Social Influence

• Agentic State

  The agentic state is an explanation of obedience offered by Milgram and is where an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure, acting as their agent. The shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ is referred to as the ‘agentic shift’.
• Asch

  Solomon Asch was an American Social Psychologist who conducted a series of studies in the 1950s to examine the extent to which people would conform to the opinions of others in an unambiguous situation.
• Authoritarian Personality

  The authoritarian personality was first identified by Adorno et al. (1950) and refers to a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them.
• Commitment: Social Influence

  Commitment refers to the way that minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority shows dedication to their position. Commitment typically involves some form of personal sacrifice, which shows the majority that one is not just acting out of self-interest.
• Compliance

  Compliance is the lowest level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) but not their private beliefs. This is usually a short-term change and often the result of normative social influence.
• Conformity

  Conformity occurs when someone changes their behaviour or beliefs due to real or imagined pressure from others.
• Conformity to Social Roles

  Social roles are the parts individuals play when they belong to social group, and conformity to social roles occurs when people behave in certain ways because they feel that is expected of them in that role.
• Consistency

  Consistency refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority members share the same belief and retain it over time. This then draws the attention of the majority to the minority.
• Dispositional Explanations: Obedience

  Dispositional explanations of obedience focus on internal characteristics that lie within the individual (e.g. personality) that lead them to be more or less likely to follow the orders of an authority figure.
• Flexibility

  Flexibility refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority is willing to compromise. This means they cannot be viewed as dogmatic and unreasonable.
• Group Size

  Asch identified group size as a variable that influences conformity. Asch found that as he increased the size of the majority, conformity levels increased. With two confederates, conformity occurred on 12.8% of trials, rising to 32% for trials with three confederates.

  However, after that group size did not make a significant difference to the rate of conformity.
• Identification: Social Influence

  Identification is the middle level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group they are identifying with. This is usually a short-term change and is often the result of normative social influence.
• Informational Social Influence

  Informational Social Influence is where a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.
• Internalisation: Social Influence

  Internalisation is the deepest level of conformity. Here a person changes both their public behaviour (the way they act) and their private beliefs. This is usually a long-term change and often the result of informational social influence.
• Legitimacy of Authority

  Legitimacy of authority is an explanation of obedience offered by Milgram.  Milgram suggested that we are more likely to obey a person who has a higher position or status in a social hierarchy. 
• Location

  Milgram found that location affected the level of obedience in his research. When he conducted a variation in a run-down office block he found that the percentage of participants who went to 450 volts on the ‘electric shock’ generator fell from 65% (at the prestigious Yale University) to 47.5%.
• Locus of Control

  Rotter (1966) proposed the idea of locus of control (LoC), which is the extent to which people believe they have control over their lives. People with an internal locus of control believe that what happens in their life is largely the result of their own behaviour, and are more likely to resist pressure to conform or obey.
• Milgram

  Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist who conducted research into obedience.
• Minority Influence

  Minority influence occurs when an individual or small group influences the attitudes and behaviour of a larger group.
• Normative Social Influence

  Normative Social Influence is where a person conforms in order to be accepted and belong to a group. They do this because it is socially rewarding and/or to avoid social rejection (e.g. ridicule for not ‘fitting in’).
• Proximity is a situational variable affecting obedience and refers to how close you are to someone or something.
• In Milgram’s experiment, proximity worked on numerous levels: how close the teacher was to the learner, and how close the teacher was to the experimenter.
• Milgram found that proximity affected levels of obedience.
• Situational Explanations: Obedience

  Situational explanations for obedience focus on external factors that affect the likelihood that someone will obey orders. Examples of situational factors in Milgram’s research are proximity, location and uniform.
• When the teacher and learner were in the same room, the percentage of participants who administered the full 450-volt shock fell from 65% to 40%.
• Milgram also found that when the experimenter left the room and gave the instructions over the telephone, obedience levels fell to 20.5%.
• Social Change

  Social change refers to the ways in which a society (rather than an individual) develops over time to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations.
• Social Support: Social Influence

  One way in which people can resist the pressure to conform or obey is if they have an ally, someone supporting their point of view. Having an ally can build confidence and allow individuals to remain independent.
• Task Difficulty

  Asch identified task difficulty as a variable that affects conformity. He found that when he made the line judgement task more difficult, conformity levels increased, as the participant was more likely to believe that the confederates were right.
• Unanimity

  Unanimity refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another, and was identified by Asch as a variable that affects conformity. He found that if one of the confederates dissented and gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped from 32% to 5%. He also found that if one confederate gave a different incorrect answer from the other confederates, then conformity dropped to just 9%.
• Uniform

  Uniform is a situational variable affecting obedience. This is because authority figures often wear clothes that symbolise their position of authority.  In Milgram’s research, the percentage of participants who were fully obedient fell from 65% to 20% when the experimenter wore his own clothes, rather than the ‘uniform’ of a white lab coat.
• Zimbardo

  Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment. His aim was to examine whether people would conform to the social role of a prison guard or a prisoner, when placed in a mock prison environment.