Social influence

• Conformity


  A form of social influence where a person changes their beliefs and behaviour to fit - or conform to those of a group (also called majority influence)
• Compliance


  The weakest type of conformity where a person publicly changes their behaviour and beliefs to fit the group and avoid disapproval, but privately doesn't accept them
• Identification


  A stronger type of conformity than compliance where the person both publicly and privately changes their behaviour and beliefs to fit that of a group they want to be part of, but only as long as they're associated with the group
• Internalisation


  The strongest type of conformity where a person both publicly and privately changes their behaviour and beliefs to those of a group permanently
• Types of conformity (Kelman 1958)


  • Compliance
  • Identification
  • Internalisation
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  People like to feel that their opinions and beliefs are correct, which motivates them to copy and conform to the group
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  People want to be accepted by others and not be rejected, which motivates them to conform to the beliefs and opinions of a group so as not to stand out
• Explanations of conformity (Deutsch and Gerard 1955)

  • Informational social influence (ISI)
  • Normative social influence (NSI)
• Asch (1955) Conformity Experiments


  • Investigated the extent to which people conform to an incorrect majority consensus
  • 123 male participants were told it was a study of visual perception, but were put in groups with 7-9 confederates who gave the wrong answer in 12 critical trials
  • Participants conformed to the incorrect group consensus 32% of the time, and 75% conformed to at least one wrong answer
• Asch did other variations to determine variables affecting conformity
• Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment

  • Investigated whether people will conform to the social roles of prisoner and guard in a prison situation
  • 21 male participants were randomly divided into 'guards' and 'prisoners' and subjected to a prison environment
  • The guards became increasingly sadistic and the prisoners increasingly submissive, leading Zimbardo to stop the experiment after 6 days instead of the planned 2 weeks
• Zimbardo's research prompted reform in the way juvenile prisoners were treated (at least initially)
• Obedience


  When someone complies with (obeys) an order of an authority figure
• Milgram (1963) Obedience Experiments

  • Investigated the extent to which people obey the orders of an authority figure
  • 40 American male participants were told they had to give increasingly powerful electric shocks to a 'learner' (a confederate) when they got a word wrong
  • Participants continued to increase the shocks despite the learner's protests, with 65% administering the maximum 450 volt shock
• Participants


  • 40 American male participants aged 20-50 were told they were taking part in a study of the effects of punishment on memory and learning
• Experiment procedure


  1. The 'experimenter' (the authority figure) told the participant he'd been randomly assigned the role of 'teacher' and that another participant (a confederate) had been assigned the role of 'learner. The participant had to give increasingly powerful electric shocks to the learner from a machine in the room next door. Each time the learner got a word wrong, the participant had to increase the shock-starting at 15 volts and increasing by 15 volts each time all the way up to 450 volts (labelled 'XXX')

  2. The learner started shouting at 150 volts and the protests increased in intensity with the increasing voltage (it was actually just a pre-recorded tape). After 330 volts, the learner went silent

  3. If the participant asked to stop, the experimenter would give verbal prods such as "please continue", and "the experiment requires that you continue" and, finally, "you have no other choice, you must go on."
• Reliability


  • Milgram's results have been replicated several times over the decades (e.g. Burger (2009)), which suggests the results are reliable
• Milgram's variations


  • Proximity: Obedience declined when the participant was physically closer to the learner. For example, when the participant and the learner were in the same room, obedience fell to 40% from 65%. The proximity of the authority figure also affects obedience - when the authority figure gave instructions via phone, obedience fell to just 21% from 65%
  • Location: Obedience increases in official-seeming environments. For example, Milgram's original experiment was done at Yale University. But when Milgram (1974) replicated the experiment in an office in a bad part of town obedience dropped to 47.5% from 65%
  • Uniforms: In Milgram's original version, the experimenter wore a lab coat. But in another variation, the experimenter was replaced by someone wearing ordinary clothes. In this version, obedience was only 20% rather than 65%. The influence of uniform is also supported by Bickman (1974), who found 38% of participants obeyed orders given by someone wearing a security guard's uniform but only 14% obeyed when the same person wore a milkman uniform
• Agentic state


  The person sees themself as a tool of the authority figure
• Legitimacy of authority


  The authority figure has a right to give orders
• The authoritarian personality


  An inherent disposition towards obedience
• Ordinarily, we are in an autonomous state: Freely in control of our actions and taking responsibility for them. But according to Milgram (1974), people in an agentic state become de-individuated and consider themselves an agent (tool) of an authority figure and mentally hand over responsibility for their actions to the authority figure. This means they will obey instructions that go against their moral compass because they don't take responsibility
• We're taught that obedience to legitimate authority figures (e.g. parents, teachers, police) is necessary for an orderly society. Some variables in Milgram's experiments clearly added to the perceived legitimacy of the experimenter's authority (e.g. wearing a lab coat). If a person accepts an authority figure as legitimate, the person will feel they have to obey them
• Erich Fromm proposed the authoritarian personality: people whose disposition makes them submissive to authority and dominating of lower-status people. Adorno et al (1950) created the F-scale personality test to measure the authoritarian personality. Elms and Milgram (1966) found people who were obedient in the Milgram experiments scored higher on the F-scale
• All explanations here have some research support, but no single factor explains obedience. A combination of situational and dispositional (i.e. internal) factors is needed
• Social support


  Having someone on your side
• Internal locus of control

  Rotter's (1966) scale measures if a person believes their own choices shape their life
• Conformity in Asch's experiments (page 5) fell from 32% to 5.5% when one of the confederates went against the group and said the correct answer. This confederate provided social support for the participant
• In a variation of Milgram's experiments, participants did the experiment with two other (confederate) teachers. When the other teachers refused and left, participant obedience dropped from 65% to 10%
• A meta-analysis by Avtgis (1998) found that people with an internal locus of control (i.e. people who felt their own choices shaped their life) were less likely to conform than people with an external locus of control
• Research linking obedience and locus of control is mixed but generally suggests that having an internal locus of control reduces obedience. For example, Blass (1991) analysed data from participants who took part in Milgram's experiments. Using statistical analysis, he found that participants with an internal locus of control were less likely to deliver lethal shocks
• Social change


  Establishment of new social norms
• Social change


  • The suffragette movement and womens' voting rights
• Social change is often a snowball effect as more people become converted to a minority viewpoint and convert others. Eventually, people internalise (page 4) the new norms and forget old norms (social cryptoamnesia)
• As well as consistency and commitment, flexibility also improves minority influence. Nemeth (1986) divided participants into groups of 4 (with 1 confederate) to negotiate how much money to pay someone. She found confederates who were flexible were more effective at persuading the majority to accept a low amount than confederates who inflexibly stuck to a low amount