Social Influence Flashcards
Compliance: (2)
- Involves changing your behaviour at the request of another person
- Does not rely on a power dynamics
Obedience: (3)
- Involves performing an action under orders of an authority figues
- Requires direct request from authority figure
- Punishment and consequence
Conformity: (4)
- Altering attitudes and behaviours to go along with rest of group
- Influence of authority is indirect
- Deindividuation
- Ignored and marginalised
Factors that influence obedience: (3)
- How close we are to authority figure (proximity)
- Higher levels of authority figure (prestige)
- Deindividuation (Losing ability to think for yourself, going along with group)
Advantages for experimental design to study obedience: (3)
- Demonstrates casual relationships
- Can be replicated/repeated to see if same findings emerge
- Maximises control over relevent variables
Disadvantages for experimental design to study obedience: (3)
- Cannot be generalised outside lab
- Some complex phenomena cannot be readily tested using pure experimental methods.
-Ethical issues present challenges for testing some naturally occurring phenomena.
Agency Theory:
People will obey authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for their actions
Milgrim’s Study Results: (2)
- Milgram concluded that people have a tendency to obey orders, even if it goes against their morals.
- Situational factors rather than dispositional factors influence the ability for someone to make independent decisions when they find themselves in a subordinate position.
Conformity is…
where an individual yeilds to group pressure
The adjustment of one’s opinions, judgements, or actions so that they become more consistent with:
- The opinions, judgements or actions of other people
- The normative standards of a social group or situation.
People wish to ……… but only in a good or desirable manner.
stand out
Conformity is found to be higher in….
collectivist cultures rather than individualistic cultures
Normative social influence (NSI) and Conformity (3)
- Is what a person conforms to be accepted or belong to a group.
- Is usually a short-term solution which is because of the desire to fit in.
- Complaince / Identification
Informational social influence and conformity (3)
- When a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.
- The person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs on a long-term basis.
- Internalization
Compliance vs Identification vs Internalization
- Compliance: people change their public behaviour but not their private beliefs (short term).
- Identification: people change their public behaviour and their private beliefs but only in the presence of that group (short term).
- Internalization: people change public behaviours and are convinced other group’s beliefs are right, so behaviour adjusts accordingly to match those beliefs (long term).
Individual that can impact conformity: (3)
- Ambiguity and unanimity
- Personal characteristics and the individual position/familiarity within a group
- Personality and cultural factors
Three main types of conformity:
- Compliance
- Identification
- Internalization
Advantages for observational studies to study social influence:
- Can explore topics which are too unethical, costly, impractical or impossible to experiment.
Disadvantages for observational studies to study social influence:
- Lack of control in planning leads to an inability to create constant variables (lack of reliability).
- Limited ability to explore causation and confidently conclude that a change in the IV caused a change in the DV.
Observational design is useful: (3)
- when obvious groups or pre-existing samples are available.
- when it is unethical to deliberately expose a group of people to a particular independent variable.
- Researchers can conclude there is a correlation between two variables.
5 types of observational design
- Naturalistic Observation
- Correlation Studies
- Longitudinal Design
- Cross Sectional Studies
- Sequential Designs
Naturalistic Observation (3)
- Involves observing and recording variables of interest in a natural setting, without interference or manipulation.
- Does not allow researchers to control or influence the variables in any way.
- Data may not be reliable or free from bias.
Correlation Studies
Can demonstrate a relationship between variables, but it cannot prove that changing one variable will change another.
Longitudinal Design
Research is repeated with the same people occuring over several years.
Cross-Sectional Studies
Can be used to research a wide range of age groups, with data being collected at a single point in time.
2 qualitative design types
- focus groups
- delphi technique
Focus groups are…
talking/ discussions in a small group of a variety of different people led by a facilitator
The delphi technique…
is sending out a survey to community members, follow up survey, starts with closed quesitons that get more open as surey continues
Content analysis steps
(for focus group or delphi technique)
- read the data
- identify themes
- reread data + tally frequency
- make conclusions
means we can get quantitaive data from qualitative data
What is ethnocentric bias?
