Social Influence Flashcards
Give an introduction to this topic
Our behaviour and mental processes get influneced by other people all the time. They get influenced because we want to feel like and accepted by other people. We want to fit it and form part of the group. Sometimes we get influenced so much that we can hide how we think or behave to meet the approval of others and society.
Define social influence
The process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people,for example: family,friends,media or religion.
What does this topic focus on?
Social influence in terms of conformity and obedience to authority. (the 2 types of social influence)
Define conformity and give an example
Conformity occurs when attitudes or behaviour change because of pressure exerted by other individuals, especially group pressure.
Ex: all your friends buy a smartphone, and you never felt the need for one, yet you feel compelled to buy it.
Or for example you and your friends go and see a movie, you didn’t enjoy it but everyone thought it was brilliant. You might be tempted to conform because you want to fit within the group
When you get influenced by other people, which one changes fist: attitudes or behaviour?
Behaviour
Name the 2 types of conformity
Majority and minority
Explain the experiment that Solomon Asch conducted to explain how a majority can influence a minority.
Solomon Asch, showed participants 3 lines and asked them to say which one was the same length as the other.
However all the participants except for one were collaborating with the researcher (confederates)
Although it was evident which line was the same length as the other, the confederates answered wrongly on purpose
The genuine participant had to gis his or her answer at the end, after all the confederates.
The participant found themselves in a conflict on whether to answer what they really thought or whether to agree with the majority of the group.
The results were that 37% conformed on all trials, and at least 75% yielded to group pressure at least once.
Mention 2 limitations of the Solomon Asch experiment
Asch’s work raises ethical issues ,because the genuine participant was not informed about consent,and they were misled about the key aspects of the experiment
2) Asch used strangers in his experiment, and not people pertaining to the same social group
What did Abrams argue about conformity?
Abrams et al, argued that conformity would increase if people pertaining to the same social group ex: psychology students.
In fact studies have shown that conformity did increase to 58% with the same social group
However when the participants were not from the same social group, conformity decreased to 8%. ex: history students
What did Bond and Smith argue about conformity?
He argued that conformity is higher in collectivistic cultures like Asia and America
BUT
lower in individualistic cultures like Europe and North America
Why does conformity occur?
Normative influence
Informational influence
