Asch - Conformity
Psychologists have long been interested in conformity as a powerful influence on our behaviour, making us behave in ways that can often conflict with our attitudes and moral and ethical principles. Asch was interested in how strong the urge was to social conformity. He believed that people are manipulated by suggestion, where a person's judgment of a situation can be changed without their knowledge of it being changed first. When confronted by majority opinion, a person appears to lose their confidence and capacity to go against group pressure, and will instead conform. Sherif demonstrated that people will look to others for guidance and answer in line with the majority. Participants were tested on their estimation of how far a stationary light had moved in a dark room, and there was considerable doubt about the appropriate response, therefore Asch wanted to test in a situation where the correct answer was clearly obvious. Social Psychology offers the insight that conformity is characterized by public compliance rather than attitude change. Asch aimed to demonstrate that a significant minority of people would be willing to say that a line was the same length as another line of blatantly different length. Conformity involved many concepts such as values, beliefs, morals and ethics, but Asch was particularly interested in perceptual conformity. In a controlled laboratory
Describe and Evaluate two or more explanations of the pro-social effects of the media (24)
Describe and Evaluate two or more explanations of the pro-social effects of the media (24) One explanation of the pro-social effects of the media on behaviour comes from Bandura's Social Learning Theory. Bandura's research suggests that children learn through observing a behaviour, then later imitating it if the expectation of reward is high. For example the child needs to pay attention to a role model for example seeing a super hero, then there needs to be retention of the information into the LTM, reproduction, so the child imitates the same type of behaviour such as helping others, and finally the child needs to be motivated to imitate the behaviour such as, being the same gender. The process of social learning works in the same way for learning pro-social acts as seen on television as it does for learning anti-social acts (vicarious reinforcement). Unlike the depiction of anti-social acts, however, the depiction of pro-social acts (such as generosity or helping) is likely to be in accord with established social norms (e.g., the need to be helpful and generous to others). Assuming that these social norms have been internalised by the viewer, the imitation of these acts, therefore, is likely to be associated with the expectation of social reinforcement, and so the child is motivated to repeat these actions in their own life. Furthermore, Bandura would also suggest
Describe and Evaluate Studies on Conformity. (Key study Solomon Asch)
Name: Odesanya Atilola Class: AS Psychology group1 Key Skills Assignment Topic: Describe and Evaluate Studies on Conformity. (Key study Solomon Asch) Lecturer: Kim Weeks Conformity is defined as a change in a person's opinion or behaviour as a result of real or imagined pressure from a group of people. This pressure to act like other people sometimes, despite our true feelings and desires, is common in our everyday lives. This is due to implied and spoken rules of the situation. People conform due to two different reasons. People conform either by informational influence or normative influence. Deutsch and Gerard (1955) gave a definition on informational and normative social influence: Informational social influence is a situation whereby the individual has a desire to be right in the knowledge and judgement of others, shown in Sherif's study. People change their opinion because of a number of different reasons including status and roles and familiarity. Informational influence leads usually to internalisation, where what a person believes actually changes. While Normative social influence is basically a situation whereby an individual has the urge or the want to be liked and accepted by others, as shown by Asch's experiment. Normative does not change private opinion; it affects public opinion because of compliance, where people, even though they don't believe in it,
Discuss evolutionary explanations of intelligence
Discuss evolutionary explanations of intelligence (30 marks) Intelligence has been considered a unique feature of human beings as it gives us the ability to devise elaborate strategies for solving problems. There are three key evolutionary explanations of intelligence, which are, foraging/ecological, social and sexual selection. Foraging is when animals learn food preferences from others. This ability has clear survival advantages because the animal can learn from others rather than using trial and error process to identify which foods are harmful. The larger the range of food required, the larger the foraging area must be and the greater the requirement for more complex abilities. Many primates have to balance their diet by selective eating through successful hunting, which requires forethought, planning, cunning and the ability to coordinate the actions of a number of individuals. Finding food over a particular area may require a cognitive map (memorized spatial knowledge).Obtaining the food requires tool use and hunting techniques, which is another indication of intelligence in both human and non-human species. Visalberghi and Trinca (1987) did a study to look at the effects of tool use. Capuchin monkeys were given task of pushing peanut butter out of a tube. They found that the monkeys were quick at finding a suitable stick but tried out many unsuitable ones first.
