Chapter 7 Flashcards
Social influence
= interpersonal processes that change people’s thoughts, feelings, or
actions.
- Majority influence = results from the majority’s impact on the minority.
- Minority influence = results from the minority’s impact on the majority.
Conformity
change in one’s actions, emotions, opinions, and judgments in order that this
matches the actions, emotions, opinions, and judgements of other group members.
Asch paradigm
an experiment to determine the conformity of participants to group
opinion. Participants believed that they were making perceptual judgments as part of a
group, but the other members were trained to make deliberate errors on certain tasks. >
Participants tended to go with the opinion of the others (the incorrect one), due to the fact
that they did not confess being the only one who has a different opinion (which actually
was the correct one).
Different ways in which people react on social influence:
- Compliance / acquiescence
- Conversion / private acceptance
- Congruence / uniformity
- Independence / dissent
- Anticonformity/ counterconformity
Compliance / acquiescence
publicly agrees with group (because they want to match the opinion expressed by the majority of the group), but privately disagrees.
Conversion / private acceptance
agrees with group publicly and privately; first disagrees
with the group, but then changes opinion.
Congruence / uniformity
agrees with group publicly and privately (from the start).
Independence / dissent
disagrees with group publicly and privately.
Anticonformity
disagrees with group publicly but agrees (or has no opinion or interest) privately
counterconformity
members express ideas or take actions that are the
opposite of whatever the group recommends.
Latane: social impact theory
social impact depends on the Strength (S), the immediacy (I), and the number (N) of sources present > Social impact = f(SIN).
- In this formula, the decreasing impact of increased number of sources of influence is
consistent with the idea of a lightbulb: low amounts of light can make a big
difference in the amount, but if there is already much amount of light, adding more
does not make an effect in lighting up the room.
Crutchfield: Crutchfield situation
repeated the experiment of Asch, but anonymous via a
computer, so they could see their responses but not their faces > Conformity decreased.
However, in real life, computer-mediated interactions still conform at rates equal to and
sometimes higher than face-to-face groups.
Conforming depends on several factors:
- Personality traits: people who conform consistently in groups tend to be more authoritarian
but seek social approval. Also, often people with low IQ or low self-esteem. - Gender: women conform slightly more than men. Woman may use conformity to increase
group harmony, whereas men use nonconformity to create the impression of independence. - Collectivistic societies: tend to conform more to agree with one group opinion.
Moscovici: conversion theory
consistent minorities will be influential. Minorities create
more conversion and innovation, whereas majorities tend to create compliance. Minorities
make use of the validation process = when a group member has a different opinion, the
other group members will show large interest. When group members get an idea of what the
majority thinks, they will make use of the comparison process = checking if they can join the
opinion of the majority.
Hollander: conversion theory
first, people must build a status in a group before expressing their differing
opinions. Idiosyncrasy credit = showing compassion toward high-status members who
violate group norms, which will protect them from sanctions when they display
nonconformity.
Latane: dynamic social impact theory
majority and minority influence in spatially
distributed groups that interact repeatedly over time is explained by four processes:
- Consolidation = when the rate of interaction between individuals increases, their
actions, attitudes, and opinions will get more similar. - Clustering = people are more influenced by their closest neighbours, so clusters of
group members with similar opinions emerge in groups. - Correlation = over time, the group members’ opinions on variety of issues converge/
become correlated. - Continuing diversity = because of clustering, members of minorities are often
shielded from the influence attempts of the majority, and their beliefs continue
within the group.
Sources of social influence:
- Implicit influence
- Informational influence
- Normative influence
- Interpersonal influence
Implicit influence
produced by cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes that are
often unconscious and unfrequently noticed (e.g., mimicry = mimicking other group
members without realizing doing it)
Informational influence
occurs when group members use responses of others as reference
points and informational resources, often in unfamiliar situations.
- Social comparison: using the opinion of the minority to compare with your own
opinion. - False consensus effect = thinking that your beliefs, attributes, and actions are
relatively common, but people actually often misjudge the extent to which others
agree with their viewpoint. - Dual process theories of influence = social influence occurs when group members
systematically process available information (direct process) or base their choices on
non-rational processes (indirect process), such as emotional responses and heuristics
(= basic rules that are used to draw conclusions when the amount of information
available is limited, unclear, or contradictory)
Normative influence
collection of personal and interpersonal processes that cause group
members to think, feel, and act in ways that are consistent with their group’s social
standards.
- Disagreeing with others can cause cognitive dissonance = unpleasant psychological
state that individuals are motivated to reduce
Caldini: focus theory of normative influence
normative influence is a more potent
and longer-lasting form of influence than informational influence
Interpersonal influence
social influence that encourages conformity and discourages nonconformity through verbal and nonverbal tactics (e.g., complaining, demanding,
threatening, etc.).
- Schachter: nonconformists are generally less liked by others in the group and often
excluded. - Subjective group dynamics = psychological and interpersonal processes that occur
through categorization and identification processes (e.g., the will of group members
to have a unique group / the will of group members to think that they have the right
persuasions). - The black sheep effect = tendency for group members to evaluate a group member
who performs an offensive behavior more harshly than an outgroup member who
performs the same offense.
Subjective group dynamics
psychological and interpersonal processes that occur
through categorization and identification processes (e.g., the will of group members
to have a unique group / the will of group members to think that they have the right
persuasions).
The black sheep effect
tendency for group members to evaluate a group member
who performs an offensive behavior more harshly than an outgroup member who
performs the same offense.
The bystander effect
occurs when individuals help less in groups rather than when being
alone, because of the idea that “others can also provide help”.
Diffusion of responsibility
person experiences reduced responsibility in groups and social
collectives, because it decreases the feeling of personal responsibility.
- Informational and normative influences contribute to both the bystander effect and
diffusion of responsibility.
Story model
theory of cognitive processing of trial information that suggests jurors mentally
organize evidence in coherent, credible stories. Thus, the decision is shaped by social processes
rather than by an unbiased weighing of evidence. Jurors make their judgment according to one of the
two processes:
- verdict driven jurors
- Evidence driven jurors
- Saks: changing the size of the jury can be of great importance to improvement:
o Group structure: small and large juries join discussions equally often. However, small
juries are more cohesive (= samenhangend), whereas large juries exchange more
information.
o Representativeness: smaller juries are not as representative of the community as
larger ones.
o Majority influence: the majority’s influence may be greater in smaller juries, because
the likelihood of finding a partner with the same deviate opinion becomes smaller
than with large juries.
o Voting: the likelihood of a hung jury (= jury cannot come to a verdict because
minority won’t change their opinion) is larger with large juries.
o Verdicts: however, small juries and large juries don’t appear to differ significantly in
the types of verdicts reached.
verdict driven jurors
they reach a decision about the verdict before deliberation and cognitively organize the evidence into two categories: (1) Evidence that favors a verdict of
guilty, and (2) Evidence that favors a verdict of not guilty.
Evidence driven jurors
resist making a final decision on the verdict until they have reviewed all the available evidence and from which they subsequently generate a story that
weaves together the evidence of the trial and their own expectations.
