Social Influence

• Conformity


  A type of social influence where there is 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 (the strongest type of conformity, and 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


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


  When someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group
• 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; consisting of 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
• 36.8% conformed, 25% never conformed, 75% conformed at least once
• In a control trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were incorrect
• 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
• When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity
• The social context of the 1950s may have affected Asch's results due to McCarthyism
• Zimbardo's study


  • 24 American male undergraduate students
  • Participants were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison
  • Guards began to harass and torment prisoners, while prisoners became submissive and defended the guards
• Agentic state


  When a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions
• 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
• In Milgram's study, the people saw the experimenter as legitimate as they knew he was a scientist and therefore is likely to be knowledgeable and responsible - this is called expert authority
• 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 a knowledgeable and responsible expert, 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 demanded obedience and increased trust in the researchers
• Uniform


  Participants obeyed more when the experimenter wore a lab coat, as it gave 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, preventing any grey areas emerging from uncertainty
• Reaction formation


  When a child with overly harsh and disciplinarian parents displaces their anger 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, because it technically measures the likeness between an individual to Fascism (far-right on the political scale), but left-wing authoritarianism is also present, such as Bolshevism, and has been ignored by the current theory
• There are more similarities between the two ends of these spectrums than differences, most notably a large emphasis on utmost respect for legitimate authority, which suggests that Fascist-like views can be found across the whole 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, such as the whole German population during Nazi occupation, who likely 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