...theories on social influence. Two in particular are Asch and Moscovici. These talked about the majority influence and the minority influence. Solomon Asch conducted an experiment in 1951 to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. He showed the participants 3 lines and asked them which line had the same length as the one he had presented. Only one of the participants weren't collaborating with the researcher whilst the others had to say a wrong answer. Even though it was obvious which lines were the same, after hearing the collaborators say their wrong answers, the participants found themselves in a conflict whether they should give the same answer as the others even if it was wrong or say the right one. 75% of the participants gave into the group pressure at least once whilst 37% conformed on all trials. He found out that apparently people conform for two main reasons, because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence). Asch had assumed that the participants would be able to say the truth. However, about 70% of the participants went against the majority at least in one of the trials. They also had a strong conflict because they wanted to be like the rest of the group. Most gave both wrong and right answers to avoid being ridiculed but at the same time show perceptual accuracy. Minority influence is a form...
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...[pic] Definition “Conformity is a type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to adhere to existing social norms” Baron et al, 2006 Explanation of social norms (you must learn this for small mark answer) ➢ Social norms are one of the key causes of why people conform to the majority view. ➢ Social norms (group norms) are the standard rules of behaviour for individuals in any given society/culture. ➢ Unspoken rules develop spontaneously, unconsciously usually through force of habit and if you do not conform to these rules you will be excluded… ➢ For example, behaviour at a bus stop, the type of clothes that are popular, the type of drinks to be drinking, the type of music to listen to, the places to travel in the world Jenness (1932) The first informal experimental study of conformity where participants were asked to estimate how many beans the bottle contained. When asked for a group estimate they almost all changed their individual guesses closer to the group estimate. This persisted when asked again individually. They conformed. NB: Remember for every study in this topic and obedience try to give a methodological and ethical issue (or advantage) for each study |Methodological issues |Ethical issues | | ...
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...Social Influence Social facilitation – The tendency for people to perform better on tasks in the presence of people than when alone. Triplett 1898 found that cyclists rode faster when racing together than when alone because of the competitive element. He also tests this with children and how long it took them to turn a fishing wheel 150 times. Sometimes they were alone and sometimes together, and found that many children worked in co-action CO-ACTION- people working together on the same task. Allport also found college students work in co action completing more multiplication problems together and when Chen looked at ants he found they dig 3 times as faster Allport said that competition is not always affects us if we do better and that sometimes it could just be the presence of an audience that could result in social facilitation. Though audience effect could also affect people in a negative way and cause them to do worse, this is known as social inhibition. AUIDENCE EFFECT – the impact of the individual task performance of the presence of an audience SOCIAL INHIBTION- The tendency for an individual to perform less well in the presence of others than when alone. AROUSAL THEORY OF SOCIAL FACILIATION Zajonc said that arousal acts as a drive that will bring out the most dominant response. In an easy or well-practised task our dominant responses tend to be correct so social facilitation occurs but in a unfamiliar task the dominant responses tend to be incorrect so social...
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...The Polish gestalt psychologist, Solomon Asch was born in the city of Warsaw on September 14th, 1907. At the age of thirteen, his family immigrated to the United States, in which he resides for the rest of his life. Being mostly known for his contributions in social psychology and his experiments on conformity through the Asch Conformity Experiments, he set the foundation for the elaboration of social psychology today. Before the numerous contributions to the field of psychology, Asch went through quite a long journey of education. Asch graduated from the City College of New York in 1928, where he earned his Bachelor of Science. Although he majored in both literature and science, his interests in psychology only became apparent towards the...
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...Social influences as the process where other individuals influence another individuals every day, thoughts, behavior and even emotions (Gray & Bjorklund, 2014). When social influences change an individual’s willingness towards a behavior or belief, it means the individual has conformed. When individuals conform in order to fit within group norms in order to feel liked or accepted, is referred as normative conformity. Informational influence occurs when individuals conform to others belief or choices because, individuals believe that others have information which the person was not aware of. Both of these types of conformity can be observed in common everyday life scenarios. Informational influence can be a way of sharing information, children...
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...Social influence is the change in the way that an individual behave, think or comport themselves that occur when they relate or interact with another individual or groups of individuals (Rashotte, 2007, p.562). These changes may be deliberate or sometimes occur subconsciously and the individual in question may not be aware of them (Wood, 2000). There are various forms of social influence among which the most important and widely recognised ones are conformity and obedience. They are concepts that put into perspective how individuals’ behaviours are affected or influenced in a group or social circumstances. This essay looks to explore compliance and obedience in detail. It may seem sometimes these two concepts might be slightly similar in how they affect behaviour in such situations; however they are not to be confused for each other. This essay aims to clarify such perception and distinctively point out the similarities and differences between these two concepts by exploring how they come about and factors that influence them using relevant research evidence. Conformity can be defined as the inclination by individuals to modify their attitudes or manner of behaving to suit that of the social standards. It simply means to succumb to pressures of the society (Crutchfield, 1955) However, it does not necessarily mean that their opinion or perception has changed; it simply means that they have changed their behaviour just for the purpose of being considered acceptable by the society...
