Chapter 9 Flashcards
Social Influence
Social Influence
Collection of ways that people affect one another through changing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, or behaviors resulting from the real or imagined presence of others
Obedience
In an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands of the person in authority
*Do as others COMMAND
Compliance
Responding favorably to an explicit request by another person
Do as others ASK
Conformity
Changing behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit, real or imagined pressure from others
*Do as others DO
Strength of social influence of obedience, compliance and conformity…
Decreases down the list
(Obedience > Compliance > Conformity)
Automatic mimicry
A type of conformity that involves unconsciously imitating the behavior of others
Who is more likely to express automatic mimicry?
People high in empathy or the ones that need to affiliate with others
What does the mimicry experiment (Chartrand & Bargh) demonstrate?
Participants were asked to describe photographs alongside another participant who was a confederate and made all sorts of motions. The actual participants mimicked the confederates’ movements, illustrating automatic mimicry.
Ideomotor action
Thinking about a behavior makes performing more likely
What is the use of ideomotor action?
- Facilitate smooth interactions with people – ppl tend to like those similar to them (includes mimicry) and are more prosocial towards these ppl.
- Help form bonds
Informational social influence
Using others’ comments or actions as information about what is correct, proper or effective
Normative social influence
Using others’ behavior as guides for how to fit in and avoid disapproval or social ridicule
What does the Autokinetic illusion experiment (Sherif 1936) demonstrate?
In this experiment, a stationary light was shown to participants, and they were put into a room together to call out estimates of how much the light moved. The estimates eventually converged into a group norm, and some ppl used other ppl’s answers to find out what they thought was the correct answer to a hard question.
Informational social influence is likely to occur when…
- The situation is difficult or ambiguous – when we feel LOW IN KNOWLEDGE or COMPETENCE about a task or topic, so we need help
Normative social influence is likely to occur when…
- The situation is clear or unambiguous, but one’s own beliefs conflict with group beliefs
Reasons for Conformity
*Social repercussions - avoid being isolated in a group
*Uncertainty - what is I’m wrong?
*Dispersal of risk - I won’t be the only one who’s wrong
Conformity factors
Group size, group unanimity, anonymity, internalization, expertise and status, culture, and gender
How does group size influence conformity?
Conformity increase with group size, but with a ceiling effect at a group size of three or four others – aren’t affected much if it goes from 4 to 400.
*Embarrassment of being wrong increases much more from 2 to 4 than from 12 to 14.
How does group unanimity influence conformity?
- If at least ONE other person agrees with you, conformity drops drastically (from 33% to 5% in Asch’s experiment variation)
- Doesn’t need to be right, but just not the same answer as everyone else
How does anonymity influence conformity?
- It’s easier when no one else knows that you’re the one standing out.
- Conformity dropped in Asch’s experiment when participants wrote out their answer on paper
How does internalization influence conformity?
Private acceptance of majority position
- Informational social influence leads to internalization, normative social influence does not
How does expertise and status influence conformity?
- If you think others are more knowledgeable than you inthe subject, you’ll be more likely to conform (and vise-versa)
- High-status people are more likely to be trusted, regardless of subject expertise
How does culture influence conformity?
Collectivist/Eastern cultures are more likely to be susceptible to social influence
*Tight cultues such as Germany and Britain often have strong norms about behavior, which is caused by high population, high threats, and low resources.
How does gender influence conformity?
- Women tend to conform slightly more than men and more in stereotypically male domains
- Men conform more in stereotypically female domains
3 types of compliance approaches
- Reason/Cognitive: Appeal to the head, change the way we think
- Emotion/Affective: Appeal to the heart, change the way we feel
- Norms: Appeal to expectations and social standards
Norm of reciprocity
A type of reason-based compliance
- You help others who help you
- Exists across cultures and species
Painting/Coke study is a study about ____ ____ ____, where……
norm of reciprocity; participants rates paintings alongside confederate who brings them coke or not, and ask the participant to buy raffle tickets – the participants who receives coke are more likely to buy it.
Reciprocal concessions/Door-in-the-face technique
A type of reason-based compliance
- People feel compelled to respond to a concession by making a concession themselves
（留面子效应：Big order first, small one follows）
In the Juvenile Zoo study, the participants were asked to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a zoo day trip, or have them counsel the delinquents 2 hr/week for 2 years then followed by chaperoning. What are the results for compliance?
In the first condition, the compliance was 17%; in the second condition, the compliance reached 50%.
Foot-in-the-door technique
A type of reason-based compliance
- Making an initial small request to which people comply and following up with a larger request
（得存进尺效应: Small order first, big one follows）
What does the Drive Carefully study illustrate?
That homeowners who put up small sign first are much more likely to accept putting up a billboard (76%) than homeowners who are asked to put up the billboard up front (17%), which illustrates the foot-in-the-door technique.
Two types of emotion-based compliance
Mood maintenance and Negative state relief hypothesis
Mood maintenance
It feels good to feel good and we want to keep feeling good. Helping others feels good, too.
Negative state relief hypothesis
People jump at the chance to relieve negative emotions and feel better about themselves.
*Only works for guilt, sadness, pity, and select other negative emotions.
Two types of norms
Descriptive and Prescriptive
Descriptive Norms
Behavior exhibited by most people in a given context
-“what is”
-Ex. most people belive in global warming
Prescriptive Norms
Way a person is supposed to behave in a given context
-“what ought to be”
-Ex. people should recycle
When is norm-based compliance the most effective?
When descriptive and prescriptive norms match each other – we do this because we SHOULD do this.
Making suffering more salient or authority less salient both ____ obedience
decrease
In experimenter-conflict variation, ____% obeyed to the end; However, in question variation, ____% obeyed to the end
0; 92.7
Reasons for obedience
- Participants tried but failed to quit, and kept going regardless
- Participants were released from responsibility
- Step-by-step process of severity
