Social Influences Flashcards
Definition of social influences?
- process where people directly or indirectly influence thoughts, feelings and actions of others
- can be obvious attempts (e.g. persuasion, requests) or more subtle processes (e.g. conformity to implied standards)
- often carries negative associations but can be positive expression of social self and valued group membership
What are the different types of social influences?
- compliance/obedience (change against own belief)
- conformity (change that restructures one’s underlying beliefs)
- minority influence (where numerical/power minorities change attitudes of majority)
Milgram (1963)
classic shock study
- 40 men given role of teacher in learning experiment, would give shocks to the learner
- made to believe it would hurt them, had a heart condition
- shocks increased in voltage from 15 to 450v
- could hear the learner begging to stop, hear a commotion before silence but experimenter instructs to keep giving shocks using verbal prompts
- 65% continued to 450v
- were visually disturbed by the events
Variations of Milgram (1974) study
- immediacy of victim (when victim could be heard, 65% went to limit, if there was visual contact % declined, when they had to press learners hand on shock plate 30% continued to 450v)
- immediacy/proximity of authority figure (gave instructions through phone, 20.5% obeyed)
- legitimacy of authority (run-down office rather than uni, dropped to 48%)
- social influences (when others complied obedience increased to 92%, if they refused only 10% went to 450v)
Sherif (1935)
autokinetic effect
- had to estimate how far the light moved on several trials
- asked them in groups of 2/3, then asked to perform task alone
- showed in group they converge estimates, become same in final trial
- when alone they give similar answers to what they gave when in the group even without their presence
- once established normative position in group they anchor judgements even when alone
- when in ambiguous situation people look to others to define reality
Asch (1955)
conformity to incorrect majority
- 11 different occasions, confederates gave clearly wrong answer
- 75% of participants followed group and gave wrong answer at least once
- 36% of responses were incorrect
- conformity increased with group size to a point
- reasons for ignoring: felt perceptions were inaccurate, saw the lines as the group did, did it to fit in
Variations of Asch study
- unanimity (when 1 picked correct line conformity dropped)
- anonymity (in private, conformity was reduced though 12.5% still conformed)
What’s the normative and informational influence theory?
- dual process theory
- informational influence (to achieve accurate perceptions, want to be correct)
- normative influence (to gain approval and avoid rejection, to be liked)
Deutsch and Gerard
variation of Asch paradigm
- gave responses face to face/ in presence of group goal to be accurate/ anonymously
- gave responses where original stimuli was present/absent
- higher amount of incorrect responses when under pressure to conform to group goals
- amount of errors are lower when normative influence is weak
- when stimuli is absent there were higher levels of conformity
- still some conformity when anonymous
What are the limitations of dual process theories?
-residual conformity
-ignores other forms of relationships, importance of group belonging
-highlights dynamics of interpersonal
dependency by characterising as valid sources or not
What’s the self-categorization theory?
-groups are part of self, not just external influences
-groups provide social identity as well as other people
-values and standards of our group tell us what’s right/wrong and correct/incorrect
values become internal standards and guide thought
-true conformity starts and ends with shared identity between source and target
What is referent informational influence?
- the single process that produces social influence
- begins with social categorisation
- use behaviour of people in room to discover ingroup stereotype
- treat behaviour as correct one
- adopt typical and normative behaviour as own
Platow et al (2005)
humour and group membership
- gave comedy tracks to listen to and told were looking how people respond to stand-up comics
- in track can hear audience laughing, either told audience was ingroup or outgroup
- more time spent laughing during the ingroup condition
Moscovici (1969)
- criticized conformity bias in previous research, individuals have agency and can influence large minorities
- argued that they were minority influence studies
Moscivici, Lage and Naffrerhoux (1969)
- in groups of 6 were presented with blue slide that varied in intensity and asked to name colour
- control (6 naive), inconsistent minority (2/3 said green, rest said blue), consistent minority (all said green)
- people weren’t strongly influenced, less than 10% said green in all conditions
- consistent minority gave most green responses
