Social Influence

• Majority influence on conformity


  Conformity occurs when a person changes their attitudes and actions to go along with a larger group. This can be due to compliance (going along to gain approval) or internalisation (genuinely accepting the majority position).
• Deindividuation


  When an individual is put in a crowd situation, they become anonymous and part of the faceless crowd, taking on the collective mind of the crowd. This lowers self-evaluation and concerns about evaluation by others, reducing normal constraints on behaviour and increasing the likelihood of anti-social behaviour.
• Culture and pro-social/anti-social behaviour


  Individualistic cultures are more focused on personal goals and tend to be more anti-social, while collectivist cultures are more focused on the needs of the group and tend to be more pro-social.
• Research on 134 children aged 3-10 from six different cultures found that children were more altruistic in the less industrialised, collectivist cultures.
• However, there are large individual differences within collectivist cultures, as shown by the extreme anti-social behaviour of the African Ik tribe.
• Authority figures and obedience


  Obedience to authority figures is influenced by situational factors such as the authority figure's uniform and the impression of legitimacy, as well as the participant entering an 'agentic state' where they become an agent of the authority figure.
• Support for the situational explanation of obedience comes from Bickman (1974) who found the more legitimate the social power shown by an individual through the wearing of a uniform, the more likely their orders will be obeyed.
• The situational explanation can be criticised in relation to the free will/determinism debate, as research shows individuals do have free will and can display independent behaviour regardless of situational factors.
• Self-esteem and conformity


  Individuals with low self-esteem are more likely to conform either for compliance (to gain approval) or internalisation (thinking the majority is right). Those with high self-esteem are less easily influenced by others.
• Locus of control and crowds


  People with high external locus of control, who believe their behaviour is due to external factors, are more likely to be influenced by and go along with crowd behaviour.
• Morality and pro-social/anti-social behaviour


  Those with high levels of morality are more likely to display pro-social behaviour, while those with lower morality are more likely to display anti-social behaviour.
• Hornsey et al. (2003) found that people are much less likely to conform to the majority if this involved an immoral act.
• Kohlberg (1969) found that participants in Milgram's research who had higher levels of moral reasoning were more able to resist the orders of the experimenter.
• Authoritarian personality and obedience

  The authoritarian personality, with high respect for authority, is more likely to be obedient to those in power.
• Milgram (1974) found that those who were highly authoritarian were more likely to obey and gave higher levels of shocks than non-authoritarian participants.
• Self-esteem and internal locus of control were significantly correlated with hippocampal volume in both young people. (Pruessner et al., 2005)
• The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is activated when we are evaluating the emotional aspects of a moral decision. Damage to this part of the brain is associated with impaired moral judgement. (Young and Dungan, 2012)
• an electrical shock; which is clearly an immoral act
• Authoritarian personality


  A person who has high levels of respect for authority and therefore is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them. They also are likely to be intolerant and fixed in their beliefs.
• Milgram (1974) found in a variation of his electric shock experiment


  Those who were highly authoritarian were more likely to obey and gave higher levels of shocks than non-authoritarian participants
• Self-esteem and internal locus of control


  Significantly correlated with hippocampal volume in both young people
• Ventromedial prefrontal cortex


  Activated when we are evaluating the emotional aspects of a moral decision. Damage to this part of the brain is associated with a lack of empathy, with anti-social behaviour and the inability to make suitable moral decisions, despite be aware of and understanding the rules of society.
• Support for the dispositional explanation comes from NatCen (2011) who concluded that anti-social criminal behaviour (e.g. the Tottenham riots) is influenced by dispositional/individual factors such as an individual's beliefs about what is right and what is wrong and their assessment of the costs and benefits of involvement
• Dispositional factors can be criticised as explanation for social influence in so much as although individual traits may make somebody more likely to obey, conform, or follow a crowd. This can be generalised to all situations as there can be other factors that may prevent the person from being influenced