Lecture 9 - Social Influence

Question 1

What is social influence?

Answer 1

The many ways people affect one another, including changes in attitudes, beliefs, feelings and behaviour resulting from the comments, actions or even the mere presence of others.

Question 2

Describe social networks.

Answer 2

Behaviour and emotions tend to cluster among friends, spouses and family

Question 3

What were the findings of the Fowler and Christakis study about economic game?

Answer 3

Study:
- Ps played economic game where they could cooperate with other players or pursue their own self interest.

Findings:
- Levels of altruism on a given round was influenced by level of altruism of group mates on the previous round and the groupmates’ level of altruism the round before that.

Question 4

Name the concept:
- Acting differently due to the influence of others

Answer 4

Conformity

Question 5

Is conformity good or bad?

Answer 5

• Individualistic cultures view conformity negatively
• Conformity can preclude us from challenging erroneous and even harmful group norms
• But, conformity also greases the wheels of social interactions —> unwritten rules of society

Question 6

What is the concept of automatic mimicry?

Answer 6

Some forms of conformity that is automatic
- Unconsciously imitating the behaviours of other people

Chartrand and Barth study: people would unconsciously mimic the foot movements or rubbing of the forehead of a confederate.

Question 7

What are the reasons for automatic mimicry?

Answer 7

• Ideomotor action : phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behaviour makes performing it more likely

promotion of social interactions
- May facilitate empathy —our ability to understand and share feelings of another person
- May build social rapport and lead to pleasant social interaction
- People like individuals who mimic them better than those who don’t
- People who are mimicked engage in more pro social behaviour afterwards

Question 8

Name the effect:
- A visual illusion where a small, stationary light in a dark room appears to move

Answer 8

Autokinetic effect

Question 9

Name the concept:
- The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective

Answer 9

Informational social influence

Question 10

Why is the informational social influence used?

Answer 10

• In an ambiguous situation, other people can serve as a frame of reference
• It is more likely when:
• The situation is ambiguous or difficult
• We feel low in knowledge or competence about the topic

Question 11

What is internalization?

Answer 11

The private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology

• Adopting the group’s perspective

Question 12

What are the enduring effects of informational influence?

Answer 12

• Effects of informational influence can be long-lasting
• Group norms influenced individual judgments a year after individual was tested
• Norms can persist through several group “generations”

Question 13

What were the findings of the line judgment study by Asch?

Answer 13

Study:
- Judging whether two lines were the same length
- In a group of seven confederates, there was one true participants who gave wrong answers

Findings:
- 75% of ps conformed at least once
- Ps conformed 33% of the time

Question 14

What is the normative social influence?

Answer 14

The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions
- We have a deeply held need to form and maintain social connections, and to be well-regarded by others

Question 15

Why do we have a need to belong?

Answer 15

• Legacy of our evolutionary history
• Group living is a multi-purpose tool — help with hunting and foraging, protection from predators, greater access to resources and mates, help with child rearing
• Individuals with stronger social bonds more likely to survive, reproduce, and have their offspring survive

Question 16

What is the difference between public compliance and private acceptance in normative social influence

Answer 16

• Normative social influence leads to public compliance but not necessarily private acceptance
• People may publicly agree with the group opinion in order to avoid social disapproval but privately believe something different

Question 17

How does group size affect conformity pressure?

Answer 17

• Conformity rates increase as groupe size increases, but only to a point
• Milgram study where confederates loop up
• Trying to see how many passerby would look up as well

Question 18

Howe does group unanimity affect conformity pressure?

Answer 18

• More conformity when group is unanimous
• One person is likely to conform to a group, but if they have at least one ally who breaks the unanimity, then conformity rates decrease dramatically

Question 19

How does anonymity affect conformity pressure?

Answer 19

• Anonymity eliminates normative social influence and therefore should substantially reduce conformity
• There is no internalization (public compliance vs private acceptance)

Question 20

How do expertise and status affect conformity pressure?

