Social influence

• Conformity


  Compliant or shallow identification (temporary change in behaviour), Internalization (permanent change in personal opinions)
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  Individuals look to the majority for guidance on how to behave correctly, results in internalization
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  Individuals want to appear normal and be approved by the majority, results in compliance
• Asch 1951 study


  • Participants gave the incorrect response on 32% of trials when in a group with Confederates, to avoid rejection
• Jenness 1932 study


  • Individuals' second private guesses moved closer to the group's guess, evidence for ISI
• Variables affecting conformity


  • Group size, presence of a dissenting voice, task difficulty
• Crouzon et al. 2012 study

  • 52.6% of participants conformed at least once to online Confederates' wrong answers, conformity increased on more difficult questions
• Agentic state


  The individual believes they don't have responsibility for their behaviour as they are just following orders from an authority figure
• Legitimacy of authority


  Individuals accept that those higher in the social hierarchy should be obeyed, learned through socialization
• Milgram 1963 study


  • 65% of participants delivered the maximum 450V shock when instructed by the experimenter in a lab coat
• Situational variables affecting obedience


  • Proximity to victim, location, authority figure's uniform
• Authoritarian personality


  Tendency to be aggressive towards minority groups and submissive to authority, linked to higher obedience
• Resistance to social influence

  • Social support, internal locus of control, minority influence tactics (consistency, flexibility, commitment)
• Minorities can drive social change through informational social influence, leading to the snowball effect as the majority slowly converts
• Governments can quickly drive social change by changing and enforcing laws, due to their legitimacy of authority
• are you a conformist of course you're not but most other people are right damn sheep people they always act and dress the same way and believe the same things as everyone around them never truly thinking for themselves but why is this why is it so hard to go against the crowd
• which of these lines is longer it's B right okay of course it's a but is there any situation where you would feel like you had to say B just to fit in with a bunch of strangers
• well in Ash's research he managed to get three quars of his participants to at least once give into Conformity and give an obviously wrong response
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• Conformity


  A change in Behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure so an individual changing what they do or how they think because of what they consider to be pressure coming from a larger group
• Social role


  A socially defined pattern of behavior expected of persons who occupy a certain social position or belong to a particular social category
• Examples of social roles


  • Doctor
  • Teacher
  • Police officer
  • Politician
  • Student
  • Artist
  • Prisoner
  • Correctional officer
• the point about the imagin pressure is interesting I think we can all think of a time when we felt the need to change how we behaved to fit in with a group and likely that group actually didn't care or even notice
• Conformity to social roles


  Adopting the stereotypical behaviors expected of a particular social role, even if they don't privately agree with them, in order to feel part of the group
• The Stanford Prison Experiment investigated the causes of prison violence by randomly assigning college-age males to be either prison inmates or prison officers
• The results showed absolute chaos, with the prison officers becoming dominant and aggressive, and the prisoners becoming submissive
• Zimbardo's claim


  The aggression was due to the situational environment of the prison, not the natural dispositions of the participants
• keep in mind when it comes to Conformity we're not talking about the individual altering their behavior due to taking a direct order the members of these groups are likely to be groups of peers they're not authority figures
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

  1. Participants were recruited and screened

  2. Randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards

  3. Prisoners experienced arrest, booking, and being given a uniform

  4. Guards were given uniforms, whistles, and instructions to manage the prison without violence

  5. Zimbardo played the role of prison superintendent
• Both prisoners and guards quickly lost their individual identities and took on the social roles of prisoner or guard
• obedience is obeying the direct orders of an authority figure obedience is a separate form of social influence that we'll discuss later on in this unit but I do find students new to the social influence unit often get the two confused
• The prisoners initially attempted to resist but were crushed by the guards, who then became increasingly aggressive and sadistic
• The study was ended after 6 days due to the extreme responses of the participants
• Positive evaluations of the Stanford Prison Experiment

  • Careful selection and random assignment of participants reduced likelihood of participant variables
  • Findings applied to understand real-life examples of institutional abuse like Abu Ghraib
• Types of Conformity


  • Compliance
  • Identification
  • Internalization
• Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment

  • Ethical concerns limit replication attempts
  • Only one-third of guards showed sadistic aggression, suggesting social roles have limited influence
  • Zimbardo's dual role as superintendent and lead investigator likely introduced bias
  • Participants, especially prisoners, suffered significant harm
• Recent analysis found that Zimbardo and other researchers directly instructed the guards to be highly aggressive, invalidating the conclusion that the guards' behavior was due to adapting to social roles
• The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the importance of ensuring studies are conducted with ethical safeguards in place
• Compliance


  A type of Conformity where in response to pressure from others individuals change their behavior or what they outwardly claim to be their beliefs but their private beliefs were change the primary motivation behind compliance is the desire to get a positive reaction from others either avoiding disapproval or punishment