Social Influence

• conformity: a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour in order to fit in with a group
• Compliance: change in public behaviour, however private beliefs remain the same
• Identification: change in public behaviour and private beliefs whilst with the group
• Internalisation: deepest level of conformity. Includes change in both public and private behaviours and beliefs even when not with the group
• Informational social influence: pressure from others to conform because we want to be right and we see them as the expert usually leads to long term change (internalisation)
• Normative social influence: pressure from others to conform due to fear of rejection
• 2 types of explanations for conformity:

  • Normative social influence
  • Informational social influence
• Authoritarian Personality - dispositional explanation of obedience where a person who has extreme respect for authority and is likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them
• dispositional explanation: any explanation of behaviour, eg. obedience, that considers the importance of the individual’s personality rather than social influences
• Internal locus of control: People believe that they have control over their own behaviour and outcomes.
• External locus of control: The belief that external forces, such as luck or fate, determine one's destiny
• social support: the perception that an individual has assistance from other people
• minority influence - when a minority of people have a significant influence on the majority of people
• Social change - whole society adapts to a new change and accepts it as the norm
• social cryptomnesia - refers to people having a memory but not being able to recall how it happened
• 5 Stages of social change:

  • Drawing attention
  • cognitive conflict
  • consistency
  • augmentation principle
  • snowball effect
• cognitive conflict: creating conflict between what the majority group currently believe and the position advocated by the minority
• augmented principle - being ready for any harm caused as part of the protest
• Snowball effect - issue awareness increases and becomes more serious until it gets to a tipping point where it becomes majority view
• Majority influence - if people perceive something to be the norm they tend to alter their behaviour to fit in
• misperception - the gap between perceived and actual norm
• boomerang effect: when a person is more likely to do the complete opposite of what is being advocated because of the way the information is presented
• Agentic state: a person acts on behalf of an authoritarian figure, and therefore feels no responsibility for their actions
• 3 key factors of minority influence: FCC

  • Flexibility
  • Consistency
  • Commitment
• social influence processes:

  • minority influence - (FCC, snowball effect etc)
  • conformity process - (ISI, NSI)
  • Obedience process - (proximity, agentic state, legitimacy of authority )
• legitimacy of authority - the perception that someone has authority and therefore has power and control

  • increased by visible symbols eg. uniform, location
• Discuss ethical issues in social influence research (8)

  • Deception - Asch - before the bps guideline
  • psychological harm - Zimbardo cost-benefit analysis C: reformed prisons
  • right to withdraw - Milgram - valid, reduced demand characters
• Discuss legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience (8)

  • definition, visible symbols, study example
  • dispositional explanations, C: difficult to measure
  • Milgram variation
  • cultural differences
• Use one possible explanation of resistance to social influence to explain why this happened (4)

  • Social support - resistance is likely to occur if others disobey as well.
  • for eg. "some students" suggests that multiple didn't, giving others the confidence not to as well
• Outline two explanations for obedience (6)

  • Authoritarian personality
  • legitimacy of authority
• Discuss what psychological research has told us about why people conform (16)

  • A01: NSI, ISI, Compliance, Identification, Internalisation, variables, dispositional explanation
  • AO3:
• Discuss the legitimacy of authority and agentic state explanations of obedience. (16)

  • A01: Legitimacy of authority, visible symbols, legitimacy of settings, Agentic state, opposite of an autonomous state(free will)
  • AO3: Milgram variations, difficult to measure
  • C: dispositional explanation,
• Describe how situational variables have been found to affect obedience. Discuss what box these situational variables tell us about why we obey. (16)

  • AO1: proximity, location, uniform (procedures)
  • AO3: Uniform makes it more genuine (Bickman), decreased proximity increased autonomy state (Milgram left), dispositional explanations, Bickman reliability (Field not lab)