitimacy of authority
certain people hold authority over us. most of us accept that they can exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly.
one of the consequences of this is that some people are granted the power to punish others. we learn acceptance of legitimacy of authority from childhood from our parents, teachers etc.
destructive authority
problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive. ordering people to behave in ways that are callous, cruel and stupid and dangerous. Destructive authority was shown in Milgrams study by using prods.
EVALUATION
cultural differences
countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient. Milgrams study was replicated in Australia and found that only 16% of their participants went al, the way to the top of the voltage scale. Mantell found that in Germany 85% did. shows that in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate. Cross sutural research increase the validity of the explanation.
evaluation
agent shift doesn't explain many of the research findings, it does not explain why some of the participants did not obey. ageing shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
authoritarian personality
ADORNO- investigated the cases of obedient personality in a study of more then 2000 white middle class Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. developed several scales to investigate this. (F-scale)
FINDINGS
people with authoritarian leanings identified with strong people an were contemptuous of the weak. they were very conscious of their own and others status, showing excessive respect to those of higher status.
cognitive style- fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other grouo. strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
Authoritarian characteristics.
tendency to be especially obident to authority. they have an extreme respect for authority and submissiveness to it. highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender. view society as going to the dogs- therefore believe we need strong and powerful leaders.everything is either right or wrong0 very uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Evaluation
this link is a correlation between obedience and authoritarian personality- two measured variables. makes it impossible to draw the conclusion that authoritarian personality causes obedience on the basis of this result. there may be a third factor involved.
hard to explain obedience in terms of a whole countries population. in pre war Germany- millions of individuals all displayed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic behaviour, this was despite the fact they must have differed in their personalities in all sorts of ways. extremely unlikely that they could all possess an authoritarian personality.
this is a limitation of adorns theory because it is clear that an alternative explanation is much more realistic- that social identity explains obedience.
RESISTANCE TO SOCIAL INFLUENCE
social support
conformity
social support can help people to resist conformity. the pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming
the person not conforming doesn't have to be giving the right answer but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority seems to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience.
if this non conforming person starts conforming again, so does the naive participant.
Obedience
the pressure obey can be reduced if there is another person who is seen to disobey. in one of milgrams variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate.
locus of control.
concept concerned with internal control versus external control.
internals believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves, whereas externals have a tendency to believe that things happen without their control.
resistance to social influence
people with an internal LOC are more likely to be able to resist pressures to conform- if a person takes personal responsibility for their actions then they are more likely to base their decision on their own beliefs and thus resist pressures from others
people with high internal LOC ted to be more self confident, more achievement oriented, have higher intelligence and have less need for social approval. these personality traits lead ro greater resistance to social influence.
EVALUATION
resistance to conformity
allen and levine found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch-type study. This occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision. supports the view that resistance s not just motivated by. following what someone else says but it enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group.
EVALUATION
he found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. internals showed greater resistance to authority. increases the validity of the LOC explanation.
MINORITY INFLUENCE
refers to situations where one person or a small group of people influences the beliefs and behaviour of the people. This is distinct from conformity where the majority is doing the influencing.
CONSISTENCY- consistency in the minority's views increases the interest of the majority, This consistency might be the agreement between people in the minority group, or they may be saying thee same thing over an amount of time. Makes others rethink their own point of view.
COMMITMENT- sometimes minorities engage in. extreme activities to draw attention to their views. this demonstrates commitment and majority group members pay more attention. augmentation principle
FLEXIBILITY
FLEXIBILITY members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt and accept reasonable and valid counter arguments- repeating the same argument and behaviours can be seen s rigid and inflexible.
process of change- if your hear something new you might think about it- especially if the source is consistent and passionate. over time increasing number changes from majority to minority- snowball effect, gradually the minority becomes the majority.
EVALUATION
six people asked to identify between green and blur slides, in each group there was 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green on two thirds of the trials. 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial.
a second group was exposed to an inconsistent minority and the agreement fell to 1.25%. in a control group with no confederates they got this wrong on just 0.25% of the trial.
wood et al carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were see as constant were most influential. this suggests that consistently is a major factor in minority influence.
artificial tasks. a limitation of minority influence is that the tasks involved lack external validity as they are not reflective of real life.
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