Social Influence- Comformity, Compliance and Obedience & Group behaviour Flashcards
What is social perception?
A change in behaviour in response to intentional and unintentional influence of others. It may or may not be accompanied by a change in attitude.
What are the 3 main types of social influence?
Comformity
Compliance
Obedience
What is comformity?
A change in response to social norms ( NO pressure is required)
A change in response to a direct request is known as…
Compliance (Persuasion)
A change in response to a command/order is known as…
Obedience
What are social norms?
Rules indicating how people are expected to behave in a specific situation
What are descriptive and injunctive social norms?
Descriptive: How do people typically behave?
Injunctive: How should people behave?
What do social norms help with?
-regulate social interactions (i.e. make behaviour consistent and predictable)
-prevent social chaos
-provide automatic guides for behaviour
When people don’t want to look silly or rejected by the rest of the group is called…
Normative social influence
When people conform because they think others had better eyesight or are more informed in some way it is called…
Informational social influence
When are we more or less likely to conform?
-Group size
-Incompetent and insecure individuals
-Group’s status and attractiveness
-presence of an ally
-Independence
Define private conformity and public conformity
Private: changes in both overt behaviour and beliefs
Public: superficial changes in overt behaviour only
What are the main ideas of Sherif’s studies?
-Ambiguity lead participants to turn to each other
-participants didn’t know the correct answer
-conformity leads to internalization
What are the main points of Asch’s studies’?
-participants often felt awkward
-participants knew the correct answer
-conformity does NOT lead to internalization
How do minorities influence each other?
-withstand the majority influence
-focus on informational social influence leading to private acceptance
What did Cialdini propose are the 6 basic principles?
-Social validation
-Consistency
-Authority
-Reciprocity
-Friendship/Liking/Similarity
-Scarcity
What is Milgram’s obedience experiment and what are the results?
- the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience
-the vast majority kept administering shocks to the learner even after the learned cries from the ‘pain’
What is social facilitation?
-If performance can be individually evaluated the presence of others will improve
-This is dependent on whether the task is complex or simple
What is the distraction conflict theory?
Attentional conflict between focusing on tasks and inspecting the distracting stimulus can either improve or impair behaviour
What is a group?
A group can be defined as a collection of people who are perceived to be bonded together and tend to be cohesive to promote liking
What is social loafing?
A tendency to exert less effort when performing as part of a collective or group than when performing as an individual
What is entitativity?
The degree to which a collection of people feels like a cohesive group.
Define Cohesiveness
The degree of unity and solidarity within a group, reflecting the attraction, shared goals, and commitment among its members
What is the social identity theory?
- Enhance self-esteem and social identity (In-group bias)
- Identify with the achievements and characteristics of the group.
- Gain a sense of belonging and understanding within the broader social context
What’s the difference between collectivistic vs individualistic cultures?
- Collectivistic Cultures: Emphasize group harmony and cooperation for the collective good.
*Individualistic Cultures: Prioritize individual goals and achievements over group interests.
What is the sucker effect?
Willing to do your share but not more than that. If everyone is benefiting and getting credit you would rather do the bare minimum instead of the most since you will not get recognition for doing the most
What is the free rider effect?
If we feel like our contribution is not essential we will still benefit and give a little in return
-low input, high output
Define diffusion of responsibility
In a group we feel able to share the responsibility and this may lead to a reduction of effort
What is group polarization?
The tendency for group discussion to shift group members toward an extreme position, then the initial inclinations of its members
Compare informational and normative influence
*Informational Influence: Occurs when individuals conform due to the desire to be correct.
*Normative Influence: Occurs when individuals conform due to the desire to fit inand be accepted.
Define the persuasive argument theory
explains group polarization through informational influence, which occurs when you conform to others’ actions or attitudes because you believe they know something that you don’t.
What factors into improving group decision making?
*Group polarization
*Groupthink
Define groupthink
tendency of the members of highly cohesive groups to assume that their decisions cannot be wrong , that all must support the group’s decisions and that informative contrary to these decisions must be ignored
What are some cons of groupthink?
-it prioritizes consensus rather than accuracy
-the group has a greater desire to get along and agree with one another than to generate and critically evaluate and generate their own viewpoints/opinions
What are some symptoms of groupthink?
-unquestioned belief in the group’s morality
-illusions of invulnerability- over optimism, blind to warnings
-members become close-minded
-pressures towards uniformity
-decision-making defects
How can we prevent groupthink?
-Encourage critical evaluation
-play devils advocate; encourage critical evaluation
-Be impartial
-encourage and welcome criticisms from outsiders
