Lecture 5 Social Influence

Question 1

Sherif 1936 study?????

Answer 1

Study on conformity.
Social norms merge during interaction and has a lasting effect in belief

The auto kinetic effect - when you stare at a stationary Dot for a long time it appears to move

Tested people on how far dot moved when alone and in group, and eventually, people’s responses converge to a norm

Question 2

Asch 1951?

Answer 2

Social norms influence beta ur even for objective statements

Judge which of three lines was the same length as the other

People generally really accurate it’s easy

Everyone is confederate except 1. Participant conformed to wrong answers..

Question 3

Define social influence

Answer 3

The impact of others on our thoughts, feelings and actions..

Can be through obedience and compliance, conformity, and persuasion.

Question 4

What’s influence good for?

Answer 4

Deustch & gerard

Normative influence - to fit in, usually public only.
Informational influence - to go along with things when we’re unsure - private and deep

Cialdini and Goldstein : accuracy (info), affiliation (norm), and for positive self concept

Question 5

What are moderators that can affect the normative influence?

Answer 5

Group size - increase influence until 3 people, it starts to plateau

Group cohesion - more influence

Social support for deviant position - less influence if you have an alli for something you stand for

Question 6

Moderators for informational influence?

Answer 6

Self confidence - more confident, less influence
Task difficulty - more influence with harder stuff
Stereotypes - certain stereotypes influence how people might be subject to influence

Question 7

Pendry and Carrick’s beep estimation task?

Answer 7

Listened to 100 beeps and had to guess how many

Confederates who were dressed up an accountant or punk said there were 120-125

people were quite accurate when individually assessed
But when primed, they shifted towards the accountant, but not the punk.

Trusted the accountant and conformed!!!

Question 8

What are perceived group norms?

Answer 8

Perceptions of what others do or think we should do in the absence of an observable group

Question 9

Two diff types of perceived group norms?

Answer 9

Descriptive - what’s typically done

Injunctive - what’s typically approved or disapproved

Question 10

Example of how perceived group norms can affect the way we behave?

Answer 10

Goldstein et al 2008

Hotel guests and towel reuse

If you put a sign saying other guests a doing it, a lot more people will do it

VERBAL

Question 11

What was the point of milligrams 1963 study?

Answer 11

People are capable of doing bad things when pressure to do so

Learner - confederate
Teacher - participant

Teaching learning through punishment of electric shots. Highest shock labelled XXX

65% went to the end.

Question 12

Example of how imagined non verbal influence can affect behaviour? (Cialdini)

Answer 12

Cialdini et al 1990

No bin
People given a flyer which would be litter
Used the environment as stimuli
People littered more when there were more pieces of litter

Imagined non verbal influence altered their littering behaviour

Question 13

What did keizer et al study find with the spread of disorder?

Answer 13

If there was a sign that said no graffiti, and someone had violated that and did graffiti, people were more likely to break the littering norm.

This shoes

Shows cross norm inhibition - going along with the injunctive norm is undermined when you see violations of a different norm

Question 14

What did chartrand and bargh find on non conscious mimicry?

Answer 14

Individual, nonverbal influence on behaviour.

Participants interacted with face rubbing or foot shaking when confederates did it

No conscious

To builds rapport - increases liking

Question 15

What is the perception behaviour link? And how does it explain mimicry?

Answer 15

It is when we see someone do something, we have activated in our motor systems representations of those actions, so were primed to perform those actions.

So people are faster at executing the action when observing it - brass et al.

Brass et al -people are faster doing a tapping movement when observing it, and a lifting movement,

Mirror Neuron system

Question 16

What did Lakin and chartrand find to moderate mimicry?

Answer 16

Lakin and chartrand found that when primed with a non conscious affiliation goal, and confeds were instructed to be mean or friendly.
When not friendly, participants mimicked foot shaking more

Had a larger need to build rapport!!!

Lakin et al also found that ostracised people mimic more

Question 17

What are some moderators of mimicry?

Answer 17

Desire to build rapport
Ostracism (social rejection)
Group membership (in group more than outgroup)
Power (More if powerless)
Mood (more if good mood)

Question 18

What are some characteristics of individual, verbal, behaviour insfluences?

Answer 18

It is usually through compliance to a request

Target is usually aware of influence attempt

Question 19

Moderators of compliance?

Answer 19

(Individual, verbal, behaviour)

• if we like the person (more if we like them)
• if they have authority
• reciprocity - we feel obligated to return favours
• commitment - honour their agreements

Question 20

Example of how liking someone increases compliance

Answer 20

• physical attractiveness and similarity

EMSWILLER had confederates dress up as hippies or squares and ask people for a dime to use the phone
People were 2/3 likely to comply to people they were similar to, and 1/2 if dissimilar

Question 21

Example of authority leading to compliance?

Answer 21

Milgram 1974
Less authority less obedience - obedience dropped when moved the experiment from Yale to a run down office

Bickman - passers were stopped by security guard or a random and asked to do something. They would listen to security guard more even though request as outside of his role

Lewfkowitz - confederates in suits cross the road, more people likely to jay walk

Question 22

Example of how reciprocity affects compliance?

Answer 22

Regan 1971
Participant making aesthetic judgements
Confederate - friendly or rude
After break - cola or not (from confederate)
So does the the person by a raffle ticket from the confed

More likely to buy ticket fi friendly person gave u cola
Or even if rude person gave u cola

Happens even if unsolicited!!!

Question 23

Commitment and how it affects compliance?

Answer 23

Cialdini et al

Experimenter called people asking to participate
People will drop out more if they told them it starts at 7am up front
Rather than if they already said yes they stuck to it once they found out

They already made a commitment

Question 24

What are the two routes of attitude change from the dual process of attitude change

Answer 24

Central (systematic) route - taken when people are motivated and capable if thinking carefully about message don’t

Peripheral (heuristic) route - taken people people are unwilling or unable to think carefully about message content

Question 25

What a factors that influence which route of attitude change is taken?

Answer 25

Situational:
Mood: sad - central, happy - peripheral
Importance to self: important - central

Individual differences:
Need for cognition- high - central

Message content:
Petty and cacioppo presented people were weak or strong arguments.
People in the peripheral route, people don’t care about argument quality

In peripheral rout, they like MORE arguments though