Social influence

• Conformity


  A type of social influence where a person yields to group pressures
• Conformity


  A change in a person's behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
• Types of conformity (Kelman)


  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation


  Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (strongest type of conformity, often occurs as a result of informational social influence)
• Identification


  Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level)
• Compliance


  Following other people's ideas/going along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval (lowest/weakest level of conformity)
• Informational social influence


  Conforming because you want to be right, so you look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation
• Normative social influence


  Conforming because you want to be liked and be part of a group; your need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's 'Two Process Model'
• It may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms
• Asch's study


  • 123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; 1 true participant and 5 confederates
  • Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line
  • Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials
  • Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
• Group size


  An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group
• Unanimity of majority


  An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to them all giving different answers
• Task difficulty


  An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult
• Zimbardo's study


  • 24 American male undergraduate students
  • Participants were randomly issued one of two roles; guard or prisoner
  • Prisoners were only referred to by their assigned number
  • Guards were given props like handcuffs and sunglasses
  • No one was allowed to leave the simulated prison
  • Guards worked eight hour shifts, while the others remained on call
  • Prisoners were only allowed in the hallway which acted as their yard, and to the toilet
• Agentic state


  When a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions
• Agentic shift


  When a person shifts from an autonomous state (where they believe they will take responsibility for their own actions) to the agentic state
• Legitimacy of authority


  How credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right, and legitimate
• Expert authority


  When the authority figure is seen as legitimate because they are a knowledgeable expert, like a scientist
• Agentic state


  When people believe they are acting on behalf of an authority figure, rather than taking personal responsibility for their actions
• Legitimacy of authority


  How credible the figure of authority is, in terms of being morally good/right, and legally based or law abiding
• Students are more likely to listen to their parents or teachers than other unknown adults
• Expert authority


  When the authority figure is seen as legitimate because they are knowledgeable and responsible, like a scientist
• Proximity


  Participants obeyed more when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) compared to being in a different room (20.5%)
• Location


  Participants obeyed more when the study was conducted at a prestigious university, as it demands obedience and increases trust in the researchers
• Uniform


  Participants obeyed more when the experimenter wore a lab coat, as it gives them higher status and greater sense of legitimacy
• Authoritarian personality


  Belief that people should completely obey or submit to their authority figures, and suppress their own beliefs
• Fixed cognitive style


  Tendency to adopt absolutist/'black and white' thinking and not challenge stereotypes
• Reaction formation


  Displacing anger with harsh, disciplinarian parents onto seemingly 'inferior' others
• Adorno's psychodynamic theory


  A person's personality traits and attitudes as an adult stemmed from childhood influences such as that of one's parents
• Scapegoating


  Child with overly harsh and disciplinarian parents displaces their anger with their parents onto seemingly 'inferior' others
• On a surface level, the child would idolise their parents, but on an unconscious level, they would fear and despise them, and so arises the need to displace such anger
• The child would be more likely to target their displaced anger on those who seem weak and unable to defend themselves, such as minority groups
• Reaction formation


  The process where the child displaces their anger onto seemingly 'inferior' others
• The F-scale is particularly susceptible to acquiscence bias, which describes the phenomenon of respondents always responding in the same way using the scales provided, regardless of the content shown in the scales
• The Authoritarian Personality may not be able to explain all cases of obedience across the whole political spectrum, according to Christie and Jahoda
• Fascist-like views can be found across the whole political spectrum, which the Authoritarian Personality does not account for
• The Authoritarian Personality has little ecological validity because it cannot explain many real-life examples of mass obedience
• It is very unlikely that the whole German population during Nazi occupation had an Authoritarian Personality, but rather many shared the same struggles in life and displaced their fear about the future onto a perceived 'inferior' group of people, through the process of scapegoating
• Locus of control


  A measurement of an individual's sense of control over their lives, i.e to what extent they feel that events in their lives are under their own personal control, versus under the control of other external powers like fate