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...12 Angry Men: An Illustration of Concepts of Organisational Behaviour Introduction In 1957 Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men was published (Lumet, 1957). Now, 55 years later, the movie’s teachings still hold most of their truths. The events shown in the movie can be scientifically explained using concepts of organisational behaviour. Although some of these concepts did not even exist by the time the movie was made, the movie still is an excellent case to study and illustrate them. The reason for this is the isolation of the movie’s characters. All events in the movie are triggered by the characters only. There are no external influences nor is there the possibility for the characters to leave the scene. This essay will apply concepts of organizational behaviour to events of the movie. Particular attention will be paid to the concepts of perception, attribution biases, decision making, leadership and group dynamics. In order to do so, the essay will move along the plot of the movie and apply concepts where there are fit. None the less for the purpose of referencing a brief introduction to the movie and its characters is given here: The plot of 12 Angry Men describes the events that take place as a jury has come to a unanimous decision. The defendant is accused of homicide. If the jury decides upon a verdict of ‘guilty’ the judge will inevitably sentence the accused to death penalty. In the beginning all jurors but juror no. 8 are willing to verdict ‘guilty’ without debating. However...
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...Communicating the Value of Psychology Position Paper Nagle Catholic College Danni Carroll “Psychology is the scientific study of how we think, feel and act. It aims to answer important questions such as what motivates people to behave the way they do and what factors influence the way they think, feel and behave as they grow up and develop” (Fletcher and Garton, 2007). Psychology is applied to society as a whole; it can help us understand how we as individuals can function as members of society and the values and attitudes to things such as Culture, Social values and practices and Social, Historical and Political Influences. Psychology studies have also taken us into the minds of others and how they react to certain situations; from this psychologists have created the areas of Social Psychology, Relational Influences and Communication that their studies fall under. The study of psychology also lets us find out more about ourselves as individuals such as our Biological Influences, Cognition, Developmental and Personality (Fletcher and Garton 2007). This position paper is aimed at a year 12 Psychology class studying 3AB Psychology: Self, Others and Society. The class consists 17 students with the majority of the students being female and aged 16-17. The purpose of this paper is to provide the students with a clearer understanding of the Psychology areas of Self, Others and Society. Case Study 1 – Personality Personality is defined as the characteristics of a person...
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...Peer pressure From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Peer pressure is influence that a peer group, observers or individual exerts that encourages others to change their attitudes, values, or behaviors to conform the group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, in which individuals are "formally" members (such as political parties and trade unions), or social cliques in which membership is not clearly defined. A person affected by peer pressure may or may not want to belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group's behaviors.[citation needed] Contents [hide] 1 In Youth 2 Asch conformity 3 The Third Wave 4 Neural mechanisms 5 Explanation 6 References In Youth[edit] Peers become an important influence on behavior during adolescence, and peer pressure has been called a hallmark of adolescent experience.[1][2] Peer conformity in young people is most pronounced with respect to style, taste, appearance, ideology, and values.[3] Peer pressure is commonly associated with episodes of adolescent risk taking (such as delinquency, drug abuse, sexual behaviors,[4] and reckless driving) because these activities commonly occur in the company of peers.[2] Affiliation with friends who engage in risk behaviors has been shown to be a strong predictor of an adolescent's own behavior.[5] Peer pressure can also have positive effects when youth are pressured...
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...according to how those in the group behave. That indicates that conformity can affect a person’s behavior and make a person do things that may be against their ethics, attitudes, and morals. The study of conformity was first studied in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. His experiments were very important to the study of conformity. Asch wanted to find out how conformity could influence behavior. He did not want to focus on the general concepts like ethics, morals, attitudes, and belief systems. Instead, he focused on a more obvious concept which was perceptional conformity. Since he performed the experiment on a simple task, he was able to study conformity in a controlled environment. Asch wanted to apply group pressure to the experiment so he could manipulate a person’s behavior. For the experiment, he made three pairs of cards with three different lengths of vertical lines on one side. On the other side, there was a single line that was the same length ... Conformity and Obedience in Society The desire to be accepted and belong to a group is an undeniable human need. But how does this need affect an individual? Social psychologists have conducted numerous experiments and concluded that, through various forms of social influence, groups can change their members’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In her essay “Group Minds,” Doris Lessing discusses our paradoxical ability to...
