Social Influence

Question 1

Define conformity.

Answer 1

A change in behaviour or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.

Question 2

Define compliance.

Answer 2

Publicly acting in accord with a request while privately disagreeing.

Question 3

Define obedience.

Answer 3

Following a direct order or command.

Question 4

Define acceptance.

Answer 4

Both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.

Question 5

Name three varieties of conformity.

Answer 5

Compliance, obedience, and acceptance.

Question 6

Define autokinetic phenomenon.

Answer 6

Movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.

Question 7

Explain Totterdell’s mood linkage.

Answer 7

People within the same work groups share up and down moods.

Question 8

Explain Chartrand and Bargh’s chameleon effect.

Answer 8

We imitate the behaviour of others automatically.

Question 9

Who discovered the Werther effect?

Answer 9

Phillips.

Question 10

What is the Werther effect?

Answer 10

Suicides, fatal car accidents and private airplane crashes increase after a highly publicised suicide.

Question 11

Give Milgram’s four factors that determine obedience.

Answer 11

The victim’s emotional distance, the authority’s closeness and legitimacy, whether or not the authority was part of a respected institution and the liberating effects of a disobedient fellow participant.

Question 12

When is conformity highest? (6)

Answer 12

When the group has three or more members and is unanimous, cohesive, high in status, has a public response and is made without prior commitment.

Question 13

Define cohesiveness.

Answer 13

The extent to which members of a group are bound together by attraction.

Question 14

Define normative influence.

Answer 14

Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfil others’ expectations, to gain acceptance.

Question 15

Define informational influence.

Answer 15

Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.

Question 16

Define referent informational influence.

Answer 16

Conformity occurring when normative and informational influence are tied to each other and to self-perceptions.

Question 17

Define self-categorisation.

Answer 17

Identifying yourself as a group member or as an individual.

Question 18

Who created self-identity theory?

Answer 18

Tajfel and Turner.

Question 19

Explain self-identity theory.

Answer 19

Each of us has multiple selves which range along a continuum that includes more and more people.

Question 20

What is Turner’s normative fit?

Answer 20

Pre-existing links of cues to an identity.

Question 21

What is Turner’s comparative fit?

Answer 21

The relationship of similarities between groups.

Question 22

What is Turner’s meta-contrast ratio?

Answer 22

The differences between groups.

Question 23

Define self-stereotyping.

Answer 23

Unconscious changes in beliefs, emotions and actions to conform to group stereotypes after self-categorisation and identification as a group member.

Question 24

When does personality predict behaviour better?

Answer 24

When social influences are weak.

Question 25

Give a difference between working-class and middle-class individuals.

Answer 25

Working-class people preferred to see themselves as similar to others, but middle-class people focused on their uniqueness.

Question 26

Define reactance.

Answer 26

A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom.

Question 27

When does reactance arise?

Answer 27

When someone threatens our freedom of action.

Question 28

Define negative deviance.

Answer 28

Nonconformity to group norms in the sense of not living up to the standards or failing to follow the rules.

Question 29

Define positive deviance.

Answer 29

Nonconformity to group norms in the sense of greatly exceeding standards, setting an example for others, and being a role model.

Question 30

Define dissent.

Answer 30

Nonconformity to group norms motivated by a desire to change or challenge the norms.

Question 31

Why do negatively deviant group members break the rules?

Answer 31

Because they do not care about them, or to benefit themselves.

Question 32

How do positively deviant group members feel about the group?

Answer 32

They care about the group and identify strongly about it.