psych - social influence

• Conformity


  When people change their behaviour because of real or imagined pressure
• Obedience


  Doing a task that an authoritative figure tells you to do
• Minority influence


  • Minority has power to influence a majority to do something
  • Minority needs to be committed (not for their benefit), flexible (willing to change a bit to get what they want), and constant (over time - diachronic and in their belief - synchronic)
• Strengths of minority influence

  • Moscovici's 4 naive participants put in a room with 2 confederates, and asked to state if a slide was blue or green. The answer was obvious every time but the confederates said the wrong answer constantly. The minority managed to influence the majority in 8.42% of the trials.
• Weakness of minority influence

  It only works if the individual can identify with the minority and they respect them
• Artificial setting (Moscovici)


  Does not reflect real minority pressure
• Social change


  1. Minority influence creates such a pressure onto society that it creates a policy change or normative change within society

  2. Snowball process where a minority starts off and stays committed, flexible and consistent then slowly as they influence more and more people, the minority becomes a majority

  3. This causes social cryptomnesia where people don't remember when the change took place as it has become the normal
• Strengths of social change

  • Real life application e.g. gay marriage
  • Practical application e.g. helps to encourage change like COVID
• Locus of control


  The extent to which someone believes they are in control of their own lives
• External locus of control

  Believes that everything is down to fate/luck, the environment around them affects what happens, more prone to conformity
• Internal locus of control

  Believes they are what determines what happens, they need to do something in order for change to happen, less likely to conform
• Strength of locus of control

  • Holland found that 37% of people with an internal LOC did not conform and only 23% with an external LOC did not conform
• Social support


  The theory that if there is more people on your side of the pressure, then you'll less likely conform
• Strength of social support

  • Asch variation of unanimity - conformity dropped from 32% to 5.5% when the majority decreased and minority increased
• Weakness of social support

  Even though it does show a difference, some people do still conform even with social support, this means there could be individual differences such as an authoritarian personality that affects it
• Authoritarian personality


  Some people are more prone to obey an authority figure due to their personality. Their personality is usually obedient, respectful of authorities and respects hierarchies. This personality usually forms as a result of strict parenting.
• Strength of authoritarian personality

  • The F-scale (fascism scale) found that people with higher scores on the F-scale, conformed the highest (450V) in Milgram's experiment
• Weakness of authoritarian personality

  Relies heavily on self-report (can be biased), and not everyone that obeys has an authoritarian personality which means their must be other factors involved
• Legitimate authority


  If an authority figure is seen as more real, and has more power then the rates of obedience will rise. Factors that affect if an authority figure is legitimate or not are uniform, environment.
• Strength of legitimate authority

  • Milgram's variation of authority - in the first study he used a lab coat and conducted it in a university, whereas in the variation, he conducted it in a run down office and the researcher had casual clothes on. This dropped obedience by 45%.
  • Bickman found the guard had much higher levels of obedience compared to a milkman or civilian
• Weakness of legitimate authority

  Milgram is artificial and people still do obey with less legitimate authority so other factors must be involved
• Agentic state


  The state that someone turns into when they are conforming to someone. They start in an autonomous state, where they feel they have free will and can do what they want. Then when they get into an agentic state, they don't feel responsible for their actions, they put the responsibility onto the authority figure and don't feel like they have as much free will.
• Strength of agentic state

  • Supported by Milgram's study where he told the participants that they are not responsible
• Weakness of agentic state

  Can't scientifically test which state someone is in, and individual differences are involved
• Informative social influence


  Where someone conforms due to uncertainty. If they do not know the right answer, and the majority is going one way, they will conform because they feel the majority must be right. This is linked to identification and internalisation (long term conformity).
• Strength of informative social influence

  • Supported by Asch, in the task difficulty variation, people conformed due to not knowing the right answer
• Normative social influence


  Where someone conforms because they want to "fit in". They do not want to stand out by going in the opposite way as the majority so just go with what the majority are thinking even if they privately believe differently. This is linked to compliance.
• Strength of normative social influence

  • Supported by Asch, people conformed due to not wanting to be the odd one out. Asked the participants after why they conformed, said they wanted to fit in.
• Compliance


  Private beliefs stay the same but public beliefs change. Short term. To fit in.
• Strength of compliance


  • Supported by Asch
• Weakness of compliance


  Locus of control can affect it
• Identification


  Private and public change while with group but go back when leave the group. Medium term.
• Strength of identification


  • Supported by Zimbardo
• Weakness of identification


  Only occurs if they value the group
• Internalisation


  Private and public both change and stay.
• Strength of internalisation


  • Supported by Asch
• Weakness of internalisation


  There is a mix between identification and internalisation because it's difficult to tell what's what
• Asch's study of conformity

  1. Told to match a line up with 3 others on a board. 1 naive participant and 6 confederates. Went down the line and said out loud which line matched up, the naive participant was second to last. All confederates said the wrong answer.

  2. Findings: 75% of naive participants conformed in at least one of the trials. Average conformity rate was 32%, 5% conformed in all 12 trials and 25% never conformed.
• Task difficulty in Asch's study

  Made the task more difficult which created more conformity
• Unanimity in Asch's study

  One confederate said the right answer as well, this decreased conformity levels to 5.5% from 32%