Chapter 8: social influence, changing other's behavior Flashcards
social influence
Efforts by one or more people to change the behavior, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others.
Conformity
The accordance with social norms; most people underestimate the degree to which they confirm to social norms, but often do so most of the time.
Cohesiveness
The degree of attraction felt by an individual toward some group, group size, and type of social norm operating in that situation.
Descriptive norms
Norms that simply describe what most people do in a given situation
Injunctive norms
Norms that specify how people ought to behave, what is approved or disapproved behavior in a given situation.
Normative focus theory
Suggests that norms will influence behavior only to the extent that they are salient to the people involved at the time the behavior occurs. They will obey injunctive norms only when they think about them and see them as applying to themselves and their actions.
Informative social influence
Reliance on others opinions and actions as a guide for our own; is often a powerful source of the tendency to conform.
Synchronous behavior
Behavior in which individuals match their actions to those of others.
Reactance
The feeling that our personal freedom is being restricted, and that we should resist strong pressure to conform to maintain our individuality. Whether we choose to confirm or resist depends, in part, on whether we are participating in such actions or observing them.
Status and confirmity
People who conform –> low autonomy –> low status
People who don’t conform –> high autonomy –> high status
Compliance
Getting others to say “yes” to your requests
six principles of compliance
- Friendship/liking
- Commitment/consistency
- Scarcity
- Reciprocity
- Social validation
- Authority
Tactics based on friendship/liking
- Impression management
- flattery
- self-promotion
- incidental similarity
Foot-in-the-door technique
Involves presenting target people with a small request - something so trivial it is hard for them to refuse - and then following it up with a larger request. Rests on principal of consistency: Saying yes to larger request feels consistent with previous behavior of saying yes to smaller request
Lowball procedure
A very good deal is offered to a customer. After customer accepts, something happens that makes it necessary for the deal to change, making it less advantageous. Often customer will still agree to the less advantageous deal because having committed initially makes it harder to walk away. Rests on principal of commitment.
The lure effect
In this technique, the intended target of a request is first asked to agree to do something he or she finds appealing; After they agree to this, they are told they do not need to do the appealing task (a questionnaire for example), and instead are needed to do a boring task (copying paperwork, for example). Most individuals agree to do the boring task, because they feel a sense of obligation.
Door-in-the-face technique
Opposite of the foot-in-the-door technique, where instead of beginning with a small request and working up to a big one, they START with a big request and after it is rejected, shift to a smaller request (but one that was the intended goal all along).
That’s-not-all technique
An initial request is followed, before the target person can say “yes” or “no”, by something that sweetens the deal - an extra incentive from the people offering it. People on the receiving end of this feel, due to the norms of reciprocity, that they now ought to accept because the other person is doing something “extra” for them.
Deadline technique
Sales that are effective due to an indication of an approaching deadline on the deal.
Obedience
In which one person directly orders one or more others to behave in specific ways
Why destructive obedience occurs
- people in authority relieve those who obey of the responsibility for their own actions
- people in authority often possess visible badges or signs of status, and this reminds individuals of the social norm “obey the authority”
- involves the gradual escalation of the authority figure’s orders.
Resisting the effects of destructive obedience
- individuals exposed to commands from authority figures can be reminded that THEY are responsible for their actions
- Individuals can be given a clear indication that beyond some point, total submission to destructive commands is inappropriate
- It may be easier to resist influence from authority figures if their expertise is questioned
- simply knowing about the power of authority figures and the norms associated with it is helpful
Unintentional social influence
When individuals influence others without overtly intending to do so
Symbolic social influence
When the mere thought of the reactions of other people may have strong effect on our actions and attitudes.
