Lecture 5- Social influence Flashcards
What is social influence?
Process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people.
What are social norms?
Rules and standards that govern behaviour of a group without force of laws. May not be stated explicitly but deviations come from social networks not legal system
What does Sherif (1936) say about norm development?
Social norms emerge to guide behaviour in conditions of uncertainty
What is Sherif’s (1936) study say about norm development?
-Autokinetic effect in which point of light appears to move -Made judgements alone or in groups of 2/3 and made judgements of others as frame of reference. -Found they converge away from individual to common standard (group norm)
What is the definition of rational process?
People construct norm from others’ behaviour to determine appropriate behaviour.
What does Asch (1951) say about conformity?
Avg conformity was 33% due to self-doubt, self-consciousness, fear of social disapproval.
In Asch (1951) study on conformity, what happened when judgements were anonymous?
When judgements anonymous, conformity dropped to 12.5%
What are the 2 types of influence involved in Deutsch & Gerard (1995)?
Informational
Normative
What is informational influence in Deutsch & Gerard (1995)?
Ambiguous/ uncertain situations aha
-Need to feel confident our perceptions are correct
-Influence to accept info from another as evidence about reality
= True cognitive change
What is normative influence in Deutsch & Gerard (1995)?
Need for social approval and acceptance so change public display to avoid disapproval aha
=Surface compliance
How does Sherif’s study show informational influence?
Sherifs study highlights informational influence as use other estimates as information to resolve uncertainty
How does Asch’s study show normative influence?
Asch’s study supports normative influence as its unambiguous as they go along with the group, esp. under surveillance.
What does Moscovici say are minority influences?
Social influence processes whereby numerical or power minorities change the attitudes of the majority.” Eg right to vote, climate change
Effective is consistent, not rigid, committed
What does majority influence produce?
Majority influence produces public compliance via social comparison.
What does minority influences produce?
Minority influence produces indirect, private change in opinion, conversion effect as a consequence of active consideration of minority point of view
What happened in Milgram’s obedience to authority study?
-Electric shocks to confederate in mock learning study
-Throughout experiment, if ppt was hesitating, experimenter was told to go on eg “please continue”, “absolutely essential you must continue”
What did Milgram’s study show?
People socialised to respect authority of the state.
What is the Agentic state?
Mentally absolve of own responsibility and transfer responsibility to person giving order.
What were the results of Milgrams study?
-80% of ppts went past 150v
-62.5% went to max voltage of 450v
What were the 4 factors affecting obedience?
-Gradual change + Commitment
-Immediacy of victim
-Immediacy of authority figure
-Legitimacy of authority figure
How does Gradual change + commitment affect obedience?
Ppts committed to course of action
How does Immediacy of victim affect obedience?
As immediacy increased, obedience decreased
How does Immediacy of authority figure affect obedience?
Obedience decreased when experimenter not in room and directions given by phone
How does Legitimacy of authority figure affect obedience?
Lab-coated experimenter, reduction when experiment was conducted in industrial setting
