Social Psychology Text Ch. 9 - Social Influence

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Social Influence

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The many ways that people affect one another, including changes in attitudes, beliefs, feelings and behavior that result from the comments, actions and even the presence of others.

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Conformity

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Changing one's behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit pressure (whether real or imagined) from others.

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Compliance

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Responding favorably to an explicit request by another person.

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Obedience

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In an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands of the more powerful person.

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Conformity Pressures in Daily Life

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Conformity to what others are doing can be seen in images of commuters from the 1930s and today. Nearly all of the commuters from the 30s wore hats on their way to work, but very few do today.

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Automatic Mimicry

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Sometimes we mindlessly imitate other people's behavior. Experiment: Chartrand and Bargh on Unconscious mimicry, number of instances subject rubbed face or shook foot given confederate rubbed face or shook foot.

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Ideomotor action and conformity

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The phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behavior makes its actual performance more likely. When we see others behave in a particular way, we may unconsciously mimic their postures, facial expressions and behavior.

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The Muller-Lyer Illusion

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In the ML illusion, the framing of the vertical lines by the arrows affects how people perceive their lengths. Even though the two vertical lines are exactly the same length, the vertical line on the left appears longer than the line on the right because of its outward-pointing "fins".

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Informational social Influence

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The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

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Sherif's Conformity Experiment

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Participants estimated how far the point of light appeared to move, first when they were alone, and then in each other's presence. When they were together, their estimates converged. Sherif's conformity experiment used the auto-kinetic effect to assess group influence. Partipants estimates tended to become more similar over time.

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Solomon Asch and Normative Social Influence

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Asch thought Sherif's experiment did not speak to those situations in which there is a clear conflict between an individual's own judgement and that of the group.

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Scientific Method: Normative Social Influence (adapted from Asch)

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Hypothesis: Participants conform to the opinions expressed by the majority even when they know the majority is incorrect. Method: One true participant and seven confederates were asked to say which of the three test lines was the same length as the target line. On some trials the confederates unanimously responded incorrectly, making the true partipant doubt his own judgement. Results: The true subject conformed to the erroneous majority on a third of the trials. Conclusion: To avoid the disapproval of the group, many partipants conformed to the judgements of the majority rather than express their own judgement.

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Normative Social Influence

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The influence of other people that comes from the individual's desire to avoid their disapproval, harsh judgements and other social sanctions (for example, barbs, ostracism)

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Factors Affecting Conformity Pressure: Group Size

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As the number of individuals reporting an incorrect answer increases, conformity increases -- but only up to a point. As group size reaches four people, conformity rates level off.

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Factors Affecting Conformity Pressure: Group Unanimity

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When the participant had one other person who deviated from the rest of the group, regardless of what answer they gave, conformity rates dropped significantly.

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Factors Affecting Conformity Pressure: Expertise and Status

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Expertise and status of the group members powerfully influence the rate of conformity. Torrance (1955) saw that members of navy bombing crews tended to conform to the opinion of the pilot (the higher status member)

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Factors Affecting Conformity Pressure: Culture & Tight versus Loose Cultures

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Interdependent vs independent cultures. interdependent are much more concerned with "fitting in" in the broader social context that independent. Some cultures are "tight" and have strong norms about how people should behave and tolerate very little leeway in deviating from those norms.

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Factor's Affecting Conformity Pressure: Gender

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Men and women both tend to conform the same rate, although women slightly more. However, men will more often conform on questions of a female domain, whereas women conform on questions of a male domain i.e. they conform in the absence of background information on the subject.

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Factor's Affecting Conformity Pressure: Difficulty of the task

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When the judgement at hand is unambiguous and easy, informational social influence is virtually eliminated. Only normative plays a role, and resistance to the group is stronger. When the "right" thing to do is unclear, people are inclined to rely on others for guidance.

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Factor's Affecting Conformity Pressure: Anonymity

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Anonymity eliminates normative social influence.

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internalization

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private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology. Tends to follow more from informational social influence than normative social influence.

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The interpretive context of disagreement

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knowing why our opinions are different lessens both informational and normative social influence. They might think we have strange criteria, but at least they will know we're not crazy! The important point is that it is difficult to act independently when we don't know what to make of things.

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Minority Influence on the Majority

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Minority opinions can influence the majority through consistent and clear messages that persuade the majority to systematically examine and reevaluate its opinions. Ex. suffragettes, Rosa Parks etc.

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Stanley Milgram

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Using a "shock generator" that looked real but was actually just a prop, Milgram studied whether partipants would continue to obey instructions and shock a learner even after believing that the learner was in grave distress a a result of the shocks.

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The Milgram Experiment

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Partipants were led to believe that the shock generator had 30 levels of shock, ranging from "slight shock" to "danger:severe shock" to "XXX". Participants were given a sample shock of 45 volts, the only real shock in the experiment. 66% of the partipants continued in the learning experiment and delivered the maximum shock of 450 volts.

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Tuning in the Learner

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In a "touch-proximity" condition, partipants were required to force the learner's hand onto the shock plate, which reduced the partipants' obedience rates.

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Tuning Out the Experimenter

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The weaker the "signal" coming from the experimenters, the less shock the "Teachers" tended to administer and the less likely they were to administer the maximum shock. tuning out the experimenter was strongest with the "contradictory experimenter" condition (the simulated argument)

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Milgram: They tried but failed

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The Milgram experiments have less to say about destructive obedience and more to say about ineffective disobedience. Participants tried to disobey, they just weren't very good at it.

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Milgram: Factors influencing obedience

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Release from responsibility (blame the experimenter), step-by-step involvement (incremental increases of 15 volts, not just asked to administer 450 right away).

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Compliance: Norm of reciprocity

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A norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who benefit them.

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Compliance: door-in-the-face technique

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asking someone for a very large favor that he or she will certainly refuse and then following that request with one for a smaller favor (which tends to be seen as a s concession that the target will feel compelled to honor)

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Compliance: that's-not-all technique

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adding something to an original offer, thus creating some pressure to reciprocate.

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Compliance: foot-in-the-door technique

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A compliance technique in which a person makes an initial small request with which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behavior of interest.

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Positive mood and compliance: emotion based reasoning

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Percentage of respondents who agreed to help a stranger by making a telephone call and relaying a message 1 to 20 minutes after receiving a small gift showed that respondents were more likely to comply with the request after receiving a gift. This effect diminished with time, as their good mood presumably wore off.

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Negative State Relief

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The idea that people engage in certain actions, such as agreeing to a request, to relieve their negative feelings and feel better about themselves.

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Using norm-based approaches: conserving energy

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Telling above-average consumers how much energy they use and how much the average household uses significantly reduced energy consumption. Providing this information to below average energy consumers led to significantly greater energy consumption, unless it was accompanied by a simple symbol of approval.

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Pluralistic Ignorance

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University students believe that drinking alcohol is more popular among their peers than it really is. Because of this belief, they censor their own reservations about drinking, thus furthering the illusion that alcohol is so popular.

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descriptive norms

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people's perceptions of how most people behave in a given context.

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prescriptive (injunctive) norms

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People's perceptions of what behaviors are generally approved of or frowned on by others.

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Descriptive and Prescriptive norms in conflict

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By telling people they shouldn't remove petrified wood from the national forest, park officials are communicating that stealing petrified wood is something that people do (descriptive norm). Instead, they can emphasize how many people have visited and NOT stolen anything.

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reactance theory

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The idea that people reassert their prerogatives in response to the unpleasant state of arousal they experience when they believe their freedoms are threatened.