Social Influence Key Terms Flashcards
Conformity
Yielding to group pressure (also known as Majority Influence).
Types of conformity
Compliance, identification and internalisation.
Compliance
Publically, but not privately, conforming with the majority influence to gain approval.
Identification
Public and private acceptance of the majority influence in order to gain group acceptance.
Internalisation
Public and private acceptance of the majority influence, through adoption of the majority group’s belief system.
Informational Social Influence
The result of a desire to be right - it looks to others for guidance in order to gain evidence about reality (especially in unfamiliar situations).
Normative Social Influence
An individual conforms to the expectations of the majority in order to gain approval and avoid social disapproval.
Cognitive Dissonance
Unpleasant feeling of anxiety created by simultaneously holding two contradictory ideas.
Confederates
Individuals who pretend to be participants or researchers in research studies, but who are actually playing a part.
Situation Variables
Features of an environment that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressure.
Individual Variables
Personal characteristics that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressure.
Social Roles
The arts individuals play as members of a social group, which meet the expectations of that situations.
De-individualisation
A state in which individuals have lower self-awareness and a weaker sense of personal responsibility for their actions. This may result from relative anonymity of being part of a crowd.
De-humanisation
Degrading people by lessening of their human qualities.
Conversion
A new belief/behaviour is accepted both publically and privately.
