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Social Influence - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Laboratory experiment
    - - Opportunity sampling
    - - experimenter
      - 47-year-old accountant (learner)
        
        Mr Wallace
    - - 40 men aged 20-50
    - - 2
        
        3
        
        4
        
        5
        
        If the teacher said he wished to stop
        
        the experimenter used a sequence of 4 standard 'prods'
        
        4 more items...
        
        After the 315-volt shock
        
        learner pounded on the wall again
        
        made no other response to further questions
        
        shocks reached 300 volts
        
        learner pounded on the wall
        
        then gave no response to the next question
        
        teacher was given a slight shock of 45 volts
        
        demonstration that the machine was working
      - naïve ppts + confederate drew lots to choose who would be the:
        learner
        teacher
        
        learner = confederate
        
        Listen to a list of word pairs
        
        then be given one word and a choice of 4 possible answers
        
        having to say which answer was correct
        
        Would pretend to receive an electric shock every time they answered incorrectly
        
        teacher = ppt
        
        Administer shocks of increasing voltage every time
        
        the learner answered incorrectly
  - - - 22.5%
    - - sweat
      - tremble
      - stutter
      - bite their lips
      - groaning
      - dig their finger-nails into their flesh'
      - nervous laughing from tension
    - - 65%
  - - - AND
        
        what conditions foster obedient and independent behaviour
  - - - even if it means harming others
  - - - holding
        
        OR
        
        believed to be holding
        
        a position of authority
  - - - Hofling (1966)
        
        Procedure
        
        Findings
        
        Conclusions
        
        In real life
        
        Docs cary
        
        3 more items...
        
        21/22 obeyed
        
        They said that they often were given instructions by telephone
        
        AND
        
        1 more item...
        
        22 nurses in hospital ring by unknown doc
        
        told them they’d sign paperowkr later
        
        asked them to administed drugs to patient
        
        breaking hospitals rules of
        
        2 more items...
    - - Orne and Holland (1968)
        
        Lacked mundane realism
        
        observed obedience was due to the nature of the experiment
        
        in which participants naturally go along w/ an experiment
        
        Participants also got paid
        
        more likely to obey when they wouldn't irl
        
        1 more item...
    - - Didn't lack experimental realism
        
        ppts show signs of extreme tension
        
        groaning
        
        unlikley to occur if they hadn’t honestly believed in this sutuation
        
        supported by the idea that ppts must have believed the task
        
        SINCE
        
        1 more item...
        
        trembling
        
        sweating
- - - - Adorno suggested that some people have an authoritarian personality
        
        making them more likely to be obedient
        
        concluded that obedience was a consequence of
        
        early childhood experiences
        
        and resulting personality
    - - Intolerance of ambiguity
      - Submissive attitudes towards authority figures
        
        WITH
        
        Resentment to them
      - General hostility towards other groups
        
        ESPEICALLY
        
        if they sit below them hierarchially
        
        Resentment of authority placed onto them
      - Rigid beliefs in conventional values
    - - personality is a result of early childhood experiences
        
        experiences may lead to unresolved conflicts
        
        end up pushed into the unconscious but still cause anxiety
        
        Defence mechanisms are used to deal with this anxiety
      - harsh, strict, disciplinarian parents would result in a child having an authoritarian personality
        
        child feels hostility to parents
        
        BUT
        
        cannot express this because it provokes too much anxiety
        
        child behaves submissively to parents as a consequence
        
        person will be submissive to authority figures later in life
        
        1 more item...
        
        Expect highly of their child
        
        Overbearing dictatorial parents
        
        discourage
        
        expression
        
        free will
        
        free choice
        
        Exert strong discipline at home
      - Love by these disciplinarian parents tends to be conditional
    - - Formed a questionnaire
        
        F-scale
        
        measures degree of authoritarian personality
        
        Fixed responses on scale w/ range:
        
        Disagree strongly
        
        TO
        
        Agree Strongle
      - 2000+ middle class white americans complete it
        
        Analysis of results completed
        
        Characteristics
        
        Process
  - - - not all of Milgram's participants went up to the highest voltage (35% didn't)
  - - - scales Adorno used were constructed so
        
        agreement indicated authoritarianism
        
        lead to an acquiescent response set
        
        tendency to agree with the remainder of the items
        
        REGARDLESS
        
        of their content
        
        1 more item...
      - biased original sample
        
        white, middle-class, non-Jewish Americans
        
        What about the
        
        black low class African Americans?
      - was the use of retrospective questions about childhood
        
        OPPOSED TO
        
        actual observations
        
        how accurate are such memories?
        
