Chapter 8: Social Influence Flashcards
What is homophily?
tendency for people to associate disproportionately with people who are like them
what are 2 of the factors that impact social network effects?
genes and homophily
What is social influence?
the many ways people affect one another
- these affects are attitude and behavioural changes
What is conformity?
- type of social influence
- changing one’s beliefs or behaviour to more closely align with those of others in response to some real or imagine pressure to do so
What is compliance?
“explicit conformity”
- type of social influence
- person responds favourably to an explicit request from another person
- less nuanced when compliance attempts come from powerful people
What is obedience?
- type of social influence
- more powerful person issues a demand/order to which less powerful person submits
What is automatic mimicry?
- most subtle form of conformity
- tendency to mindlessly imitate other peoples behavior and movement
What are the reasons for mimicry? Why?
- merely thinking about a behaviour makes performing that behaviour more likely (brain regions for perception overlap with action responsible regions)
- facilitate smooth, gratifying interactions to foster social connection
What are the 2 types of mimicry?
- nonconscious
- conscious/automatic: creates closeness
What is the autokinetic illusion?
sense that a stationary point of light in a completely dark environment is moving
which occurs bc in darkness theres no other stimuli, or frames of reference, to help the viewer discern where the light is located
How was informational social influence tested with the autokinetic illusion?
use autokinetic illusion to test this type of conformity:
- people guess light movement distance alone, then with a group
- with group, converge estimate
- when alone after group, retain group estimate
What is informational social influence?
rely on other people’s comments and actions as an indication of what’s likely to be correct, proper, or effective
What was the experiment to test normative social influence?
Asch’s line test
- person agrees with majority even though it conflicts with beliefs
What is normative social influence
the desire to avoid being criticized, disapproved of, or shunned
What are the factors that affect conformity pressure?
- group size = ↑ group size = ↑ conformity until 3-4 ppl, then levels off
- group unanimity: tendency to go along with misguided other people drops with someone who disagreed with majorty
- anonimity: ↓ normative social influence
- expertise and status of others = ↑ conf.
- culture: interdependence = ↑ conf.
- tight/loose cultures
What is a distinction between informational and normative social influence?
info: guiding how we come to see the issue/stimulus causing internalization
normative: avoid disapproval, do/say one thing but continue to beleive aother
What is internalization?
the private acceptance of the position advanced by the majority
in informational social influence
How does minoirty influence majority?
inority opinions can inflluence the majority through consistent and clear messages that persuade the majority to systematically examine and reevaluate its opinions
- mainly through informative not normative social influence
What is the foot in the door technique?
give small request then a larger request
compliance technique that maintain self-image of being agreeable
What is norm based compliance?
people are more likely to comply if people in their social norms are doing something