Student book answersStatus and social power within groupsPages 398–401

Review 18.11 What common rules are used to define a group?

A group consists of two or more people.

Individuals in the group must interact with each other over a period of time.

Individuals in a group must influence each other.

Members of a group must have a common purpose.

2 List the six types of power and their sources.

Reward power: ability to provide a desired response

Coercive power: ability to provide an unpleasant response

Information power: having knowledge that others desire

Legitimate power: power is given by a higher authority and may be due to role or position

Expert power: power is due to skills and depth of knowledge

Referent power: power from others’ desire to relate to the person

3 Describe the differences between these three different styles of leadership: democratic, authoritarian, laissez-faire.

Democratic leadership involves the group leader including the group members in decision-making processes and in the negotiation of tasks.

Authoritarian leadership involves the group leader making all the decisions and controlling the behaviour of those in the group.

Laissez-faire leadership involves the group leader sitting back and not taking part in group proceedings. This leader will let the group members do all the work.

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4 What are Blake and Mouton’s five styles of leadership and management?

Country club leadership (high people/low productivity)

Authoritarian leadership (high productivity/low people)

Impoverished leadership (low productivity/low people)

Middle-of-the-road leadership (medium production/medium people)

Team leadership (high production/high people)

Investigate 18.1

Management Style

Watch the film Spotswood, starring Anthony Hopkins.

1 What style of management is present in the company?

Middle-of-the-road

2 What style of management does Hopkins’ character attempt to impose?

Authoritarian

3 Analyse the outcome. What lessons are learned from this story?

Student responses will vary.

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Student book answersFactors affecting obediencePages 405–412

Investigate 18.2

The Stanford Prison Experiment

1 Phillip Zimbardo acted as chief researcher and prison superintendent. What problems could this cause with the research?

• It could cause an experimenter bias because Zimbardo ‘participated’ in the experiment as a superintendent and as the chief researcher.

• His interpretation of results may have been affected.

• The behaviour of the participants may have been affected because they knew of both his roles.

2 This research proposal had been approved by the ethics committee of the university. Does this mean that the research was ethical? If not, which ethical considerations were violated?

No it was not ethical because it was not possible to predict the behaviour of the guards and prisoners. The experiment was not stopped when the prisoners suffered psychological/physical harm.

3 When do you believe the experiment should have been terminated? Explain your reasons.

Student responses will vary.

4 Following this research, and after many years of further study, Zimbardo proposed that in many circumstances there are no bad people; there are simply bad environments that make ordinary people act in bad ways. Can you think of situations where this has occurred?

Many examples accepted, including:

• Nazi Germany – the Holocaust

• South Africa – Apartheid

• during any war.

5 Can you think of situations where the opposite has occurred – where environments have made ordinary people into heroes?

Many examples can be accepted, including the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

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Review 18.21 Suggest what may have been the purpose of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment.

To discover whether inherent personality traits of prisoners and guards were the key to understanding abusive prison situations. Students were assigned to roles of guards and prisoners held in a mock prison.

2 What was discovered?

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations.

3 Why was the ‘experiment’ stopped? (The word ‘experiment’ has been put in quotation marks because this was not a true experiment!)

The guards were increasing their abuse of the prisoners when they thought nobody was watching.

4 Think about the variables and hypothesis. What were they?

There was no hypothesis and no systematic manipulation of an IV. There was no DV being measured.

Investigate 18.3

Research Methods

1 Which two of Milgram’s nine reasons should have been eliminated if the study had been conducted in an ethical manner?

Participants were assured that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.

Participants were not aware of their rights or the expectations of participants in scientific research.

2 How would ethical experimental procedures in place today ensure that those two ethical violations would not occur?

An ethical committee would not approve the design of such experimental procedures.

Participants would have the right of withdrawal from the experiments and their rights would not be violated.

A more representative sample of the population would be used today.

3 Milgram observed many signs of anxiety in participants; these included:

nervous laughter (in 14 participants)

uncontrollable seizures (in three participants).

4 What should have occurred immediately these effects were seen?

The experiment should have been stopped as it breached the ethical guideline of the no harm principle.

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Review 18.31 What was the purpose of Milgram’s experiment?

To investigate obedience to an authority figure.

2 Explain in your own words what his research involved.

To investigate whether people will obey an authority figure who orders them to inflict pain on another person.

3 What did Milgram conclude about people’s belief in authority figures?

That people are very likely to perform actions contrary to their beliefs and wishes if they are instructed to do so by an authority figure.

4 Can you think of areas in society today where people’s beliefs are frequently overridden by an authority figure? Explain why this occurs.

Student responses will vary.

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Student book answersFactors affecting conformityPages 412–416

Review 18.41 List five situations in which you conform, even though you might not want to do so.

Student responses will vary.

2 Does Asch’s experiment deal with obedience? If so, how does it differ from ‘obedience’ in Milgram’s studies?

Yes. This is an example of individuals obeying what they perceive to be a community standard. The pressure comes from within the individual.

