Social Influence

• Conformity


  Change in an individual's behaviour due to real or imagined group pressure
• 3 types of conformity


  Compliance

  Identification

  Internalisation
• Compliance


  Superficial conformity - publicly changing behaviour but privately maintaining original behaviour or opinions - typically short lived
• Identification


  Changing behaviour due to value placed on group or social role - public changes but not necessarily private ones - can be long-lived but once need for conformity is gone, behaviour often reverts
• Internalisation


  Conformity involving genuine acceptance of group norms leading to public and private changes in behaviour - often permanent
• Real Pressure


  Actual factors creating necessity to conform, often with negative outcomes if not adhered to
• Imagined Pressure


  Perceived or assumed expectations that may not actually have real consequences but are based in assumptions or desire to fit in
• Historical examples of conformity

  Abu Ghraib

  Nazism
• Who created the dual-process dependency model?

  Deutsch and Gerard
• Parts of dual-process dependency model

  Normative and informational
• Normative social influence


  Based on desire to be liked and fit in

  Doesn't lead to change of personal opinions
• Informational social influence


  Based on desire to be right & belief that others have superior knowledge or judgement

  Leads to change of personal opinions
• Who researched informational social influence?

  Sherif
• Who researched normative social influence?

  Schultz et al
• How did Sherif research informational social influence?

  Ppts shown light under auto-kinetic effect (appears to move but actually still) and asked how far light moved individually

  Then asked in groups of 3 where 2 have similar estimates and one different

  Person with different result usually conformed to majority view - in unclear situations people look to others for guidance
• How did Schultz et al research normative social influence?

  Left notes in hotel rooms saying 75% guests reuse towels rather than requesting new ones

  Lead to 25% less requesting new towels due to perceived pressure
• Explanations for conformity evaluated


  Too simplistic - doesn't consider social identity as factor - Turner suggested third explanation 'referent social influence' where people maintain norms of a group due to self-categorisation as a member

  Practical applications - understanding history eg Abu Ghraib and how minority influence occurs

  May lack temporal validity due to lots of research in 30s to 50s

  May involve combination of normative and informational factors
• Asch's Procedure


  Male volunteering students

  In groups of 7-9 confederates

  All asked to identify a matching line on a slide

  On 12 of 18 trials, confederates gave identical wrong answers

  Real participant asked last
• Average conformity rate Asch

  36.8%
• How many ppts conformed at least once in Asch's study?

  75%
• How many participants conformed all 12 times?

  5%
• 3 Explanations for Asch

  Distortion of

  • perception (informational, unaware of conflict)
  • judgement (informational, aware of conflict)
  • action (normative, aware of conflict)
• Asch's 3 variations

  Group Size

  Unanimity

  Task difficulty
• Group size Asch


  Tried in groups of 1-15 confederates

  3 confederates same as 7 - true majority present

  15 confederates - conformity dropped (screw-u-effect)
• Unanimity Asch

  Dissenter (rebel) confederate giving

  • right answer: conformity 5% - support for ppt
  • different wrong answer: conformity 9% - broken group's unanimous position
• Task difficulty Asch

  More similar line length - higher conformity rates - more informational conformity (distortion of perception/judgement)
• Asch Evaluation

  Created a paradigm for studying conformity

  Artificial task - lacks ecological validity

  Lacks temporal validity - redone in 1980 and found very little conformity

  Cultural bias and population bias - only used white American male student volunteers, limiting generalisability
• What was Zimbardo's aim?

  To investigate whether dispositional or situational factors affected behaviour
• Explanations for dehumanising behaviour in prisons


  Dispositional hypothesis

  Situational hypothesis
• Dispositional Hypothesis


  Suggested behaviour due to nature of people found in prisons
• Situational Hypothesis


  Suggested behaviour due to environmental factors - the brutal and dehumanising conditions in prison
• Zimbardo Procedure

  24 American male volunteers - deemed mentally healthy

  Prisoners unexpectedly arrested at home - deloused, given uniform and ID number

  Guards given uniforms and not referred to by name - told to control prisoners but without violence

  Zimbardo was prison superintendent
• Zimbardo Results

  Prisoners rebelled within a day causing guards to confiscate their sleeping blankets initially, then escalate punishment to humiliation, sleep deprivation, and being locked in a cupboard

  Prisoners became depressed and began identifying as real prisoners (asked for parole rather than withdrawal)

  Role play called off after 6 days

  Shows that social situations transform the behaviour of individuals and suppress individual differences - situational variables
• Zimbardo Evaluation


  Lacks population validity - contrasting results in British study

  Ethical issues - protection, deceit, right to withdraw

  Practical applications - explains Abu Ghraib, changed laws in prisons to seperate juvenile and adult prisoners
• Who investigated the power of uniforms?

  Bickman
• Bickman's findings


  Uniforms increase obedience to authority

  89% obey guard

  57% obey milkman

  33% obey civilian
• Who investigated blind obedience?

  Hofling
• Hofling Procedure


  Naturalistic - nurses called by doctor and asked to administer 20mg of a drug unfamiliar to then to a patient

  Nurses could see this is double maximum dosage

  Broke hospital rules of accepting instructions over phone, administering high dosage, and administering unauthorised medicine

  21 of 22 did it (95%)
• Hofling's Conclusion


  People are unwilling to question authority
• Real World Examples of Obedience

  Vietnam War - My Lai Village massacre

  Nazism

  Jonestown - religious cult mass suicide