Psychology - Paper 1

Seite 1

Conformity

Herbert Kelman:

Internalisation: a person may agree in public with a group of people but the person actually privately disagrees with the group’s viewpoint or behaviour.

Identification: publicly changing behaviour to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately

Compliance: when someone conforms to the demands of a given social role in society

Deutsch and Gerard:

Informational social influence: desire to be right

Normative social influence: desire to be liked

Asch

Procedure:

5-7 participants per group.

Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length

Only one true participant the remaining 6 were confederates, they were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails

Results:

True participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials

75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial

Evaluation

Lacks ecological validity: based on peoples’ perception of lines does not reflect the complexity of real life

Sampling issues: the study was only carried out on men so sample has gender bias and lacks population validity.

Ethical issues: there was deception as participants were told the study was about perception of lines, so there's no informed consent, they may have felt embarrassed when debriefed so could have psychological harm.

For instance some participants said they conformed to fit in with the group, this claim coincides normative influence

Variations of Asch's study

Group size:

However, conformity did not increase much after the group size was about 4/5

Conformity doesn't increase in groups larger than four - optimal group size

Task Difficulty

Asch made the lines similar in length so it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased

Unanimity

The presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity by 80%.

Zimbardo - Stanford Prison Experiment

Procedure:

He advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison

Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment

Prisoners were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only. Guards were issued a uniform so they were confidential, they worked shifts. No physical violence was permitted

Findings:

Guards adopting their roles quickly and easily and then behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner

They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They started taking the prison rules very seriously, some even internalised the rules

As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive

Evaluation:

Demand characteristics: guards later claimed they were simply acting so it has low ecological validity.

Lack population validity: only used US male students and so can not be generalised

Real life application: juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners due to the risk of violence

Ethical criticisms: there couldn't be informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment and the prisoners did not consent to being 'arrested

Seite 2

Obedience

Milgram

Procedure:

2 participants were assigned either the role of a teacher (this was always given to the true participant) or learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace).

The teacher was then asked by the experimenter to administer electric shocks to the learner each time he gave the wrong answer, from 15 - 450 volts.

He have out prods when the participant refused to administer a shock

please continue.

the experiment requires you to continue.

it is absolutely essential that you continue.

you have no other choice but to continue.

Results:

all went to 300 volts

65% were willing to go all the way to 450 volts

Evaluation

Lacked ecological validity: as it's a lab study its artificial, cannot be generalised the finding to a real life setting, as people do not usually receive orders to hurt another person in real life.

Gender bias: he only used males in his study so cannot generalised to females.

Deception: the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person, and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram's. Apparently 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment”

Protection of participants : may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands. 3Full blown seizures; one so violent that the experiment was stopped.

Explanations of obedience

Agentic state

people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

e.g. many participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he would take responsibility’

Legitimacy of Authority Figure

People tend to obey others if they recognise their authority as morally right/legally based.

e.g. Milgram was seen as having legitimate authority as he has scientific status.

Situational factors

Uniform:

Milgram’s experimenter wore a laboratory coat, but when the experimenter dressed in everyday clothes obedience was very low - 20%

Status of Location:

Milgram's obedience experiment was conducted at Yale, a prestigious university in America. When Milgram moved his experiment to a set of run down offices obedience dropped to 47.5%.

Proximity of Authority Figure:

In Milgram's study the experimenter was in the same room as the participant. When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

Dispositional factors

Authoritarian personality:

Person who favours an authoritarian social system and in particular admires obedience to authority figures and is hostile to those who are of inferior status.