Social Influence

Cards (36)

  • Conformity
    a change is our opinions or behavior to fit in with social norms or as the result of perceived group pressure.
  • Normative Social Influence

    Changing behavior or opinions because we want to fit in and be accepted by others.
  • Informational Social Influence

    changing behavior or opinions because we think other people have superior knowledge to us.
  • Social factors affecting conformity
    Group size (the larger the group the more likely the person is to conform) Anonymity (if the person can give their response privately they are less likely to conform) Task difficulty (the harder the task the more likely the person is to conform).
  • Dispositional factors affecting conformity
    Personality (some personal characteristics increase the tendency to conform) Expertise (having a high level of expertise makes the person less likely to conform).
  • Majority influence
    when the majority of the group acts a certain way which influences the minority's behaviour.
  • Asch's Study Aim

    to investigate if people would conform to the opinions of others to give an answer they knew to be wrong.
  • Asch's Study Method
    The participants were shown 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line, they were asked to state which of the comparison lines were the same length as the standard line. In each group there was only one real participant; the rest were confederates who were told to answer incorrectly. The real participant was told the experiment was to investigate visual judgement. The results were collected by whether the participant gave the correct answer or conformed by giving the same incorrect answer as the group.
  • Asch's Study Results
    participants conformed to give the incorrect answer of the group 36.8% of the times. 76% conformed at least once. 24% did not conform even once.
  • Asch's Study Conclusion
    The results showed that people conform to fit in with a group, even when they know they are giving and incorrect judgment
  • Asch's Study Evaluation
    Laboratory experiment, high control of the experiment variables, easy to establish cause and effect. Lacks ethics, participants did not know the true nature of the experiment and were being lied to. The experiment was being carried out in an unnatural environment, lacking ecological validity.
  • Obedience
    Following orders from an authority figure.
  • Milgram's Agency theory

    The idea that a person will obey an authority figure when they believe this authority figure will take responsibility for whatever the person does.
  • Agentic state

    When we believe we are acting on behalf of an authority figure so we no longer feel accountable for our actions.
  • Agentic shift
    The movement from an autonomous to an agentic state.
  • Agency theory evaluation
    Good = Has ecological validity as it represents real-life situations, e.g. Nazi guards at the concentrations camps were following their authority figure. This theory is supported by his study of obedience. You can find evidence of the agentic shift in real life situations. Bad = Lacks ecological validity as we do not always blindly follow orders, which shows that some people are less likely to enter the agentic state than others. Other psychologists have suggested that dispositional factors such as personality are more important in determining how obedient people are.
  • Factors affecting obedience
    Agency, authority, culture, proximity
  • Adorno's theory of Authoritarian Personality
    This is a dispositional factor affecting obedience.
  • Prosocial behaviour
    Actions that benefit other people or societies.
  • Bystander behaviour
    The way that someone responds when they witness someone else in need of help.
  • Bystander intervention
    When a person who witnesses a person in need offers help.
  • Bystander apathy
    Doing nothing when someone is in need of help.
  • Social factors affecting bystander behaviour

    Presence of others (the greater the number of bystanders the less likely each individual will help) cost of helping (bystanders assess the risk to themselves of helping, the greater the risk, the less likely they will help).
  • Dispositional factors affecting bystander behaviour
    Similarity to the victim (those bystanders that can relate to the victim will be more likely to help) expertise (a person feels that they have a skill that will help).
  • Piliavin's study Aim

    To investigate whether the appearance of a victim would influence helping behaviour.
  • Piliavin's study Method
    An actor pretended to collapse in a train carriage. In 38 of the trials, he appeared to be drunk and smelt like alcohol and carried a bottle of alcohol wrapped in a paper bag. And in 65 of the trials, he appeared to be sober and carried a walking stick. Observers record how often and how quickly each victim was helped.
  • Piliavin's study Results
    When the victim carried a walking stick, he received help within 70 seconds 95% of the time. When he appeared to be drunk he received help within 70 seconds 50% of the time.
  • Piliavin's study Conclusion
    A person's appearance will affect whether or not they receive help and how quickly this help was given.
  • Piliavin's study Evaluation
    Helped us understand why some victims are less likely to receive help than others due to the cost of helping.Was carried out in a natural setting so the participants did not know they were taking part in a study reducing demand characteristics. Cannot be generalised to the wider population as done in America, which is an individualistic culture where people are expected to help themselves and sort out their own problems.
  • Collective behaviour
    The way in which people act when they are part of a group.
  • Prosocial behaviour
    Actions that benefit other people or society.
  • Antisocial behaviour
    When people do not act in socially acceptable ways or consider the rights of others.
  • Social factors affecting collective behaviour
    Social loafing (when completing a task as part of a group, an individual will put in less effort) deindividuation (a loss of a sense of self, especially when acting as part of a crowd or the person is unidentifiable) culture (collectivistic cultures are more likely to be affected by crowd behaviour)
  • Dispositional factors affecting collective behaviour
    Personality (including locus of control) and morality
  • Social loafing
    Putting less effort into doing something when you are with others doing the same thing.
  • Deindividuation
    The state of losing our sense of individuality and becoming less aware of our own responsibility for our actions.