This differs from Milgram’s experiment where the obedience was to an individual with perceived legitimate power, where the pressure was external.

a What was the aim of Asch’s research?

To investigate the extent to which an individual within a group will conform to the majority opinion.

b Describe the method in Asch’s research.

Student responses will vary.

c What were the findings from Asch’s experiments?

Participants conformed because they wanted to feel as though they belonged in the group, and because they thought that other participants were better informed than they were.

3 List four situations in which conformity, even against a person’s wishes, can be beneficial.

Student responses will vary.

Review 18.51 What is a meta-analysis?

Research that examines the results of many other studies and combines all the findings.

2 What are the advantages and disadvantages of meta-analysis?

Advantages: increased confidence in the conclusions because the results support each other, effectively increasing the size of the sample used and making statistical procedures more rigorous.

Disadvantages: not all researchers have used exactly the same procedures or the same methods of reporting.

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3 Describe normative influence.

A person’s tendency to go along with the group so that he or she will fit in and gain the approval of other group members.

4 How does culture appear to influence conformity?

• Culture will affect conformity depending on whether it is an individualist culture or a collectivist culture.

• An individualist culture is one in which individuality and independence are highly valued, and it is considered important for people to achieve their individual goals.

• A collectivist culture is one in which the individual’s goals are less important than group goals and each person is encouraged to consider the needs of the group to be more important than his or her individual requirements.

• Therefore, those in a collectivist culture are more likely to conform.

5 What is a collectivist culture?

A culture where people consider the needs of others as more important than their individual needs.

6 Describe informational influence.

The increased tendency to conform when the participant wants to provide a correct response but is not certain of his or her ability to do so; believing that others are more capable of making accurate judgments.

People will conform when they are not confident of their ability and think others are more capable than themselves.

7 How do face-to-face group meetings influence conformity compared to, say, an online group?

Higher rate of conformity with a face-to-face group meeting compared with an online group.

Face-to-face contact applies more pressure to an individual, thereby increasing conformity.

8 What is social loafing?

Social loafing is the tendency of people to reduce their effort when working in a group, compared with when they are working alone.

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Student book answersTest your understandingPages 418–419

Multiple choice1 C; 2 B; 3 D; 4 D; 5 D; 6 D; 7 A; 8 C; 9 D; 10 A; 11 C; 12 C; 13 C

Short answer14 Give an example of a group.

Three students working on an assignment together for Psychology.

(Other answers are acceptable provided that they cite more than two people and that they share a common goal, interact and influence one another.)

15 What is the minimum number of people needed to form a group?

Two

16 What is meant by the term referent power? Give an example.

Referent power is when a person exerts power because others desire to be like that person; for example, a sports star, such as Gary Ablett Jr (2013 Brownlow medallist).

17 Deindividuation allows people to perform actions that they would be unlikely to perform if they were on their own and could be individually identified. In the past, police would sometimes remove their identifying number, wear reflecting sunglasses and become violent when engaged in crowd control. Give another example, from real life, where people have shown socially unacceptable behaviour as a result of deindividuation.

An example could be the Cronulla riots of 2005, which were a series of racially motivated riots that originated in and around Cronulla.

18 What is meant when it is said that one person has power over another?

A person can influence the behaviour of a second person even against the second person’s will.

19 Explain the source of each of these types of power.

a reward power

The ability to provide a pleasant response

b coercive power

The ability to provide an unpleasant response

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20 Choose one of the seven factors shown to have an effect on conformity to group opinion. Name this factor and identify the conditions under which conformity is more likely to occur.

Students choose one of the following:

Normative influence simply refers to a person’s tendency to go along with the group so that they will fit in and gain the approval of other group members.

Culture can impact. If people live in an individualist culture, individuality and independence are highly valued and it is considered important for people to achieve their individual goals. Whereas a collectivist culture is one in which the individual’s goals are less important than group goals, and each person is encouraged to consider the needs of the group to be more important than their individual requirements.

Informational influence refers to the increased tendency to conform when the participant wants to provide a correct response but is not certain of their ability to do so, believing that others are more capable of making accurate judgements.

Group size: Asch found that conformity rates increased to a maximum with three or four confederates, and then remained approximately the same.

Unanimity: If one of the confederates did not conform with the group, but gave the correct answer, conformity rate dropped from the average of four out of 12 to one out of 12.

Deindividuation is when the participant cannot be identified by other group members.

Social loafing is the tendency of an individual to reduce their effort when working in a group, compared with when they are working alone.

21 Choose one of the nine factors that Milgram showed to have an effect on obedience to authority. Name this factor and identify the conditions under which obedience is more likely to occur.

Students may choose any one of the following:

Yale University is a prestigious institution.

Participants believed they were taking part in valuable scientific research.

Participants felt obliged

Payment increased the sense of obligation.

Participants believed that the roles of teacher and learner had been allocated at random

Participants were not aware of their rights or the expectations of participants in scientific research.

Participants were assured that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.

The learner had responded to each question up to the 300-volt level, indicating his willingness to participate.

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