Social Influence

• Features of obedience:

  • Obedience is the change of an individual’s behaviour to comply with a demand by an authority figure
  • People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply
• Resistance to Social Influence

  Locus of control

  Holland - replicated Milgram's baseline study on obedience - to find out whether the participants

  • 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level
  • 23% of externals did not continue to the highest shock level
• Dispositional factors affecting obedience - Authoritarian personality

  Adorno et al. (1950)

  Our personality stems from early childhood experiences and influences, especially parents.

  Children raised with hierarchical, authoritarian parenting are thought to be more likely to develop an authoritarian personality type than others.

  People scoring higher on tests of authoritarian personality display higher levels of obedience to authority and higher levels of discipline.

  Adorno designed a test called the F-scale, (F= fascist), to measure level of authoritarian personality - 30 questions
• Authoritarian personality - Adorno believed that people with this personality had insecurities that led them to be hostile to non-conventional people and having a belief that authority, power and toughness is necessary
• Adorno's F-scale - eval

  Elms and Milgram found a correlation between personality type and authoritarian personality - Milgram's more obedient participants had significantly higher F-scale scores than disobedient participants

  • HOWEVER, a correlational study - we cannot be sure that personality type was the cause of the high levels of obedience.
  • Correlation ≠ causation

  The F-scale questionnaire is easily manipulated - participants might have been able to second guess the questions.

  The F-scale also correlates with education levels. This provides a possible alternative explanation.
• Resistance to Social Influence

  Rotter (1966) designed a 13-part questionnaire to measure internal and external locus of control.

  Scores range from 0 to 13.

  A low score indicates an internal control.

  A high score indicates external control.
• Locus of control (LoC) is the extent to which people think they're in control of their own lives.Internal LoC is the belief that things happen as a result of our choices and decisions.External LoC is the belief that things happen because of luck, fate or other external forces beyond the control of the individual.Individuals with an internal locus of control are less likely to conform than those with an external locus of control.
• Resistance to social influence - eval: Cultural differences

  Moghaddam (1998) found that Japanese people conform more easily than Americans and also have a more external LoC.

  This shows that cultural differences in conformity can be explained by differences in LoC.
• Resistance to social influence

  In Milgram's study, when two confederates who were paired with real participants left, saying that they wouldn’t continue, only 10% of participants gave the maximum 450-volt shock.

  • So the creation of disobedient group norms puts more pressure on participants to conform.
• Resistance to social influence - Locus of control: Social group acceptance

  Spector (1983) found that participants with high external LoC conformed more than those with low external LoC, but only in situations involving normative social pressure.

  Neither group (high or low external LoC) conformed in situations of information social influence.

  This shows that feeling like we don’t need to be accepted into a social group increases our ability to resist social influence.
• Minority influence and social change

  
  

  Systematic processing is where the minority viewpoint is carefully considered. If a viewpoint is immediately dismissed, it has undergone superficial processing.

  
  

  Social cryptomnesia is the way in which minority attitudes, behaviours and beliefs become majority held views. This takes form without conscious understanding of its origins.

  
  

  The snowball effect is when more and more people change their attitude, and so change quickens
• Minority influence and social change

  EVAL

  Minority influence can often act as a barrier to social change.

  Bashir et al. (2013) were interested in investigating why so

  many people resist social change even when they believe it to

  be needed. It was found that some minority groups, such as

  environmental activists or feminists, often live up to the

  stereotypes associated with those groups, which can be off‐

  putting for outsiders. This means that the majority often does

  not want to be associated with a minority for fear of being

  stereotypically labelled.
• Social change research


  1. Nolan et al

  2. Hung messages on doors of people's houses in San Diego for one month

  3. Encouraged them to reduce energy consumption

  4. Indicated that most other residents in the neighbourhood were already doing this
• Control group


  • Received a message about energy usage but with no reference to the behaviour of others in the area
• Experimental group


  Significantly lowered their energy consumption
• Conformity can lead to positive social change