Social Influence Flashcards
What is conformity?
- social influence that results from exposure to the majority position and leads to compliance with that position.
- the tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of other members of a reference group.
What is meant by compliance?
- Individuals go along with the group in order to gain their approval or avoid their disapproval.
- Individuals conform in order to fit in.
- It doesn’t change the individual’s attitudes, it just changes the views and behaviours that they express in public.
Example- Wearing certain clothes because your friends wear them, even though you don’t.
What is meant by internalisation?
- An individual goes along with the group because of acceptance of their views.
- An individual may examine their own beliefs to see if they or others are correct.
- This may result in them being convinced that they are wrong, and the group is right.
- This can lead to acceptance of the group’s point of view both publically and privately.
What is meant by identification?
- An individual accepts influence because they want to be associated with a group.
- By adopting a group’s attitudes, they feel like they are part of it.
- Identifications has parts of compliance and internalisation.
Example- smoking.
What is normative social influence?
- Going along with the majority without really accepting - their views (compliance)
- Humans fear rejection- want to fit in
- Gain approval and acceptance
- People tend to conform in public, but internally do not necessarily agree with the view, as they may not think or behave in the same way in private.
- It is the normal thing to do.
- If people are watching, an individual will act differently.
What is informational social influence?
- When an individual accepts information from others as evidence about reality
- As well as a need to be accepted, humans have to feel confident that their beliefs are correct
- Initially they may check the facts and if that is not possible, they will rely on the opinions of others
- Informational influence is more likely if the situation is unclear, or if an individual is around others with greater knowledge them.
- The individual does not just comply in behaviour alone, but with the group position.
- This involves changing both public and private attitudes in behaviour.
What is meant by the authoritarian personality?
A personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority.
Why may it be difficult to distinguish between compliance and internalisation?
A person may publicly agree with a majority yet disagree with them in private (compliance), however they may agree with it later because they have received new information, in private they must internalise the views of the group.
What research supports normative social influence?
The relationship between people’s normative beliefs and the likelihood of them taking up smoking- if adolescents were given the message that the majority of their age peers did not smoke- they were less likely to take up smoking. This is because they want to fit in and behave like other people of their age.
What research supports informational social influence?
Exposure to other people’s beliefs has an influence on social stereotypes.
Participants exposed to negative information about African Americans, which they were led to believe was the view of the majority, later reported negative beliefs about a black individual.
Why might normative social influence not be detected?
There is some support to show that individuals may not actually recognise the behaviour of others as a causal factor in their own behaviour.
Nolan investigated whether people detected the influence of social norms on their energy conservation behaviour.
When asked about what factors influences their own energy conservation, people believed that the behaviour of neighbours had the least impact, yet results showed that it had the strongest impact.
How is informational social influence moderated by the type of task?
If there is a definite answer such as; deciding whether Bristol is the most highly populated city in the South West of England, as this can be determined through objective (physical) means such as statistics.
