Social influence and change (VL 6)

Question 1

Forms of social influence

Answer 1

• Obedience to authority, commands
• Power
• Compliance with requests and internalized conformity to group norms
• Minority group influence

Question 2

Informal and normative conformity

Answer 2

Informal conformity:
change in opinions occurs as a result of a desire for accurate knowledge, result: private acceptance or real change in opinions on the part of the individual

Normative conformity:
we express opinions or behave in ways that help us to be accepted/keep us from being isolated or rejected by a group; result: public compliance involves a change in behavior that is not accompanied by change in one´s private opinion

Question 3

What type of Group are People easier influenced by?

Answer 3

Reference Groups
because they are psychologically significant for our behavior and attitudes (than by membership groups, as we belong to them by an external criterion)

Question 4

What is obedience affected by?

Answer 4

• The proximity and legitimacy of authority
• The proximity of the victim
• The degree of social support for obedience or disobedience
• -> We all have the potential to obey commands blindly, even if it consequently includes harm to others

Question 5

Milgram´s studies on obedience to authority

Answer 5

• Electric shocks, how far can a person presented as authority produce obedience (even if others are harmed)
• Different variations, participant has to give learner an electric shock if an answer is incorrect
• Results: Changes in the situation dramatically influence the amount of conformity

Question 6

Why do people conform to a group?

Answer 6

• To feel sure about the objective validity of their perceptions and opinions
• To obtain social approval and avoid social disapproval
• To express or validate their social identity as members of a specific Group
• -> We all tend to yield to the (group) majority –> powerful source of conformity

Question 7

When is conformity reduced?

Answer 7

Conformity is reduced, when:

• people are not under surveillance and tasks are unambiguous (yet residual conformity exists often)
• Lack of unanimity (Einvernehmen) within the group/majority

Question 8

Majority and Minority influence

Answer 8

Majority influence:
When a larger number of individuals in the current social group attempt to change the opinions or behaviors of a smaller number of individuals

Minority influence:
When the minority attempts to change the majority

Question 9

Solomon Asch´s Line Perception Studies

Answer 9

Task:
Relatively easy, compare different lines in size

Results:

• When tested alone, participants didn´t make any mistakes
• In a group, if the confederates gave the same wrong answer before the participant´s turn, the participants sometimes repeated this incorrect answer
• 76% of 123 men gave at least one incorrect response, 24% never conformed –> no absolute conformity

Question 10

Groups dynamics approach, basic assumption

Answer 10

There is general pressure towards similarity in groups

Question 11

Social Impact - Definition

Answer 11

• Is the increase in the amount of conformity that is produced by each new member added to the group
• Is greater for initial majority members than it is for later members

Question 12

Experiment by Milgram, Bickman and Berkowitz

Answer 12

If people look up to the sky, how many people are influenced and consequently look up in the sky as well?

• Influence of each additional confederate went down and it converged to a group of 6 people
• -> after reaching a group of 6, the impact of an additional group member was
• -> confirms social impact theory
• -> conformity is only increased up to a certain point by increasing the size of the majority

Question 13

Principal of optimal distinctiveness

Answer 13

When there are a lot of people in the majority, people feel the need to maintain their individual identity (by not conforming to the group)

Question 14

The consistency of unanimity (Einstimmigkeit/Einvernehmen) of the group members

Answer 14

• Is even more important than the size of the majority
• In Asch´s study conformity occurred not just because confederates gave a wrong answer, but because they gave the same wrong answer (when one of 16 gave a different answer, conformity was reduced to 5%)

Question 15

Why is unanimity such an important determinant of consistency?

Answer 15

• People do not want to be the first to give a different opinion as they stand alone and might embarrass themselves
• People become less sure of their judgement, when there is complete agreement amongst everyone else –> informational conformity
• As soon as the individual has someone else who agrees with him/her, the need to conform is no longer given -> more supporters who challenge the Status Quo validates one´s opinion, disagreeing is less fearful

Question 16

Task importance

Answer 16

• Important determinant of conformity

- Assumes, that conformity is less when the task becomes more important

Question 17

Experiment by Baron, Vandello and Brunsmann

Answer 17

• Different task difficulty, two manipulations
• Observed an interaction between task difficulty and task importance
• Easy tasks: Conformity was higher when participants thought, the task importance was low
• Difficult tasks: Conformity was higher when participants thought, the task importance was high

Question 18

Minority influence and social change

Answer 18

• Active minorities sometimes influence majorities –> essence of social change, ex. teachers can change their students opitions
• May be effective, because they cause latent cognitive change (as a consequence of thought produced by the cognitive challenge posed by the novel minority position)
• Minority influence is necessary for social change, as there would never be any new ideas if individuals only conformed to others

Question 19

Minorities should be…

Answer 19

• consistent, but not rigid (unnachgiebig)
• seen to be making personal sacrifices and acting out of principle
• perceived as being part of the ingroup

Question 20

Experiment by Moscovi, Lage and Naffrechoux

Answer 20

Asch´s experiment, but confederates were minority

• Consistent minority condition: Two confederates called the slides green on every trial (incorrectly) and thereby influenced the group –> 32% of participants said green at least one time
• Did not prove for inconsistent minority condition
• Influence from minority over majority only when responses are consistent/unanimous

Question 21

Processes to compare majority and minority influence

Answer 21

Parsimony
Single-process approach
Dual-process aproach

Question 22

Parsimony

Answer 22

Assumes that majority and minority influences are caused by the same factors

Question 23

Single-process approach

Answer 23

Assumes that situations that produce conformity to majorities and minorities are the same

Question 24

Conformity depends on three separate variables (social impact theory)

Answer 24

• S: Strength of majority, ex. status and expertise
• I: Physical closeness/Immediacy of the majority to the person(s) being influenced
• N: Number of people in the majority

Question 25

Dual-process approach

Answer 25

Argues that there are substantial differences between majority and minority influence

• When a message comes from a majority group it is easily accepted as being valid (because so many people believe in it)
• Majority influence doesn´t involve thinking about the message, but rather focuses on the source of the message
• Minority must convince majority that their opinion is valid as they don´t have the advantage of the number
• Arguments from minorities leads people to focus on the message itself
• Cognitive activeness in listening to the message and evaluation it may lead to its acceptance (whereas majorities can only produce compliance)

Question 26

Information from majority and minority Groups; Types of conformity

Answer 26

• Information from a majority group: triggers compliance to social norms without real change in opinion (normative conformity)
• Information from a minority group: triggers a validation process, in which the message is processed and potentially accepted (informational conformity)

Question 27

Public vs. private responses

Answer 27

• When responses are made in public: Majority is more effective in producing opinion change
• When responses are made in private: Minority is more effective (relatively)