Social influence

Question 1

Types of social influence - Compliance

Answer 1

Superficial, public and transitory change in behavior, as well as expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure. Does not reflect private acceptance!

Question 2

Types of social influence - Conformity

Answer 2

What? Deep-seated, private and enduring change in behavior AND attitudes due to group pressure.
Why? Because of a need for certainty, people use others’ behavior as a frame of reference to establish the range of possible and acceptable behaviors, to avoid social disapproval.
What influences it? If the subject matter is unambiguous, you are less influenced (and vice-versa). Confidence also.

Question 3

Who influences us?

Answer 3

1. Reference group v. membership group:
   - Positive reference group - Act like
   - Negative reference group - Act unlike
2. People with power: Reward, coercive, informational, expert, legitimate and referent power

Question 4

Why are we influenced?

Answer 4

1. Dual-process dependency model: Need for social approval and need for information on how to behave
2. Informational influence
3. Normative influence (social influence)
4. Social identity theory - You feel like you belong to a group and therefore you adopt the norms of that group, you do not conform to other people but to the norm - Internalised

Question 5

What factor influence obedience to authority?

Answer 5

1. We enter an agent state
2. Foot-in-the-door
3. Immediacy of the victim - Can prevent or help dehumanization of the victim
4. Immediacy of the authority figure
5. Group pressure (not really true, is it? Remember when there is another confederate which stops)

Question 6

Limitations to Milgram’s experiments

Answer 6

The are lots of ethical issues arising. To prevent that, 3 component of ethics have been created:

• (1) participation must be based on fully informed consent
• (2) participants must be explicitly informed that they can withdraw at any moment
• (3) participants must be fully and honestly debriefed at the end of the study

Question 7

Who conforms?

Answer 7

• Low self esteem - Look for an authoritative figure
• No gender differences, except women conform a little more in public settings than men (actually men are more persistent in public than private)
• You conform more on things you’re uncertain about
• Cultural norms - Collectivist v. individualist society
• Group size - After 5 people, additional members do not have an influence
• The number of independent sources of information within a group influences
• If the group is not unanimous, people conform less

Question 8

What about minorities?

Answer 8

The idea that there is minority influence:

• Because we have a conformity bias (we’ve always believed that the majority influences the minority and rarely otherwise)
• The minority will eventually become the majority

Social influence modalities:

1. Conformity - Majority persuades the minority or deviates to adopt the majority viewpoint
2. Normalisation- Mutual compromise between majority and minority
3. Innovation - Minority creates and accentuates conflict to persuade the majority to adopt its viewpoint.