Social Influence

• What is conformity?


  A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressures from a person or group of people.
• What is compliance?

  A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we go along with majority view but privately disagree with it. Individuals may go along with a group in order to gain socia approval or avoid disapproval.
• What is identification?

  A moderate form of conformity where we conform to the opinions and behaviours of a group because there is something about the group that we value. An individual might accept influence because they want to be associated with another group of person. We publicly change our opinions and behaviours to achieve this even if we don’t privately agree with everything the group stands for.
• What is internalisation?


  A deep type of conformity where a person conforms publicly and privately because they have internalised and accepted the views of the group. Internalisation occurs when a person genuinely accepts the group norms. This result in a private as well as public change of opinions or behaviours. This change is likely to become permanent as the attitudes have become part of the way a person thinks.
• What is informational social influence?

  Is when a person conforms because they have a desire to be right and look to others who they believe they may know more information.
• When does informational social influence occur?


  Occurs when a person is unsure of a situation or lacks knowledge and is associated with internalisation.
• Who carried out the experiment for informational social influence?

  Jenness
• What was the APRC of Jenness research?

  Investigate the influence of informational social influence on conformity. Task was to guess how many jellybeans were in the jar, sample consisted of 101 psychology students. The participants had to give an individual first estimate, then were put into groups and gave a group estimate then were asked to give another individual estimate. Nearly all ppts changed their answers. The ppts changed their answer because they believe the group answer to be more accurate than their own highlighting informational social influence.
• What is normative social influence?

  About the norms (what is typical or normal behaviour) of a social group. People do not want to appear foolish and want to gain social approval.
• Is normative social influence permanent or temporary?

  Temporary
• Who carried out an experiment on normative social influence?

  Sherif
• What is the APRC of Sherif’s research?

  Investigated whether people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambiguous situation. Autokinetic effect, where there is a spot of light in a dark room, that will appear to move even though it is still. He asked participants to estimate on how far the light have moved. Manipulated the groups by putting 2 people similar individual estimates and ones who was different. Each person had to say aloud how far they thought the light moved. Found after numerous estimates the group converged to a common estimate, so people look to others for guidance.
• What is a limitation of explanations of conformity?

  It does not account for individual differences. McGhee and Teevan found that students with a high need of affiliation were more likely to conform. People less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI. The evidence shows that the desire to be liked forms the underlying conformity for some people more than others. Therefore suggesting that there are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one explanation.
• What is a limitation of explanations of conformity?

  Doesn’t explain how the NSI and ISI can work together. For example in Asch’s experiment conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant. The dissenter may reduce the power of NSI because the dissenter provides social support and may reduce the power of ISI because there is an alternative source of information available. Therefore they may work together in some situations which the model doesn’t include, so too simplistic.
• What is a strength of ISI?

  Supporting evidence. Lucas et al, asked student to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or difficult. Results found that there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when the questions were more difficult, which was mostly true to students whose mathematical ability was poor. Showing people conform in situations where they do not know the answer. Therefore research supports the role of ISI in conformity as individuals will be influenced by members of the majority who appear more informed than themselves.
• What is a strength of NSI?

  Supporting evidence, Schultz et al found that hotel guests exposed to a normative message that 75% of guest reuse towels reduced their own use by 25% suggesting people shape their behaviour due to a desire to fit in. The findings of the study illustrate NSI. Once the guests are aware of the norm they will go along with it because it will make them feel like their behaviour is approved by others. Suggesting that NSI is a valid explanation of at least some conformity behaviour.
• What was the aim of Asch baseline study?

  Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
• What was the procedure in Asch baseline study?

  123 male US undergraduates took part in what they was told was a study of visual perception. they were all set up in a situation in which 7 people sat looking at a display. They were given the task of saying out loud which one of the 3 lines A,B,C was the same length as a given stimulus line. The correct answer was always obvious. All participants except 1 were confederates, the genuine participant was always the last to answer. confederates were instructed to give the same incorrect answer of 12 critical trials out of 18.
• What were the findings on Asch’s baseline study?

  36.8% conformity to wrong answers. Participants conformed to incorrect response given by confederates. 75% of participants conformed to at least 1 wrong answer and 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer.
• What is the conclusion of Asch baseline study?

  The judgement of the individuals are affected by majority opinions, even when the majority is wrong. When participants were interviewed after most said they conformed in order to avoid rejection. As most participants conformed publicly but not privately, it suggest that they were motivated by normative social influence.
• What were the 3 variations to Asch’s study?

  Group size, Unanimity and task difficulty.
• What changed when the variable was group size in Asch research?

  Found that confederates conformity to wrong answer rose to 31.8%. Addition of further confederates made little difference. Small majority is not sufficient for influence to be everted but at the other extreme there is no need for the majority to be more than 3.
• What differences took place when Asch variable was unanimity?

  This was when the real participants was given the support of the confederate who had been instructed to give the right answers throughout. Conformity level dropped significantly reducing the percentage of wrong answers to 5.5%. When there was a lone dissenter who was different to the majority and the true answer, conformity rates dropped to 9% which led Asch to believe that the presence of the dissenter appeared to free the participant to behave more independently.
• What differences took place when the variable was task difficulty during Asch research?

  The task was made more difficult by making the stimulus line and comparison line more similar in length. Conformity increased suggesting that informational social influence plays a greater role when task become harder.
• What is a limitation of Asch research?

  Tasks were artificial. Participants knew they were in a study so could have guessed the aim and performed demand characteristics. Fiske suggested that the tasks did not reflect real life situations therefore the study is not generalisable and lacks external validity.
• What is a limitation to Asch research?

  Sample consisted on all american men. Women have been suggested to be more conformist because they are possibly more concerned with social relationships (Neto). Also in collectivist cultures such as China conformity rate would be higher. Therefore this tells us that Asch’s research tells us little about women and other cultures.
• What is obedience?

  Defined as a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour isn’t forthcoming.
• Who was Stanley Milgram?

  A psychologist at Yale University. Milgram examined justifications for acts of genocide during world war 2. He was interested to find out why the German population had followed the orders of the dictator, Hitler. He then conducted his baseline study.
• What did Adolf Eichmann say?

  He was obeying orders, was his response to the reason why he killed millions of Jews in the war.
• What was the aim of Milgram’s study on obedience?

  Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person.
• What did Milgram’s sample involve?

  Sample of 40 male US participants, who volunteered after seeing newspaper adverts and flyers in the post. The study was initially advertised as a study investigating how punishment affects learning. Participant swerve offered $4.50.
• What are the 2 situational explanations?

  Agentic state,

  Legitimacy of authority,
• What is Agentic state?


  A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. This frees us from the demands of our conscience and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.
• What is the autonomous state?


  This is a state where we are independent and have free will over our actions and where a person sees themselves responsible for their own actions.
• What is an Agentic shift?

  The transition between an autonomous state to an Agentic state.
• Why does an Agentic shift occur?

  This shift occurs when you are ordered by an authority figure, due to the great power they have as a result of their position in the social hierarchy.
• What are binding factors?

  Aspects of a situation which allow an individual to either ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce personal responsibility.
• What is obedience?


  Obedience is defined as a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order.

  The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to punish.
• What is obedience?


  Defined as a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order.

  The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour isn’t forthcoming.
• Who is Stanley Milgram?


  A psychologist at Yale university. He examined the justifications for acts of genocide during world war 2.

  He was interested to find out why the German population had followed the orders of dictators such as Hitler.

  He wanted to know if Germans were more obedient.