Chapter 09 - Social Influence

Question 1

social influence

Answer 1

The many ways people affect one another, including changes in attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and behavior resulting from the comments, actions, or even the mere presence of others.

Question 2

conformity

Answer 2

Changing one’s behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit pressure (real or imagined) from others.

Question 3

compliance

Answer 3

Responding favorably to an explicit request by another person.

Question 4

obedience

Answer 4

In an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands of the person in authority.

Question 5

ideomotor action

Answer 5

The phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behavior makes performing it more likely.

Question 6

informational social influence

Answer 6

The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

Question 7

normative social influence

Answer 7

The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions (ridicule, barbs, ostracism).

Question 8

internalization

Answer 8

Private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology.

Question 9

norm of reciprocity

Answer 9

A norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who benefit them.

Question 10

reciprocal concessions technique

Answer 10

A compliance approach that involves asking someone for a very large favor that will certainly be refused and then following that request with one for a smaller favor (which tends to be seen as a concession the target feels compelled to honor).

Question 11

foot-in-the-door technique

Answer 11

A compliance approach that involves making an initial small request with which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behavior of interest.

Question 12

negative state relief hypothesis

Answer 12

The idea that people engage in certain actions, such as agreeing to a request, to relieve their negative feelings and feel better about themselves.

Question 13

descriptive norm

Answer 13

The behavior exhibited by most people in a given context.

Question 14

prescriptive norm

Answer 14

The way a person is supposed to behave in a given context; also called injunctive norm.

Question 15

reactance theory

Answer 15

The idea that people reassert their prerogatives in response to the unpleasant state of arousal they experience when they believe their freedoms are threatened.

Question 16

What two reasons appear to explain why people so often mimic one another?

Answer 16

The two explanations for mimicry are as follows:

1. Because of ideomotor action, we are more likely to do something if it pops into our mind by virtue of witnessing someone else do it.
2. Mimicry enhances rapport and prepares us to have smooth interactions.

Question 17

Suppose your dining hall is having a contest, and you have to guess how many gumballs are in a giant jar (the closest guess wins). You and a few friends walk up to the gumball jar and tell your guesses to the volunteer running the contest. Your friends all say their guesses out loud, and you go last. You find yourself increasing your gumball estimate to be closer to those of your friends. How could each type of social influence (normative and informational) have affected your guess? How could you reduce the normative social influence in this situation?

Answer 17

Given that you’re making a judgment about something uncertain (there’s not an obvious right answer), you may have used your friends’ guesses as a useful source of information, helping you arrive at a judgment that seemed more accurate; this is informational social influence. But given that you’re also stating these judgments publicly, there is pressure to state a judgment that is similar to those of your friends, so you won’t be seen as odd or clueless; this is normative social influence. You could reduce the normative social influence inherent in this situation by privately submitting your answers on pieces of paper, rather than stating them out loud.

Question 18

In the battle for LGBTQ rights, what kind of social influence can minority LGBTQ groups exert on the majority? Should their goal be to engage public support or private internalization and acceptance of their arguments among members of the majority?

Answer 18

When minority groups influence majority groups to enact social change, it is typically via informational social influence, convincing members of the majority group to hear out their arguments and better understand their perspective. Normative social influence, which typically results in mere public compliance (without any private acceptance of LGBTQ arguments or positions), is a less powerful tool here, as the majority doesn’t feel much pressure to conform and avoid public scorn; they largely control the public scorn, after all. Luckily, informational social influence is a powerful force, one that is more likely to result in private acceptance and internalization of the minority perspective among members of the majority, which will likely aid the LGBTQ cause more in the long run.

Question 19

Suppose you want to increase voting rates among millennials (people born in the 1980s and 1990s). Describe one reason-based approach, one emotion-based approach, and one norm-based approach you could use to do so.

Answer 19

Reason-based approach: you could use a foot-in-the-door technique, asking eligible voters to do small volunteering duties for the election, which would highlight their sense of self as a politically engaged individual, hopefully leading to more behavior consistent with that sense of self, such as voting.

Emotion-based approach: you could give away cookies on the street on election day to induce positive emotion before reminding people to vote, which could lead them to construe the act of voting as not terribly inconvenient and make them more inclined to engage in a valued civic act to further or sustain their good mood.

Norm-based approach: you could create flyers that highlight how many people vote in certain neighborhoods and age-groups, but you’d have to be careful not to advertise a norm of not voting if rates were low; adding a smiling face along with the numbers could help communicate that high voting rates are desirable.

Question 20

In the context of the Milgram experiment, give an example of “tuning in the learner” and an example of “tuning out the experimenter,” and explain how each one affects obedience rates.

Answer 20

“Tuning in the learner” means heightening the salience of the learner and the consequences of the participant’s actions for the learner’s health and well-being. For example, having participants hold the learner’s hand against the shock plate while administering the shocks makes the participants more aware of what they’re doing to another person by obeying the instructions of the experimenter, thereby reducing obedience rates.

In contrast, “tuning out the experimenter” means reducing the salience of the experimenter, for instance by having the experimenter administer instructions over an intercom rather than in person. This tends to reduce the experimenter’s authority and influence over the participant, thus reducing obedience.