Evolutionary Explanations of Parental Investment
The parental investment theory was put forward by Robert Trivers in 1972, and argues that differences between males and females have their origins in the different amount of time, energy and effort being put into having a child. We often hear that males seem to behave in a more aggressive manner, they care more about physical attractiveness in a partner than personality, and that women value financial capacity of potential partners the most (Buss, 1989). An explanation of this is that males and females have a different amount of parental investment, and the root of the behaviour is in Darwin's natural selection theory which proposes that those who are reproductively successful and leave more offspring will have their characteristics passed on. Therefore, the aim for both males and females is to create as many living, healthy offspring as possible. A male's investment is relatively small, as he has almost no limit to how many children he can make, and therefore the best way to maximise his reproductive success is to have many matings with multiple fertile partners. However, a female's investment is very substantial. She has a limited supply of gamete and her reproductive life is short, she carries the growing foetus around for 9 months and after giving birth, she must continue to nourish the child by breastfeeding, or else the child will not survive. Therefore, her best chance
Describe and evaluate one or more theories relating to the formation and/or maintenance of relationships
Psychology Assignment 1 Describe and evaluate one or more theories relating to the formation and/or maintenance of relationships. The scientific study of how relationships form has shown that, at least in the initial stages, this process may have little to do with deep feelings and shard emotions, and more to do with self-interest. There are two main theories of relationship formation: The Reinforcement Affect Model and The Social Exchange Theory. The Reinforcement Affect Model The Reinforcement Affect Model was suggested by Byrne and Clore (1970). It proposes that we enter into a relationship because the individual concerned creates positive feelings in us, which makes them more attractive to us. The 'reinforcement' aspect of this model concerns operant conditioning; we like some individuals because they provide us with direct reinforcement (I.e. they make us feel good). This is supported by Griffir and Guay (1969) who found that participants rated and experimenter more highly if he/she had given them a positive evaluation. The 'reinforcement' aspect can also be associated with classical conditioning; we like some individuals because they are associated with pleasant events. This is supported by Grifit and Guay (1969) who found that onlookers were also rated more highly when the experimenter had rates participants positively. The affect of the classical and/or operant
free will and determinism
Discuss the free will and determinism debate in psychological research. There have been many arguments questioning the existence of free will and determinism. There have also been endless debates regarding if individuals are capable of making their own choices or if behaviour is predetermined and controlled by internal and external forces instead of an individual's will. Free will is the notion that we are able to make choices in our behaviour, allowing us to separate our intentions clearly from events that have been caused by internal or external factors. One argument for the existence of free will is the psychological argument, stating that everyone has a subjective sense of free will, and that many individuals feel that they are able to make their own free choices. However, simply experiencing this sense of free does not necessarily mean that it is true. Skinner claimed that free will was simply an illusion, we think we are free as we do not understand how our behaviour is determined by reinforcement. Freud too claimed free will was an illusion, stating we think we are acting freely but really our behaviour is determined by unconscious forces, thus making all behaviour predictable and pre determined. Another argument for the existence of free will is the ethical argument. This argument implies that if behaviour is controlled by forces beyond the individual's
I think that Social Psychology can only explain some of why football hooliganism happens
Outline and describe the issue you have studied in Social Approach. (12 Marks) [First Draft] Ever since football has been a sport, there has been the social problem of football Hooliganism. Football hooliganism refers to destructive behavior that is performed by football fans and is widely considered to be unruly and destructive behaviour. Actions such as fighting, vandalism and intimidation are carried out by football fans participating in football hooliganism. The behaviour is often based upon rivalry between different teams and conflict may take place before or after football matches. In this question I am going to be describing football hooliganism, explaining the theories behind it, what studies support the theories, evaluating these theories and then subsequently using alternative theories to explain how football hooliganism occurs. The key issue we studied in the social approach was football hooliganism; we looked at what it is, who gets involved, why is it such key issue in society and how can Social Psychology be used to explain why football hooliganism occurs. It is a substantially large issue society because the football hooligans believe that they’re above the law as they feel they can do it without any repercussions. There are many explanations of why football hooliganism occurs, but one we have looked at is Social Identity Theory. This theory states that