Prejudice against a minority group, as others can view thier group as superior
Attitude (3)
- Set of emotions, beliefs, behaviours towards anything that exists
- Evaluation of thing on a dimension ranging from negative to positive
- Generally predetermined
Persuasion
- Convincing others to change attitudes / behaviours on a thing, an active attempt by one person
Explain the 3 components of attitude (abc)
- Affective
Feelings towards something (can be positive, negative, ambivalent) - Behavioural
The actions / behaviours we do in response to the same thing - Cognitive
The thoughts / beliefs about the topic, linked to what we have learned about the worse we live in and and shaped by our experiences
2 methods of persuasion
-Yale attitude change approach
- Elaboration liklihood model
3 elements of Yale Attitude Change approach
- Source (the person who conveys the message)
- Message (evoke strong emotions or strong processing in audience)
- Audience (features of an audience also effect how east it is to persuade attitude change)
3 strategies of persuasion
- Norm of reciprocity
- Door in the face
- Foot in the door
The norm of reciprocity
- Based on social norm that one will return a favour when one is granted to them
- Leads you to feel obligated to return the favour
- AKA a free trial, or benefit by keeping and purhcasing the product
The door in the face
- Initial very large request, aka donate or purhcase something for a significant amount
- After refusal they then suggest you purchase something worth less
Foot in the door
- Person agrees to a small favour / buy small item, only to later reuest a larger favour / purchase a bigger item
Factors of attitide that influence behaviour (3)
Explain each
Attitude strength
- Strong attitudes are those that are firmly held or important, highly influence behaviour
- Stronger attitudes generally mean people have considerable knowledge about something
- Tend to be formed by direct experience, stable, more resistant to counterinfluence
Attitude accessibility
- Ease of how an attitude comes to mind, highly accessibly is stronger attitudes
- Use more frequently is more accessible
Attitude specificity
- Attitude that is more specific rather than general to ensure behaviours are consistant
Behaviour can influence attitude measured by…
cognitive dissonance
Central (4) vs Peripheral (4) route of persuasion:
CENTRAL
- Making the audience think carefully / evaluate
- Is logic driven, uses data and facts
- Works best when the audience is analytical
- Argument must be strong.
PERIPHERAL
- Requires little processing or thinking by the audience
- Relies on association with positive characteristics
- The audience that is targeted is often one that is young or has low self-esteem
- Audience does not need to be analytical or motivated to process the message
Explain the 3 ways to measure attitude
- Behavioural Count
- Self-Reports
- Implicit Association Test
The name for when someone gives untrue responses in a survey or similar based on what they think the experienter wants to hear
Social desirability factor
Prejudice vs Discrimination Vs Stereotyping
Prejudice:
- Affective (feelings) and cognitive (beliefs)
- Negative attitude towards another person or group formed in advance (ingrained)
Discrimination:
- Behavioural manifestation of prejudice
Stereotyping:
- Cognitive (beliefs)
- Often negative exaggerated generalisations
Why are we Prejudiced?
(3)
- Unintentional biases
- Exposure
direct/indiect experiences - Learning
learned attitudes from people around you
Social learning theory:
Association
Reinforcement
Modelling
Unintentional Bias (4 types)
Explain each
- Conformational bias
favour/choose information that fits with existing beliefs and is selective - Attribution bias
When something good happens, we attribute this to our own behaviours. When something bad happens we attribute this to external factors - Gender Bias
Self-explanatory (i.e. hiring employees) - Conformity Bias
Tendency to behave the same as other group members
3 effects of prejudice
- Social Stigma
- Internalisation of Others Evaluation
- Stereotype threat
Social Stigma is:
dissaproval/discrimination against a person based on a stereotype, leading to threatened sense of social identity
Stereotype threat:
people are/feel at risk to conforming to stereotypes about their social group
Internalisation of Others Evaluation:
process where a person cognitively/emotionally absorbs negative messages/ stereotypes, and believes them and applys them to themselves
- self-fulfillng prophecy
4 strategies for changing attitudes/prejudice
- Education/School
- Intergroup Contact
- Superordinate Goals
- Direct Experience
Self presentation serves three important functions:
- Helps facilitate social interaction
- Enables individuals to attain material and social rewards
- Helps people privately construct desired identities
What is self concept? What are itsthree components?
Refers to our private sense of self, who we are and what is it that makes us so
1. Ideal Self
2. Self-image
3. Self-worth
Primacy Effect (2)
- Phenomenon where information received at the beginning carries more weight than the information that follows.
- Individuals tend to be drawn to information that supports a first impression.