        ALSO
        
        social desirability bias
      - Overall lowered external validity
    - - link between the personality type and obedience is only correlational and not causational
        
        means there could be other factors causing the obedience
        
        Research suggests that
        
        less educated people are more likely to have an authoritarian personality
        
        than well educated ppl
        
        implies that the authoritarian personality is not the only factor which can explain obedience
        
        HOWEVER
        
        when education levels are the same amongst ppts there still remains a proportion which is still obedient
    - - Milgram and Elms selected the 20 most obedient and defiant ppts from a repeat of Milgram
        
        interviewed them afterwards
        
        they used the F-scale
        
        found that ppts who went to 450V had
        
        higher F-scale scores than those who didn't
        
        showing that these types of people are more prone to obey.
        
        1 more item...
- - - - 10
      - Location
    - - 13
      - Uniform
    - - 7
      - Proximity
  - - - Occured in a
        
        Run-down office block
        
        downtown shopping district of Bridgeport
        
        industrial city near Yale University
      - Og location was at a prestigious university
        
        leading to many participants to
        
        trust the
        integrity and competence
        of the experimenter
      - Ppts told study was ran by
        
        private firm conducting research for the industry
- - - - ISI
        
        Festinger (1954)
        
        Social Comparison Theory
        
        people are in an unfamiliar situation
        
        observe and evaluate the behaviours of others
        
        figure out the correct way to act and think
        
        1 more item...
      - NSI
        
        Linkenbach and Perkins (2003)
        
        found adolescents who were exposed to the simple message that
        
        most ppl their age didn't smoke
        
        subsequently
        
        were less likely to start smoking
        
        1 more item...
    - - found
        
        when ppts did a line comparison task w/ confederates giving wrong ans
        
        on 12/18 critical trials
        
        some conformed
        
        AFTERWARDS INTERVIEWED
        
        said
        
        1 more item...
    - - oversimplifies how social influence impacts people
        
        These 2 expnations are seemingly indepnendent from one another
        
        AS
        
        confirmity stems from either NSI or ISI
        
        HOWEVER
        
        suggestion they work together in influencing levels of confmity
        
        1 more item...
  - - - Publically ONLY
        
        no change to their private beliefs
        
        Behavioural changes are only in public
    - - individual feels similar to the majority
        
        OR
        
        majority is a group that they want to belong to
        
        SO
        
        will occur w/ strangers where you may feel concern about rejection
        
        More pronounced in stressful situations
        
        1 more item...
    - - No
        
        Temporary change
        
        change will be temporary
        
        ndividual will go back to their original behaviour
    - - Compliance
    - - Norms
        
        conforming to majority behaviour
        
        SO
        
        fit in with the group
        
        they avoid group rejection
  - - - question asked has no obviously correct answer
        
        OR
        
        person being asked doesn't know what the ans is
        
        SO
        
        they look to others for this information
    - - Privatley
        
        Behavioural changes will be seen in both settings
      - Publially
    - - Yes
        
        ISI is Permanent change
        
        as individual continues to show this changed behaviour
        
        EVEN AFTER
        
        the social influence is removed
    - - Humans' basic need to feel
        
        confident that their ideas and beliefs are correct
    - - Internalisation
- - - - new behaviours to fit in a group
    - - People tend to conform to larger groups
  - - - Involves surface level superficial changes
      - Ceases to exist when not with the group
    - - BUT
        
        Disagreeing in private & having own opinions privately
  - - - Internalising the groups norms
    - - Involves long term changes to ones life
      - Remains once group is gone
- - - - Cultural differences
        
        Legitimacy of authority can explain cultural differences in obedience
        
        Some countries are less hierarchical than others
        
        SO
        
        some countries are less likely to regularly accept authorities as:
        
        legitimate
        
        1 more item...
        
        entitled to obedience
        
        1 more item...
      - serves as a basis to justify destructive or immoral behaviours and actions
        
        history shows us examples
        
        Jonestown in 1976
        
        918 people committed mass suicide
        
        AS
        
        willingly following cult leader, Jim Jones
        
        1 more item...
        
