Social Influence

• Compliance

  When a person conforms in public but not in private.

  The shallowest form of conformity.

  Temporary .
• Identififcation

  When a person conforms publicly and privately when in a group.

  Temporary.
• Internalisation


  The deepest type of conformity.

  When a person changes the behaviour publicly and privately.

  Permanent.
• Explain Asch's study of conformity

  AIM - to see if participants yield to conform to a majority influence in an ambiguous situation

  PROCEDURE - 50 male college students, in the experiment room 7 participants were given 2 cards, one with a test line and the other with 3 lines, the participants were told to say which line matched the test line, 6 out of the 7 participants were confederates who unanimously gave wrong answers 12 out of 18 trials, these 12 trials were called critical trials

  RESULTS - 32% conformed to the wrong answers. 74% conformed at least once. 26% never conformed

  CONCLUSION - people still conform even in an unambiguous situation and shows that there are different reasons for conforming - the need to be right and right.
• Strengths for Asch's experiment

  Reliable

  Has internal validity
• Limitations for Asch's experiment

  Lack of generalizability

  Lacks ecological validity

  Demand characteristics may have occurred

  Ethical problems - deceiving
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  When someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted

  Usually leads to compliance
• Informational social influence (ISI)

  When someone conforms because they want to be right

  Usually lads to internalisation
• Describe Zimbardo's study

  AIM - to find how easily people would conform to roles assigned to them

  PROCEDURE - 24 male volunteers who were randomly allocated to either a guard or a prisoner. The prisoners were fake arrested from their homes and taken to Stanford university and to a made up prison. They were given smocks to wear with numbers on them to dehumanize them. The guards were given uniforms, batons and sunglasses, they were given rules to enforce complete power over the prisoners but are not allowed to physically harm them

  RESULTS - Guards conformed and harassed the prisoners, many suffered distress, one went on hunger strike and two having mental breakdowns

  CONCLUSION - People will readily conform to social roles they are expected to play, especially if they are stereotyped
• Strengths to Zimbardo's study

  Application to real life (Nazi Germany)
• Limitations of Zimbardo's study

  Investigator effects (Zimbardo played the warden)

  Ethical issues

  Demand characteristics could have occurred

  Lacks generalizability

  Lacks ecological validity

  Research focuses on situation factors however ignores dispositional factors
• Describe Milgram's study

  AIM - To find out whether people obey an un-just order from a person of authority to inflict pain on another person

  PROCEDURE - 40 male volunteers aged 20 - 50. Experiment took part in Yale University. They drew a fixed draw so the participants got the teacher and a confederate got the learner. They were taken into a room where the teacher watched the learner get hooked up to a shock machine and was told their job was to memorize and recall words. The teacher was then informed of a fake heart problem that the learner had. The teacher was then taken into a room and sat in front of a shock generator hitch had levers ranging from 15 to 450 volts and they were told to administer these shocks when the learner got an answer wrong and increasing each time. The teacher was given verbal prompts if they wanted to stop the experiment.

  RESULTS - 100% of participants went to 300v, 65% went to 450v

  CONCLUSION - Most people obey under the order from authority even when it goes against conscience
• Strengths of Milgram's study

  Reliable (standardized procedures)

  Participants were debriefed afterwards
• Limitations of Milgram's study

  Lacks ecological validity

  Lacks generalizability

  Demand characteristics may have occurred

  Ethical issues
• Variables affecting conformity


  Group size

  Unanimity

  Task difficulty
• Situational variables (Milgram's variations)

  PROXIMITY - obedience is less if experimenter is not in the room (20.5%)

  LOCATION - obedience is less in an abandoned office building (47.5%)

  UNIFORM - obedience is less if instructions are given by members of the public (20%)
• Agentic state


  Become 'agent' of authority, losing personal responsibility
• Agentic shift


  Going from an agentic state to an autonomous state
• Autonomous state


  When we feel in control of our actions and feel responsible for them
• Moral strain


  Where we know something is wrong, but we do it anyway because a legitimate authority figure has asked us to
• Authoritarian personality


  Someone who is highly obedient to authority
• Minority influence


  A form of social influence where a persuasive minority changes the attitudes and behaviours of the majority
• Social change


  When a whole society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which becomes widely accepted as the norm
• Consistency (Moscovici (1969))


  A minority must be stable in their opinion over time and there must be the agreement among the minority
• Commitment


  A minority must be dedicated to their cause

  The greater the dedication, the grater the influence
• Flexibility (Nemeth (1986))


  A minority must be consistent, they must be willing to compromise when expressing their opinion
• Social influence


  The process by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours

  Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence
• Steps to social change

  1) drawing attention

  2) consistency

  3) the argumentation principle - risking lives to influence and enforce message

  4) the snowball effect - more people back it as it gets more attention

  5) social cryptomnesia - change becomes the new norm
• Internal locus of control

  People feel they have control over the events in their life

  More confidence + are less likely to obey
• External locus of control


  People feel they have little / no control

  Down to 'luck or fate'

  More likely to obey
• Locus of control


  Our sense of how in control of our lives we are

  Rotter

  Research to support - Oliner and Oliner (1988)
• Social support


  Having someone else resisting social pressure acts as a model

  Resisting conformity - presence of a dissenter breaks down majority pressure and gives others permission to follow their own conscience

  Resisting obedience - presence of a dissenter challenges the legitimacy of authority and frees others to follow their own conscience
• Evaluation of social support

  SUPPORTING EVIDENCE - Allen + Levine (64% refusal of conformity), Gamson et al (32/33 groups refused to sign consent forms)
• Evaluation of locus of control

  SUPPORTING EVIDENCE - Oliner + Oliner, Holland (recreated Milgrams, 37% internals refused to go all the way and 23% externals refused)

  CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE - Twenge (obedience has fallen but external increased over the last 40 years)