Social Influence

• Agentic state: An explanation of obedience, in which individuals carry out orders as an 'agent' for a figure of authority. These individuals no longer view their decisions as autonomous or take responsibility for their actions.
• Compliance: A superficial change in an individual's behaviour to comply with that of a group. The individual's internal beliefs remain unhanged.
• Identification: A change in an individual's behaviour and internal beliefs to that of a specific group, but only in the presence of that group.
• Internalisation: A complete change in an individual's behaviour and internal beliefs to conform with a group. The changes exist outside of the presence of the group.
• Informational social influence (ISI): When an individual conforms due to the belief that someone holds more knowledge than themselves and therefore is more likely to be right.
• Legitimacy of authority: An explanation of obedience in which an individual obeys someone in a perceived higher position of authority or in the social hierarchy.
• Locus of control: An explanation of either resistance or conformity to social influence. The idea of an individual to explain events in their life, either by attributing them yo external or internal control.
• Normative social influence (NSI): When an individual conforms due to the belief that they will be ostracised or perceived negatively if they do not.
• Social influence: The process through which the the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours of an individual are changed by the presence or actions of others.
• Conformity: A type of social influence, can be defined as giving into group pressure. Occurs when a person adopts the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of people in a particular group in response to real or imagined pressure.
• Kelman (1958) proposed three types of conformity: Internalisation, identification, compliance.
• Internalisation: Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own, (the strongest type of conformity and often occurs as a result of ISI). An individual's change of view is permanent e.g. being brought up in a religious household and becoming religious yourself. Behaviour persists in the absence of other group members.
• Identification: Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level). Value and want to be a part of the group. Public change despite private views. Has both elements of Internalisation (accept and adopt views of a group) and compliance (purpose of doing so is to be accepted by group). However this change may not be maintained when the individuals leaves the group e.g. more smart in an office setting.
• Compliance: Follow other people's ideas/go along with the group to gain approval or avoid disapproval. Publicly agree but privately disagree (lowest/weakest level of conformity). Change of view is temporary and is likely to occur as a result of NSI e.g. when friends pressure you into drinking when truly don't want to and won't drink outside of such social situations.
• Deutsch and Gerrard (1955) developed a theory arguing that there are two main reasons why people conform. They are based on two central human needs - desire to be right (ISI) and need to be liked (NSI).
• Informational social influence: When someone conforms, motivated by the need to be right (in order to look competent). When in new or ambiguous situation we look others, copy and obey them. Usually leads to Internalisation and occurs in situations where we don't have knowledge or expertise to make their own decisions e.g. in an emergency a person follows crowd assuming they're going to the right place.
• Evidence - Fein et al. asked participants to vote for a US presidential candidate after they saw others voting for somebody else. Most of the participants changed their mind because they want to be 'correct' thus demonstrating impact of ISI as a mechanism for conformity.
• Normative social influence: When someone conforms, motivated by the desire to be accepted by others, the need for approval drives compliance. Inclined to conform and occurs when we think group can reward us (accept) or punish us (reject). E.g. a person starting to smoke as surrounded by others who do so, avoiding disagreeing with the majority.
• There is evidence supporting the link between NSI and bullying - Thus suggesting a real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity. Garandeau and Cillissen found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising another child because the bully provides a common goal for the boy's group, the goal is to victimise the other child, so the boy would most likely also victimise the child to avoid disapproval.
• Evidence to support the role of ISI - For example, Lucas et al. (2006) found conformity to an obviously incorrect Maths answer was greater when question was more difficult and participant rated their own Maths ability unfavourably. When problems were easy, participants ' knew their own minds.' This shows that individuals are more likely to turn to others and be reliant when they lack information to make own informed decisions e.g. in an ambiguous situation, thus strengthens claim of Internalisation as valid type of conformity.
• A strength of NSI/compliance is supported by Asch's study (1951) - When interviewing his participants, some said they conformed as they felt self-conscious giving correct answer and were afraid of disapproval. When answers were written, conformity reduced from 36.8% to 12.5%. Suggests that giving answers privately meant there was no pressure to conform to gain acceptance. Further suggesting that at least some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected for disagreement thus theory of publicly conforming and privately disagreeing has some validity.
• Supporting research for ISI and Internalisation - A strength of ISI as an explanation of conformity and Internalisation as a type of conformity is supported by Sherif's study. Participants were asked to estimate how far and in which direction a light moved (optical allusion). To be done in an independent fashion, then in a group setting then on their own again...
• ...The final estimations were found to be changed from first and now more resembled group norm. Sherif's study supports ISI as demonstrates people have desire to be correct in an ambiguous situation. Supports Internalisation as when exposed to options of others they believe to be correct, they conform and maintain view even in absence.
• Counterpoint - NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive - As suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's 'Two Process Model'. For example, Asch (1955) a dissenting confederate can provide social support, thus reducing effect of NSI through providing naive participant with a supporting, similar view...
• ...Equally, this can also reduce effect of ISI through the confederate providing the participant with an alternative source of information. Both interpretations are possible. This means that it may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms, thus may limit compliance and Internalisation to real-life application.
• Individual differences - A limitation of NSI is that it does not predict conformity in every case. For example, some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others, called nAffiliators (strong need for social relationships). McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that these students were more likely to conform...
• ...Limitation as NSI underlies conformity for some people more than it does for others. There are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one theory (general) of situational pressures and thus limits validity of NSI as an explanation of conformity for all individuals.
• ISI is moderated by type of task - Features of the task moderate the impact of majority influence. For example, for some judgements there are clear physical criteria for validation, but for other judgements, there may be no physical way of validating them. E.g. Deciding whether Bristol is the most highly populated city in England can be determined through objective (physical) means such as consulting statistics etc...
• ...However, other judgements such as whether Bristol is the most fun city, cannot be made using objective criteria as they don't exist. Consequently, these judgements can only be made on basis of social consensus. Limitation, as a result, majorities should exert greater influence on issues of social rather than physical reality and is what research shows (Laughlin, 1999). Therefore, ISI is limited as an explanation in certain situations.