        INCLUDING UNWILLING NON CONSENTING CHILDREN
        
        SHOWING
        
        how when there is a legitimate authority
        
        people will remove their self from their own morals
        
        1 more item...
      - Real World Application
        
        plane accidents
        
        Tarnow (2000)
        
        studied aviation accidents
        
        used black box recordings of accidents
        
        where crew actions were a contributing factor
        
        1 more item...
    - - perception of legitimate authority
    - - by those we perceive as trustworthy authority figures
        
        Teachers
        
        Parents
      - Being socialised into obedience from a young age creates
        
        ingrained habit of obedience
        
        ESPECIALLY
        
        when the authority figure(s) are seen as legitimate
    - - physical environment
        
        They CONFER AUTHORITY
      - Uniforms
    - - Their perceived position in the social hierarchy
        
        therefore social hierachies MUST be present for this explanation to occur
      - acceptance of authority can be good
        
        It enables societies to function smoothly
    - - says it's acceptable or right
        
        THEN
        
        they will go along with what's happening
      - much more likely that potentially harmful commands will be obeyed if
        
        they're said to be
        
        acceptable
        
        By the authorities
        
        correct
      - It is easier to just obey
        
        OPPOSE TO
        
        questioning authorities motivations behind an action/order
        
        Lacking Obedience risks
        
        Punishment
        
        These are BINDING FACTORS to obedience
        
        withdrawal of social approval
      - If someone in authority tells you to do something it is safer to do it
        
        THEN
        
        risk the consequences
  - - - Application
        
        Knowing the effect that authority figures can have has useful applications.
        
        explains day-to-day actions
        
        such as why ppl at work might believe that
        
        needs of their companies is above their own needs
        
        which can account for people insisting on going to work when they are unwell
        
        helps understand how normal ppl can be involved in atrocities
        
        many cases of obedience with terrible outcomes
        
        My Lai massacre 1968
        
        US soldiers obeyed the orders of their commander
        
        At trail soldiers
        
        1 more item...
        
        Agency theory can help us to understand these cases
        
        AND
        
        how to avoid such events
        
        US army
        
        has courses on Milgram and obedience
        
        1 more item...
      - Blass & Schmitt (2001)
        
        showed a film of Milgram's study to students
        
        asked them to ID who they thought was responsible
        
        for the harm inflicted on Mr Wallace.
        
        students blamed the 'experimenter' rather than the ppts
        
        students indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority
        
        'experimenter' was top of the hierarchy,
        
        =
        
        1 more item...
        
        AND
        
        2 more items...
      - Mandel (1998)
        
        cases of obedience that agency theory cannot explain
        
        Mandel (1998)
        
        incident w/ German Reserve Police Battalion 101
        
        during WW2
        
        Members of battalion given orders to shoot civilians in a small Polish town
        
        1 more item...
    - - social rules are needed to maintain a stable society
        
        we sacrifice some of our free will to follow them
        
        we're socialised to develop the capacity to enter an agentic state
        
        to act in the best interests of society by obeying authority.
    - - agentic:
        
        give up our free will and act on behalf of the wider group
      - autonomous state
        
        act as we wish to, according to our own free will or conscience
    - - acting as an agent for someone else's will
        
        NOT
        
        according to your own conscience
    - - dont feel responsible for what they do
        
        SINCE
        
        they don't feel as if their acts are their own
        
        SO
        
        they stop acting according to their consciences
    - - is not an unfeeling puppet
        
        they experience moral strain
        
        once they realise that what they're doing is wrong
        
        Seen in Milgram
        
        To reduce this moral strain the agentic state person will
        
        deny damage they inflicted upon the victim
        
        shifting responsibility to the victim
    - - someone else is seen as a legitimate authority figure
        
        SO
        
        they defer to them
    - - guilt OR remorse
        
        due to contravening our self-set standards
    - - Binding factors
        
        to disobey
        
        ppts must break the social commitment made to the authority
        
        presenting risks and concequences
        
        withdrawl of social approval
        
        punishment