Situational Factors

What you'll learn

• How other people can influence behaviour through conformity, crowds and obedience.
• Why majorities, crowds, culture and authority figures can change how someone acts.
• What Bickman (1974) found about the social power of a uniform.
• How to evaluate situational explanations using the free will/determinism debate.

Starting point: what is a situational factor?

In GCSE Psychology, social influence means the way people’s thoughts, feelings or behaviour are affected by other people.

A situational factor is something outside the individual that affects behaviour. This is different from a dispositional factor, which is something inside the person, such as personality, beliefs or temperament.

Situational explanations do not say that people have no personality. They simply focus on the situation: Who else is there? What are they doing? What social rules are operating?

Majority influence and conformity

What is majority influence?

Majority influence happens when a larger group affects the behaviour or beliefs of a smaller number of people, or one individual.

For example, if most people in a class laugh at a joke and you laugh too even though you did not find it funny, that could be conformity.

Why do people conform?

There are two common reasons:

• Normative social influence: you conform because you want to be liked, accepted or avoid standing out.
• Informational social influence: you conform because you believe the group may be right, especially if the situation is unclear.

Majority influence is situational because the pressure comes from the social environment, not just from the person’s personality.

Collective and crowd behaviour

What is collective behaviour?

Collective behaviour is behaviour shown by people acting together as part of a group. Crowd behaviour is a type of collective behaviour that happens when people are physically or psychologically part of a crowd, such as at a protest, concert, football match or online group.

Crowds can affect behaviour because people may feel less personally visible and less individually responsible.

Deindividuation

When people are deindividuated, they may feel that their actions are hidden in the crowd. This can make behaviour more extreme because the person feels less personally accountable.

However, deindividuation does not automatically mean violence or aggression. It depends on the norms of the crowd.

Pro-social and anti-social behaviour

A crowd can encourage either type of behaviour:

• A charity crowd may encourage cheering, donating and helping.
• A violent crowd may encourage aggression, vandalism or intimidation.
• An online crowd may encourage support, but it may also encourage trolling if people feel anonymous.

The role of culture

Culture means the shared values, beliefs and norms of a group or society. Culture affects what behaviours are seen as acceptable.

For example, in some settings, speaking out loudly in a crowd may be seen as confidence. In another setting, it may be seen as rude. This means crowd behaviour is shaped by the social rules people have learned.

Authority figures and obedience

What is obedience?

An authority figure is someone who is perceived to have power, status or the right to give instructions. Examples include police officers, teachers, security guards, managers and doctors.

People may obey authority figures because:

• they have learned that authority should be respected;
• they fear punishment or negative consequences;
• they believe the authority figure has expertise;
• they think responsibility belongs to the authority figure, not themselves.

Uniforms as symbols of authority

A uniform can act as a visual sign of authority. It tells people that the person has a particular role or social power. This can increase obedience, even if the person giving the order is a stranger.

Bickman (1974): the social power of a uniform

Bickman’s study is the prescribed research study for this sub-topic. It belongs to the social area because it investigates how behaviour is affected by other people and social roles.

Aim

Bickman (1974) aimed to investigate whether people are more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform than someone wearing ordinary clothes.

Method

Bickman carried out a field experiment, meaning the study took place in a real-world setting rather than a laboratory.

Pedestrians in New York were approached by a male researcher or confederate. A confederate is someone who appears to be a normal participant or member of the public but is actually working with the researcher.

The independent variable was the clothing worn by the person giving the order. Conditions included:

• a security guard-style uniform;
• a milkman-style uniform;
• ordinary civilian clothes.

The dependent variable was whether the pedestrian obeyed the instruction.

The instructions were everyday requests, such as asking someone to pick up a bag, give a coin for a parking meter, or move position near a bus stop. The researcher recorded whether the person obeyed.

Results

Bickman found that people were more likely to obey the person dressed as a guard than the person in ordinary clothes. A commonly reported pattern is that obedience was highest in the guard-uniform condition and lower in the civilian condition.

Conclusion

Bickman concluded that a uniform can increase obedience because it gives the person social power. The uniform acts as a situational cue that makes the person seem more legitimate and authoritative.

Evaluating Bickman’s study

Strengths

Bickman’s study has good ecological validity because it took place in a real street setting. Participants were behaving naturally and were unlikely to guess the aim of the study.

It also has useful real-world applications. It helps explain why people may obey police, security staff or people in official-looking clothing. This can be useful for understanding public behaviour, but it also warns us that uniforms can be misused.

Weaknesses

There was less control than in a laboratory experiment. Pedestrians may have differed in mood, hurry, confidence, age or past experiences with authority. These extraneous variables could affect whether they obeyed.

The sample was from New York in the 1970s, so the findings may not fully generalise to modern Britain or to cultures where uniforms are viewed differently.

Also, the tasks were fairly low-risk. Picking up a bag or moving position is not the same as obeying a harmful or dangerous order.

Ethics

There are ethical issues under the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct.

Participants did not give full informed consent because they did not know they were in a study. There was also some deception, because the situation was staged. The right to withdraw was not clearly explained, although people could ignore the request. Protection from harm was likely acceptable because the tasks were brief and low-risk. Confidentiality was protected if no identifying details were recorded, but debriefing would have been difficult in a busy public setting.

Criticisms of situational explanations

Free will and determinism

Situational explanations can be seen as deterministic because they suggest behaviour is caused by social pressure, crowds or authority figures.

For example, saying “the uniform made people obey” may sound as if people had no choice. But Bickman’s findings show that not everyone obeyed. This suggests people can resist situational pressure.

A balanced answer should say that situational factors can strongly influence behaviour, but people still vary in how they respond.

Reductionism

A situational explanation can also be reductionist if it explains complex behaviour using only one factor, such as “the crowd caused it” or “the uniform caused it”.

Real behaviour is usually more complex. A person’s actions may be affected by the situation, personality, moral beliefs, past experiences and culture.

Cultural differences

Situational factors may not work the same way in every culture. For example, obedience to authority may be stronger in cultures where respect for hierarchy is strongly encouraged. Crowd behaviour may also differ depending on cultural norms about helping, protesting or emotional expression.

Applying situational factors in AO2

When you apply this topic to a scenario, look carefully at what is influencing the person:

• If the person changes to match a group, it is likely conformity.
• If the person acts differently because they feel anonymous in a crowd, it is likely deindividuation.
• If the person follows a direct order from someone with status, it is likely obedience.
• If the scenario mentions a uniform, link it to Bickman (1974) and the social power of authority cues.