social influence

• Compliance


  Agreeing with the group externally but keeping personal opinions, a temporary change in behavior
• Identification


  Behaving according to group membership, private values change only when with the group
• Internalization


  Personal opinions genuinely change to match the group, a permanent change
• Informational social influence (ISI)

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


  Wanting to appear normal and be approved by the majority, results in compliance
• Asch 1951 study found 32% of participants conformed to the incorrect group response
• Jenness 1932 study found individuals' second private guesses moved closer to the group's guess, and women were more conformist
• Factors affecting conformity


  • Group size (conformity increases with more confederates)
  • Presence of a dissenting voice (conformity drops if one confederate gives the correct response)
  • Task difficulty (conformity increases on more difficult tasks)
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment found participants quickly conformed to their assigned social roles as prisoners and guards
• Agentic state


  The individual believes they don't have responsibility for their behavior as they are just following orders from an authority figure
• Autonomous state


  The individual feels their actions are free from control
• Legitimacy of authority


  Individuals accept that people higher up in a social hierarchy should be obeyed
• Milgram's obedience study found 65% of participants were willing to deliver the maximum 450-volt shock when ordered by an authority figure
• Factors affecting obedience


  • Proximity to the victim (obedience drops when the victim is in the same room)
  • Uniform of the authority figure (obedience drops when the authority figure is not in a lab coat)
  • Location (obedience increases in a more formal setting)
• Adorno argued that people with high levels of authoritarianism, as measured by the F-scale, were more likely to obey authority figures
• Factors enabling resistance to social influence


  • Social support (seeing others resist)
  • Locus of control (internal locus of control is associated with greater resistance)
• Minority influence


  Minorities attempt to change majority opinion through informational social influence, leading to a slow process of majority conversion
• Characteristics of effective minority influence


  • Consistency (repeating the same message over time)
  • Flexibility (appearing open-minded while maintaining a clear position)
  • Commitment (being willing to suffer for their views)
• Social change often occurs through a "snowball effect" where the minority view gradually gains more acceptability and converts more members of the majority
• Group membership affects how open we are to influence, with in-group members more persuasive than out-group members
• Governments can drive social change quickly by changing and enforcing laws, using their legitimacy of authority