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...AS Psychology - Unit Two Social Psychology Social Influence Student workbook Name: .................................................................................. Form: ................................................................................... Teacher: .............................................................................. Specification requirements Social psychology Candidates will be expected to demonstrate: • Knowledge and understanding of concepts, theories and studies in relation to individual differences • Skills of analysis, evaluation and application in relation to individual differences • Knowledge and understanding of research methods associated with this area of psychology • Knowledge and understanding of ethical issues associated with this area of psychology. |Content outline | |Social influence |Conformity (majority influence) and explanations of why people conform, including informational | | |social influence and normative social influence | | | | | |Types...
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...Social Influence Conformity 3 types of conformity - Kelman Compliance – privately disagreeing, but publicly going along with the group behaviour or attitudes. Identification – a temporary change in beliefs and behaviour while you remain a member of the group. Includes private and public change of belief. Internalisation – a permanent change in beliefs and behaviour. Conformity is more likely in ambiguous situations (where there is no obvious answer) Implicit norm – normal patterns of behaviour generally understood by all egg personal space, lining up for food/ toilets. Explicit norms – normal patterns of behaviour that are enforced by written guidelines or signs etc some become law. (No smoking signs, speed signs) Sherif – auto kenetic light effect 2 reasons why we conform. Duel Process model both process at the same time Asch 1951 Conformity in an unambiguous situation. Ao1 Describe Asch’s aims, findings, conclusions Ao2/3 Evaluate Asch’s experiment. Consider strengths/limitations of using a lab experiment. Consider S/L of Asch’s research in terms of culture, time-historical consider ethical issues. Aims To investigate if people gave in to conformity even when the answer is obvious, which is called unambiguous. To investigate normative social influence. Findings His findings showed that 32% of critical trials where a participant confirmed. 75% of the participants confirmed...
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...Century The desire to be accepted and belong to a group is an undeniable human need. But how does this need affect an individual? Social psychologists have conducted numerous experiments and concluded that, through various forms of social influence, groups can change their members' thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In her essay "Group Minds," Doris Lessing discusses our paradoxical ability to call ourselves individuals and our inability to realize that groups define and influence us. We, as humans, hold individualism in the highest regard yet fail to realize that groups diminish our individuality. Lessing writes, "when we're in a group, we tend to think as that group does... but we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group" (p. 334). Groups have the tendency to generate norms, or standards for behavior in certain situations. Not following these norms can make you stand out and, therefore, groups have the ability to influence our thoughts and actions in ways that are consistent with the groups'. Lessing's essay helps set the context to understand the experiments that social psychologists Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo conducted to explain conformity and obedience. Solomon Asch's experiment in "Opinions and Social Pressure" studied a subject's ability to yield to social pressure when placed within a group of strangers. His research helped illustrate how groups encourage conformity. During a typical experiment...
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...Outline and evaluate explanations of conformity. (12 marks) Normative social influence says people conform because they feel they need to be accepted and belong to the group. They accept the majorities’ views publicly, but privately they disagree – this type of conformity is compliance. The majority control the other group members, and use the fear of rejection to get others to conform. This is because humans are a social species and need companionship and are afraid of rejection. Research to support this explanation comes from Asch’s experiment, where participants knew the group was wrong privately but chose to conform in order to be accepted. This suggests that normative social influence is a valid theory of why people conform as it states we conform to be part of a social group, not because they believe the group to be right. On the other hand, in real life they aren’t part of that social group so don’t fear rejection, so factors other than the group may influence conformity. Another explanation of why people conform is informational social influence, where the individual changes their opinion both publicly and privately, which is described as internalisation. They do this as they believe the group are right. Conformity tends to increase when the situation is ambiguous, in matters of crisis or if they feel others are better qualified to make decisions. Fein et al found that participant’s opinions of political candidates in a debate were influenced by the reaction...
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...A research done in conformity was conducted by Sherif. He did a lab experiment where he asked participants to watch a non-moving light in a dark room. The light appeared to move when in fact it was a visual illusion. Participants were asked to estimate the movement of the light alone and then in groups of three. He found that when participants were asked to estimate the movement of the light alone there was a variation in answers. However, when they were in groups of three participants changed their answers to give an average of their individual estimates. A criticism of Sherif’s study is that its low in ecological validity, for example the task that participants were asked to do is not a task you would do in everyday life. Therefore we may not be able to generalise these results to real life situations in which people conform to a majority. Another criticism of Sherif’s study is that it raises ethical issues, for example participants were deceived as they were not told the truth about the light not moving. Therefore this can lead to the participants feeling stressed as they try to find out the answer. This would raise another ethical issue as Sherif has not protected his participants from harm therefore this shows that Sherif is valuing his experiment more than his participants. Another criticism to Sherif’s study is that the answer to the task is ambiguous; for example, we don’t know whether the participants conformed to others due to them generally being affected by...
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