People influence each other constantly, in a variety of different ways. Social influence is the change in behaviour that one person causes in another, intentionally or unintentionally. Social psychologists look at the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others. This may be represented by persuasion, conformity, obedience and independent behaviour. A social norm is an expectation about appropriate behaviour that occurs in a group context. (Rashotte,L:2012)
Conformity is a type of social influence involving changing one's behaviour because of perceived pressure to fit in with a group. When it seems like most of the group is doing a certain thing, not doing that thing becomes increasingly tough. It is known as the …show more content…
He set up an experiment that showed a group of men a small motionless dot in a dark room, they then had to give their estimates out loud as to how much they thought the dot had moved. The experiment was repeated with participants alone in the room to see if the answers given were different. He found that the results were more varied when the participants were tested individually than when they were in a group.
Sherif's experiment demonstrated how individuals conform to group norms. His research supports the theory of conformity as he found that when people were part of a group, they were more likely to change their answers to make them more like the others as they did not want to appear wrong or different.
However, a criticism of Sherif’s work is that it was an ambiguous situation, where there was no correct answer. This was labelled the autokinetic effect. However, this is actually an illusion because the light in the experiment does not truly move. This lead to the majority influence occurring, which resulted in the participant conforming as he started to doubt his own …show more content…
Studies have found that we are more likely to obey a person in uniform, such as police officer or doctor. In everyday life people tend to obey due to not wanting negative consequences that come from disobeying.
Zimbardo's (1971) Stanford prison experiment revealed how social roles can influence our behaviour. A mock prison was set up in the basement of Stanford University and 24 undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. He wanted to establish whether people would obey instructions given by someone in authority, even when what they were being told to do was morally wrong. (Williams,J:2017)
The experiment presented several ethical issues, one being that the debriefing process happened several years later, when in fact it should have been done immediately after the experiment ended in order to ensure no permanent psychological harm was
Conformity is a type of social influence involving changing one's behaviour because of perceived pressure to fit in with a group. When it seems like most of the group is doing a certain thing, not doing that thing becomes increasingly tough. It is known as the …show more content…
He set up an experiment that showed a group of men a small motionless dot in a dark room, they then had to give their estimates out loud as to how much they thought the dot had moved. The experiment was repeated with participants alone in the room to see if the answers given were different. He found that the results were more varied when the participants were tested individually than when they were in a group.
Sherif's experiment demonstrated how individuals conform to group norms. His research supports the theory of conformity as he found that when people were part of a group, they were more likely to change their answers to make them more like the others as they did not want to appear wrong or different.
However, a criticism of Sherif’s work is that it was an ambiguous situation, where there was no correct answer. This was labelled the autokinetic effect. However, this is actually an illusion because the light in the experiment does not truly move. This lead to the majority influence occurring, which resulted in the participant conforming as he started to doubt his own …show more content…
Studies have found that we are more likely to obey a person in uniform, such as police officer or doctor. In everyday life people tend to obey due to not wanting negative consequences that come from disobeying.
Zimbardo's (1971) Stanford prison experiment revealed how social roles can influence our behaviour. A mock prison was set up in the basement of Stanford University and 24 undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. He wanted to establish whether people would obey instructions given by someone in authority, even when what they were being told to do was morally wrong. (Williams,J:2017)
The experiment presented several ethical issues, one being that the debriefing process happened several years later, when in fact it should have been done immediately after the experiment ended in order to ensure no permanent psychological harm was