Social Influence Flashcards
Define conformity.
A change in behaviour or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.
Define compliance.
Publicly acting in accord with a request while privately disagreeing.
Define obedience.
Following a direct order or command.
Define acceptance.
Both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.
Name three varieties of conformity.
Compliance, obedience, and acceptance.
Define autokinetic phenomenon.
Movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.
Explain Totterdell’s mood linkage.
People within the same work groups share up and down moods.
Explain Chartrand and Bargh’s chameleon effect.
We imitate the behaviour of others automatically.
Who discovered the Werther effect?
Phillips.
What is the Werther effect?
Suicides, fatal car accidents and private airplane crashes increase after a highly publicised suicide.
Give Milgram’s four factors that determine obedience.
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.
When is conformity highest? (6)
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.
Define cohesiveness.
The extent to which members of a group are bound together by attraction.
Define normative influence.
Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfil others’ expectations, to gain acceptance.
Define informational influence.
Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.
Define referent informational influence.
Conformity occurring when normative and informational influence are tied to each other and to self-perceptions.
Define self-categorisation.
Identifying yourself as a group member or as an individual.
Who created self-identity theory?
Tajfel and Turner.
Explain self-identity theory.
Each of us has multiple selves which range along a continuum that includes more and more people.
What is Turner’s normative fit?
Pre-existing links of cues to an identity.
What is Turner’s comparative fit?
The relationship of similarities between groups.
What is Turner’s meta-contrast ratio?
The differences between groups.
Define self-stereotyping.
Unconscious changes in beliefs, emotions and actions to conform to group stereotypes after self-categorisation and identification as a group member.
When does personality predict behaviour better?
When social influences are weak.
Give a difference between working-class and middle-class individuals.
Working-class people preferred to see themselves as similar to others, but middle-class people focused on their uniqueness.
Define reactance.
A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom.
When does reactance arise?
When someone threatens our freedom of action.
Define negative deviance.
Nonconformity to group norms in the sense of not living up to the standards or failing to follow the rules.
Define positive deviance.
Nonconformity to group norms in the sense of greatly exceeding standards, setting an example for others, and being a role model.
Define dissent.
Nonconformity to group norms motivated by a desire to change or challenge the norms.
Why do negatively deviant group members break the rules?
Because they do not care about them, or to benefit themselves.
How do positively deviant group members feel about the group?
They care about the group and identify strongly about it.