Answer 20

• High status or expert group members have more social influence
• Experts exert more informational social influence
• high status exerts more normative social influence

Question 21

What were the findings of the Torrance study about status and comformity?

Answer 21

• Accuracy of the group depended on who came up with the correct answer first.
• if the pilot (highest status) came up with it first, the people tended to conform to his answer, but if the gunner came up with the answer first, people doubted his answer more,

Question 22

How does culture affect conformity pressure?

Answer 22

• Interdependent culture: people more concerned about fitting into social context than members of independent cultures
• Higher rates of conformity in interdependent cultures
• Some cultures are called tight because they have very strong norms regarding how people should behave and members do not tolerate departure from those norms
• Other cultures are loose because their norms are not so strong, and their members tolerate more deviance

Question 23

How does gender affect conformity pressure?

Answer 23

• Girls socialized to value interdependence
• Boys socialized to value independence
• Some studies find a small tendency for women to conform more than men, but effect small and unreliable

Question 24

What is compliance?

Answer 24

• Agreeing to the explicit request of another person

Question 25

What is the norm of reciprocity?

Answer 25

• Cross-cultural norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who have provided benefits to them
• Helping those who helped you
• May feel obligated to comply with later request if first given a favour, even if it is something small that we didn’t ask for

Question 26

What is reciprocal concessions?

Answer 26

• You should make concessions to those who make concessions to you

Question 27

What is the door-in-the-face technique?

Answer 27

A compliance approach where the target request is preceded by a more extreme request that is likely to get rejected.

Question 28

What is the underlying mechanism of the door-in-the-face technique?

Answer 28

If the effect is being driven by the perception that the requester has compromised with you, efficacy of the technique should be diminished if a different person makes the second request

Question 29

What is the foot-in-the-door technique?

Answer 29

• People are more likely to comply with a larger request if they have already complied with a smaller initial request

Question 30

What is the underlying mechanism for the foot-in-the-door technique?

Answer 30

• Shift in self-perception
• After the initial favour, a person may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes

Question 31

What are emotion-based approaches?

Answer 31

Positive mood and compliance
- We are more likely to view requests for favours as less intrusive and less threatening when we are in a good mood
- People want to maintain a positive mood so they agree more easily (mood maintenance)

Negative mood and compliance
- people engage in certain actions, such as agreeing to a request, to relieve their negative feelings and feel better about themselves

Question 32

What is the negative state relief hypothesis?

Answer 32

The idea that people engage in certain actions, such as agreeing to a request, to relieve their negative feelings and feel better about themselves

Question 33

Name the concept:
- Letting people know what others are doing also can be used to increase compliance

Answer 33

Norm-Based appeals

Question 34

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive norms?

Answer 34

Descriptive norms
- The behaviour exhibited by most people in a given context

Prescriptive norms
- The way a person is supposed to behave in a given context

Question 35

Describe obedience.

Answer 35

In an unequal power relationship, submitting to the demands of the person in authority

Question 36

What is the banality of evil?

Answer 36

Term coined by philosopher Hanna Arendt after watching the trial of Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichman to describe the possibility of doing evil without being evil

Question 37

How does release from responsibility drive obedience?

Answer 37

• Feeling of responsibility for one’s actions is transferred to other people
  Ex: I did it because I was told to do it

Question 38

What is the step-by-step involvement in driving obedience?

Answer 38

People can get caught on a slippery-slope because of the step-wise nature of demands
Ex: Hitler was democratically elected —> project against Jews slowly came through (slippery-slope)

Question 39

How does the immediacy of the victim influence bad behaviour or evil behaviour?

Answer 39

• As the learner became more present, the rate of obedience decreases

Question 40

How does the immediacy of the experimenter influence the actions of people on obedience?

Answer 40

The more close the experimenter is (in front of the person, face to face), the social power of the experimenter increases and the rebates of obedience increase.