6: Social Influence Flashcards
What is social influence?
The process where attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
What are the types of social influence?
Compliance: Change that goes against one’s own beleifs
Conformity: Change that restructures your internal beleifs
Minority influence: Power minorities changing the attitudes of the majoirty
What is compliance?
Change that goes against your own beleifs which you still hold privately
What is conformity?
Changing your own beleifs as well as attitudes to fit in with others
What was Milgram testing in his 1963 study?
Under what situational factors we are obedient, even if it goes against our own beleifs
What situational factors were highlighted as important in Milgram’s studies?
Immediacy of the victim: Obediance decreased when they had visual contact
Proximity of authority figure: If the instructions were over the phone, less obeyed
Legitimacy of authority: Environmental
Social influence: If 2 teachers were present, they swayed the results
How does immediacy of the the victim affect compliance in Milgram’s study?
If they could only hear the victim, 65% complied
If they could see the victim, 40% complied
How does proximity of the authoirty figure affect compliance in Milgram’s study?
When instructions were over the phone 20.5% complied
When the experimenter gave no orders, 2.5% complied
How does legitimacy of authority affect compliance in Milgram’s study?
When the experiment was conducted in a run down office instead of Yale, obediance was 48%
How does social influences affect compliance in Milgram’s study?
If 2 other teachers were present and complied, obediance was 92%
If the other 2 teachers refused, only 10% were obedient
Who came up with the autokinetic effect?
Sherif
What is the autokinetic effect?
Estimated how far the light moved in groups. The estimates converged into a normative value which shows how our opinions are infleunced by others
How does individual differences affect conformity?
People are more likely to conform when they:
Have low self-esteem
Need high levels of social support
Lower IQ
High anxiety
How do cultural norms affect conformity?
Less present in individualistic cultures
How do situational factors affect conformity?
Anonymity and group size
