Social Influence- Comformity, Compliance and Obedience & Group behaviour

Question 1

What is social perception?

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

What are the 3 main types of social influence?

Answer 2

Comformity
Compliance
Obedience

Question 3

What is comformity?

Answer 3

A change in response to social norms ( NO pressure is required)

Question 4

A change in response to a direct request is known as…

Answer 4

Compliance (Persuasion)

Question 5

A change in response to a command/order is known as…

Answer 5

Obedience

Question 6

What are social norms?

Answer 6

Rules indicating how people are expected to behave in a specific situation

Question 7

What are descriptive and injunctive social norms?

Answer 7

Descriptive: How do people typically behave?
Injunctive: How should people behave?

Question 8

What do social norms help with?

Answer 8

-regulate social interactions (i.e. make behaviour consistent and predictable)
-prevent social chaos
-provide automatic guides for behaviour

Question 9

When people don’t want to look silly or rejected by the rest of the group is called…

Answer 9

Normative social influence

Question 10

When people conform because they think others had better eyesight or are more informed in some way it is called…

Answer 10

Informational social influence

Question 11

When are we more or less likely to conform?

Answer 11

-Group size
-Incompetent and insecure individuals
-Group’s status and attractiveness
-presence of an ally
-Independence

Question 12

Define private conformity and public conformity

Answer 12

Private: changes in both overt behaviour and beliefs
Public: superficial changes in overt behaviour only

Question 13

What are the main ideas of Sherif’s studies?

Answer 13

-Ambiguity lead participants to turn to each other
-participants didn’t know the correct answer
-conformity leads to internalization

Question 14

What are the main points of Asch’s studies’?

Answer 14

-participants often felt awkward
-participants knew the correct answer
-conformity does NOT lead to internalization

Question 15

How do minorities influence each other?

Answer 15

-withstand the majority influence
-focus on informational social influence leading to private acceptance

Question 16

What did Cialdini propose are the 6 basic principles?

Answer 16

-Social validation
-Consistency
-Authority
-Reciprocity
-Friendship/Liking/Similarity
-Scarcity

Question 17

What is Milgram’s obedience experiment and what are the results?

Answer 17

• 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’

Question 18

What is social facilitation?

Answer 18

-If performance can be individually evaluated the presence of others will improve
-This is dependent on whether the task is complex or simple

Question 19

What is the distraction conflict theory?

Answer 19

Attentional conflict between focusing on tasks and inspecting the distracting stimulus can either improve or impair behaviour

Question 20

What is a group?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

What is social loafing?

Answer 21

A tendency to exert less effort when performing as part of a collective or group than when performing as an individual

Question 22

What is entitativity?

Answer 22

The degree to which a collection of people feels like a cohesive group.

Question 23

Define Cohesiveness

Answer 23

The degree of unity and solidarity within a group, reflecting the attraction, shared goals, and commitment among its members

Question 24

What is the social identity theory?

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

What’s the difference between collectivistic vs individualistic cultures?

Answer 25

• Collectivistic Cultures: Emphasize group harmony and cooperation for the collective good.
  *Individualistic Cultures: Prioritize individual goals and achievements over group interests.

Question 26

What is the sucker effect?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is the free rider effect?

Answer 27

If we feel like our contribution is not essential we will still benefit and give a little in return
-low input, high output

Question 28

Define diffusion of responsibility

Answer 28

In a group we feel able to share the responsibility and this may lead to a reduction of effort

Question 29

What is group polarization?

Answer 29

The tendency for group discussion to shift group members toward an extreme position, then the initial inclinations of its members

Question 30

Compare informational and normative influence

Answer 30

*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.

Question 31

Define the persuasive argument theory

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

What factors into improving group decision making?

Answer 32

*Group polarization
*Groupthink

Question 33

Define groupthink

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What are some cons of groupthink?

Answer 34

-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

Question 35

What are some symptoms of groupthink?

Answer 35

-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

Question 36

How can we prevent groupthink?

Answer 36

-Encourage critical evaluation
-play devils advocate; encourage critical evaluation
-Be impartial
-encourage and welcome criticisms from outsiders