Social Psychology:
• Social psychology – the study of how people’s behaviour and attitudes are
influenced by the actual or imagined presence of other people.
• Social group – a group of two or more people who interact together, share things in
common and share a common identity.
• Social norm – Unwritten rules for how all members of a social group are expected
to behave.
• Social role – The behaviours and beliefs expected of a person with a particular
position in a social group.
Conformity:
• Private attitude – A person’s genuine beliefs or feelings about something.
• Public attitude – What a person tells others they believe or feel.
• Conformity – When a person’s private or public attitude is influenced by the
majority.
Types of conformity:
• Compliance – When a person conforms publicly but not privately to be accepted by
a group and avoid social rejection, short-lived, weakest form.
• Identification - When a person conforms to be like a role model or social role that
they admire, conform privately and publicly, their attitudes don’t last forever and
depend on admiring the social role or role model, moderate form.
• Internalisation – When a person conforms privately and publicly because they’re
persuaded that the attitudes of the majority are correct, long-lasting, strong form.
The Stanford Prison experiment:
• Aim – To investigate if prison brutality happens because of the guards’ and
prisoners' personality or because they’re conforming to social roles.
• Procedure – Turned the basement of Stanford University into a mock prison,
recruited 75 male university students through a newspaper advert, 24 were chosen
after physical and psychological evaluation, randomly allocated the position guard
or prisoner, the prisoners were arrested, fingerprinted, stripped of their clothes and
made to dress like prisoners, guards were dressed in uniform, reflective sunglasses
and were given handcuffs and bats, participants were put in a controlled
environment and observed, a controlled overt observation.
• Findings – Prisoners tried to rebel but guards crushed their rebellion using brutal
methods, prisoners were dehumanised and stripped of their clothes, guards
, taunted prisoners by giving them useless tasks, those who protested were punished
with solitary confinement and made to sleep on the floor, those who sided with the
guards were given special privileges, prisoners became more submissive and went
crazy, some had to be released after fits of hysteria and another went on a hunger
strike, after 6 days Zimbardo’s girlfriend asked him to stop the experiment instead
of the original 14 days.
• Conclusion – Prison violence is caused by people conforming to the social roles of
prisoners and guards, because violence is seen when normal people are put into
prisoners, when normal men were given new social roles that gave them more
power and encouraged violent behaviour they became more brutal, behaviour is
driven by the situation not personality.
Standford prison experiment evaluation:
• Unethical – Zimbardo put his participants through stress; But he didn’t know the
study would go so badly and stopped the study once it got out of control.
• Generalisability – Zimbardo only recruited people from one group in society; But
his study does explain real-life conformity to social roles .
• Ecological validity – People might not have taken the experiment seriously; But
90% of participants conversations in the study were about life in prison.
• Investigator bias – Zimbardo played the role of warden in his experiment.
Variables that effect conformity:
• Group size – The size of the majority group affects how likely a person is to conform,
bigger group size: more likely to conform.
• Unanimity – How close a group is to having the same attitude, higher unanimity:
more likely to conform.
• Task difficulty – When a person is unsure about the answer and it’s less obvious
what’s right or wrong, more difficult task: more likely to conform.
Explanations for conformity:
• Normative social influence (NSI) - People conform to feel ‘normal’ and be
accepted, public and private attitudes don’t match.
• Evaluation – It can explain conformity by compliance, explains why people conform
when social pressure is high but not low.
• Informational social influence (ISI) - People conform because they want to be
correct, they think the majority is correct, public and private attitudes match
• Social psychology – the study of how people’s behaviour and attitudes are
influenced by the actual or imagined presence of other people.
• Social group – a group of two or more people who interact together, share things in
common and share a common identity.
• Social norm – Unwritten rules for how all members of a social group are expected
to behave.
• Social role – The behaviours and beliefs expected of a person with a particular
position in a social group.
Conformity:
• Private attitude – A person’s genuine beliefs or feelings about something.
• Public attitude – What a person tells others they believe or feel.
• Conformity – When a person’s private or public attitude is influenced by the
majority.
Types of conformity:
• Compliance – When a person conforms publicly but not privately to be accepted by
a group and avoid social rejection, short-lived, weakest form.
• Identification - When a person conforms to be like a role model or social role that
they admire, conform privately and publicly, their attitudes don’t last forever and
depend on admiring the social role or role model, moderate form.
• Internalisation – When a person conforms privately and publicly because they’re
persuaded that the attitudes of the majority are correct, long-lasting, strong form.
The Stanford Prison experiment:
• Aim – To investigate if prison brutality happens because of the guards’ and
prisoners' personality or because they’re conforming to social roles.
• Procedure – Turned the basement of Stanford University into a mock prison,
recruited 75 male university students through a newspaper advert, 24 were chosen
after physical and psychological evaluation, randomly allocated the position guard
or prisoner, the prisoners were arrested, fingerprinted, stripped of their clothes and
made to dress like prisoners, guards were dressed in uniform, reflective sunglasses
and were given handcuffs and bats, participants were put in a controlled
environment and observed, a controlled overt observation.
• Findings – Prisoners tried to rebel but guards crushed their rebellion using brutal
methods, prisoners were dehumanised and stripped of their clothes, guards
, taunted prisoners by giving them useless tasks, those who protested were punished
with solitary confinement and made to sleep on the floor, those who sided with the
guards were given special privileges, prisoners became more submissive and went
crazy, some had to be released after fits of hysteria and another went on a hunger
strike, after 6 days Zimbardo’s girlfriend asked him to stop the experiment instead
of the original 14 days.
• Conclusion – Prison violence is caused by people conforming to the social roles of
prisoners and guards, because violence is seen when normal people are put into
prisoners, when normal men were given new social roles that gave them more
power and encouraged violent behaviour they became more brutal, behaviour is
driven by the situation not personality.
Standford prison experiment evaluation:
• Unethical – Zimbardo put his participants through stress; But he didn’t know the
study would go so badly and stopped the study once it got out of control.
• Generalisability – Zimbardo only recruited people from one group in society; But
his study does explain real-life conformity to social roles .
• Ecological validity – People might not have taken the experiment seriously; But
90% of participants conversations in the study were about life in prison.
• Investigator bias – Zimbardo played the role of warden in his experiment.
Variables that effect conformity:
• Group size – The size of the majority group affects how likely a person is to conform,
bigger group size: more likely to conform.
• Unanimity – How close a group is to having the same attitude, higher unanimity:
more likely to conform.
• Task difficulty – When a person is unsure about the answer and it’s less obvious
what’s right or wrong, more difficult task: more likely to conform.
Explanations for conformity:
• Normative social influence (NSI) - People conform to feel ‘normal’ and be
accepted, public and private attitudes don’t match.
• Evaluation – It can explain conformity by compliance, explains why people conform
when social pressure is high but not low.
• Informational social influence (ISI) - People conform because they want to be
correct, they think the majority is correct, public and private attitudes match
