1. The Authoritarian Personality
Adorno et al 1950
The Authoritarian Personality

2. What have we done in Social Influence?
Types of conformity
Compliance- Asch
Identification- Zimbardo
Internalisation
Factors effecting conformity
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
Explanations of conformity
NSI
ISI
Conformity to social roles
Zimbardo
Obedience
Milgram
Factors effecting obedience
Proximity
Location
Power of the uniform
Situational Explanations of obedience
Agency Theory
Legitimacy of Authority

3. What do we have left in Social Influence?
Dispositional explanations of obedience
Authoritarian personality
Explanations for resistance to social influence
Social support
Locus of control
Minority influence
Moscovici’s study and behavioural styles
Social change
From a majority
From a minority

4. Whiteboards…

5. How is this relevant? My Lai Massacre, Lt. Calley
Major Trap and Polish Village

6. Summary Sheet

7. What does it mean to be right wing?

8. The California F Scale Limited version of the real scale Results
0-3 Liberal
3-4.5 normal thinking
Right Wing views
5.5+ Authoritarian Personality

9. The Authoritarian Personality
AO1…
The Authoritarian Personality
Read the information about he Authoritarian Personality.
Label the man with 6 key characteristics.
Read the excerpt from the F Scale.
Discuss the questions at the bottom together.

10. Still part of AO1… Elms and Milgram 1966 Procedure 20 obedient to 450V
20 defiant at some point
Personality questionnaire and F Scale, open qs about feelings towards parents and those in the study.
Findings
Obedient less close to fathers, more negative. Admired experimenter, much less for learner.
Not the case for defiant
Conclusion
More authoritarian=more obedient
Elms and Milgram 1966
Still part of AO1…

11. Evaluation- in groups. Annotate.
Can’t explain widespread obedience
Can’t explain other variations by Milgram based on situations
Could be education or left wing instead?
Middendorp ’90- Less educated more obedient
Begue et al 14- replication of Milgram in a game show then World Values Survey. Left less obedient.
Evaluation- in groups. Annotate.

12. Resistance to Social Influence
Social support
Conformity
Obedience
Locus of Control
Internal
External

13. Social Support- Conformity and Obedience
What do we mean by this?
What did Asch find about this?
What did Milgram find about this?
Why do you think it helps people to resist influence?

14. Evaluation of Social Support
3689dk
Rosentrasse ’43 in 1943 German women protested here in Berlin where the Gestapo were holding 2000 Jewish men because they had or were from mixed marriages.
As in Milgram, with support of peers they prevailed.
Rees and Wallace ’15 if your friends drink alcohol, you are more likely to have got drunk and binged in last 2 months BUT you are more likely to resist this if there was a non-drinking ally.
Consistent with the lab studies, social support explains resistance.

15. Locus of Control Take Add up Call While Take the test
While you are waiting complete the information on the sheet using p.30
Call
Call them out
Add up
Add up your scores
Take
Take the test

16. It’s not my fault!!

17. Evaluation- Locus of Control
Cant explain Rosentrasse or any widespread actions of obedience or defiance.
Why not?
Can help to identify social trends.
Twenge ’04, meta analysis. Steadily more external in young people since Rely on luck and others. Likely due to alienation.

18. Behavioural Types for an effective conversion from majority to minority viewpoint
Consistency- presses majority to look more closely at arguments.
Commitment- certainty and confidence against hostility and great costs
Flexibility- need to negotiate with powerful majority to avoid appearing dogmatic but without being inconsistent
Explanation
Real Life Examples
Minority Influence

19. Moscovici et al. (1969) Blue-Green Study
Type of Experiment:
Control Variable:
Aim:
Design:
Moscovici et al. (1969) Blue-Green Study
Aimed to investigate the effects of a consistent minority on a majority. Moscovici (1969) conducted a re-run of Asch’s experiment, but in reverse. Instead of one subject amongst a majority of confederates, he placed two confederates together with four genuine participants. The participants were first given eye tests to ensure they were not color-blind. Placed in a group consisting of four participants and two confederates. They were shown 36 slides which were clearly different shades of blue and asked to state the color of each slide out loud. In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. They were totally consistent in their responses. In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. In this case they were inconsistent in their answers.
In condition one it was found that the consistent minority had an affect on the majority (8.42%) compared to an inconsistent minority (only 1.25% said green). A third (32%) of all participants judged the slide to be green at least once.
A third (32%) of al participants judged the slide to be green at least once.
Minorities can influence a majority, but not all the time and only when they behave in certain ways (e.g. consistent behavior style).
The study used the lab experiments – i.e. are the results true to real life (ecological validity)? Also Moscovici used female students as participants (i.e. unrepresentative sample), so it would be wrong to generalize his result to all people – they only tell us about the behavior of female students.
Findings about inconsistency:
Findings about consistency:
IV:
DV:
Conclusion:
Evaliation:

20. Evaluation- Minority Influence
Too Simplistic- minorities more about size, oppression e.g. Sufragettes
Low Ecological Validity, not like real minority group although well controlled
Acceptance or Tolerance? Nemeth’10 claims that people listen on the surface but eventually become irritated by the dissenters and don’t want the disharmony or ridicule of being ‘deviant’.

21. Social Influences Processes in Social Change
Minority influence
Majority influence

22. What is social change

23. Change through minority influence
Draw attention
Cognitive Conflict
Consistency
Augmentation Principle
Snowball Effect

24. Change through majority influence
Most of us don’t drink and drive

25. Evaluation Minority Very challenging, often gradual e.g. suffragettes
Seen as deviant, e.g. gay rights 60s but the Communist Manifesto
Majority
Boomerang Effect, Shultz ’07 dragging down majority.
Doesn’t always work, DeJong ’09 and drinking