Key Terms Social Influence Flashcards
What is conformity?
A change in a persons behaviour due to real or imagined pressure by a social group.
What is meant by the term internalisation?
A permanent type of conformity where the person genuinely accepts the group view as they believe it is correct and the changes persist even without the presence of the group.
Identification.
When someone changes their belief/behaviour to the group because they value something of the group and identify with them. However , the person doesn’t necessarily always agree with them in private.
Compliance.
A superficial change where the person just goes along with the group despite privately disagreeing. The behaviour or attitude ends with the group pressure.
Explain the term informational social influence.
It is one of two explanations to conformity by Deutsch and Gerald
that says people agree with the majority due to the belief they are correct as it is about who the person thinks has better information.
It is the need to be right and may lead the person to internalisation.
Outline a normative social influence as an explanation for conformity.
NSI is about what is thought to be the normal behaviour for a social group. People follow this because they want to be accepted by the group and do not wish to be ridiculed. It is an emotional process and often occurs in situations with strangers or even with friends whose approval is desired.
Explain unanimity in relation to conformity.
It is the extent to which everyone involved in the group agrees and shares the same answer.
Brief outline of the effects of group size on conformity rates.
Group size is a variable that affects conformity.
Asch’s variations shows that 3 confederates is the optimum for max conformity
any less is an insufficient amount of influence and anymore is not needed to increase conformity rates significantly.
Outline of task difficulty on conformity rates.
Asch found that increasing the difficulty increases the conformity rates.
This suggests ISI plays a great role as the situation becomes more ambiguous
making people more likely to look to others and assume they are right.
Explain the term social roles.
The parts people play in social groups which has expectations attached to them. For example a parent is expected to be caring.
Obedience.
A form of social influence where an individual follows a direct order given by someone who is or perceived to be a figure of authority who has the power to punish for disobedience.
Situational variables
Milgram found several external factors that he believed influenced the levels of obedience.
Proximity - physical closeness of the authority figure as well as the teacher and victim in Milgram’s studies
Location - the place where the order is issued fits in with the authority figure and the orders.
Uniform - the specific outfit the authority figure typically wears and is a symbol of their status.
Identify two situational variables and explain how they affect obedience.
Proximity is a variable that affected obedience to authority as the teacher and victim being in the same room meant that the participant can see the pain of what they are doing making it a lot more real and humane. This makes them more like to disobey the authority figure due to their morality.
The variation carried out in a run down building resulted in the obedience rate dropping from 65% to 47.5%. This is because in this location the experimenter has less authority and validity for their orders.
Uniform- experimenter substituted for an’ ordinary member of the public’ from 65% to 20% the lowest
Locus of control
Internals believe what happens to them is largely dependant on their own actions and are responsible.
Externals believe that things occur without their control and is matter of luck and the resources they had.
Resistance to social influence.
People who have an internal LOC are more likely to resist pressures to conform and obey. This is because they take responsibility for their actions good or bad and base their decisions on their beliefs
They tend to more self confident and have a higher intelligence with a lower need for approval from social groups. This makes them have greater resistance to social influence.
