Social influences -a guy in despair Flashcards
Social influence is
Kanye and Hilter
is the exercise of social power by a person or group to change the attitudes or behaviour of others in a particular
direction.
Conformity and Obedience
Conformity is a yielding to perceived group pressure by copying the behaviour and beliefs
of others. Obedience is the performance of an action in response to a direct order, often in response
to persons of authority.
Social norm Sherif 1936
Gown
Social life is full of norms, that is, attitudinal and behavioural uniformities among people, and a key
concern is how people construct norms, how they conform to or are regulated by those norms, and
how those norms change.
One question is if even in the absence of direct pressure, a social group could cause members to converge and thus become more similar to one another. Sherif (1936) made
a major step forward by explicitly investigating the development of group norms. Based on the
premise that people need to be certain and confident that what they are doing, thinking or feeling is
correct and appropriate, Sherif argued that people use the behaviour of others to establish the range
of possible behaviour. In other words, they rely on a social frame of reference. Middle positions in
such frames of reference are typically perceived to be more correct than fringe positions, thus people
tend to adopt them. Sherif believed that this explained the origins of social norms and the concomitant convergence that accentuates consensus within groups.
Autokinesis
‘Visual perception experiment’
How far does the red dot move in the dark?
Just a ILLUSION
To test this idea, he conducted his research using autokinesis, in which two- or three-person groups
making estimates of physical movement quickly converged over a series of trials on the mean of the
group’s estimates and remained influenced by this norm even when subsequently making their
estimates alone. This work shows that in the absence of any other information, people look to others
to see what response might be appropriate, and then go along with it. Importantly, these are
situations where there are no clear right or wrong answers. In contrast, in other cases following
others’ judgments and opinions can be more detrimental when a person has a clear internal point of
view, or specific objective knowledge.
Only if the object is uncertain will conformity leads to a large effect-(Asch) But certainty is high result will also be influenced
Asch published the results of a now classic experiment on conformity, in which student participants
conformed to erroneous judgements of line lengths made by a numerical majority. Like Sherif, Asch
believed that conformity reflects a relatively rational process in which people construct a norm from
other people’s behaviour in order to determine correct and appropriate behaviour for themselves.
Clearly, if you are already confident and certain about what is appropriate and correct, then others’
behaviour will be largely irrelevant and thus not influential. In Sherif’s study, the object of
judgement was ambiguous: participants were uncertain, so a norm arose rapidly and was highly
effective in guiding behaviour.
even when the stimulus is completely unambiguous, may be to avoid censure, ridicule and
social disapproval
Asch argued that if the object of judgement was entirely unambiguous (i.e. one would expect no
disagreement between judges), then disagreement, or alternative perceptions, would have no effect
on behaviour: people would remain entirely independent of group influence. Male students
participated in what they thought was a visual discrimination task, seated themselves around a table
in groups. They took turns in a fixed order to call out publicly which of three comparison lines was
the same length as a standard line. In reality, only one person was an actual participant, and he
answered second to last. The others were experimental confederates instructed to give erroneous
responses on twelve focal trials: on six trials they picked a line that was too long and on six a line
that was too short. There was also a control condition in which participants performed the task
privately with no group influence, and in this condition less than 1% of participants’ responses were
errors, suggesting that the task was indeed unambiguous. In the experimental condition, however, the
correct line was only chosen 63% of the time.
After the experiment, Asch asked his participants why they conformed. They all reported initially
experiencing uncertainty and self-doubt as a consequence of the disagreement between themselves
and the group, which gradually evolved into self-consciousness, fear of disapproval, and feelings of
anxiety. Different reasons were given for yielding. Most participants knew they saw things
differently from the group but felt that their perceptions may have been inaccurate and that the group
was actually correct. Others did not believe that the group was correct but simply went along with
the group in order not to stand out. These subjective accounts suggest that one reason why people
conform, even when the stimulus is completely unambiguous, may be to avoid censure, ridicule and
social disapproval.
two different processes behind the kinds of conformity
Informational Influence
Normative Influence
Informational influence
Not sure need support
Thus, there can be two different processes behind the kinds of conformity. Informational Influence
is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. People have a need to
feel confident that their perceptions, beliefs and feelings are correct. Informational influence comes
into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because
there is social disagreement. Effective informational influence causes true cognitive change (i.e.,
conversion). Informational influence was probably largely responsible for the effects found by Sherif
(1936) in his autokinetic studies. Reality was ambiguous, and participants used other people’s
estimates as information to resolve subjective uncertainty.
Normative influence
Sure dont wanna standout
Thus, there can be two different processes behind the kinds of conformity. Informational Influence
is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. People have a need to
feel confident that their perceptions, beliefs and feelings are correct. Informational influence comes
into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because
there is social disagreement. Effective informational influence causes true cognitive change (i.e.,
conversion). Informational influence was probably largely responsible for the effects found by Sherif
(1936) in his autokinetic studies. Reality was ambiguous, and participants used other people’s
estimates as information to resolve subjective uncertainty.
Milgram
The social of power of Hilter leads to the obedience
In addition to the seminal studies by Sherif and Asch, one of the probably most well-known
psychology studies was conducted by Milgram, who investigated social influence and obedience in
the context of wider social issues. Adolf Eichmann was the Nazi official most directly responsible
for the logistics of Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’, and one of the most disturbing findings that emerged
from Eichmann’s trial, and indeed from the trials of other war criminals was that ‘monsters’ carrying
out atrocities did not appear to be monsters at all. Instead, many were mild-mannered, softly spoken,
courteous people who repeatedly and politely explained that they did what they did not because they
hated Jews but because they were ordered to do it: They were simply obeying orders.
Electric shock experiment
Milgram (1974) conducted a total of eighteen experiments, in which he varied different parameters
to investigate factors influencing obedience. In all but one experiment the participants were 20-50-
year-old males, not attending university, from a range of occupations and socioeconomic levels. In
one study in which women were the participants, the same level of obedience was obtained as with
male participants. Milgram’s experiment has subsequently been replicated in many countries, and
although there is some variation, on average the percentage of participants following through with
the most extreme level of punishment is relatively similar to US samples, namely roughly two-thirds
of participants.
An important factor in obedience is immediacy, namely the social proximity of the victim to the
participant. Milgram (1974) varied the level of immediacy across a number of experiments. As noted
about 65% of people ‘shocked to the limit’ of 450 V when the victim was unseen and unheard except
for pounding on the wall. In an even less immediate condition in which the victim was neither seen
nor heard at all, 100% of people went to the end. As immediacy increased from this baseline,
obedience decreased: when the victim was visible in the same room, 40% obeyed to the limit; and
when the teacher actually had to hold the victim’s hand down on to the electrode to receive the shock,
obedience dropped to 30%, although this of course was still a rather high percentage.
One reason why people continue to administer electric shocks may be that the experiment starts very
innocuously with quite trivial shocks. Once people have committed themselves to a course of action
(i.e. to give shocks), it can be difficult subsequently to change their mind. The process, which
reflects the psychology of sunk costs in which once committed to a course of action people will
continue their commitment even if the costs increase dramatically (Fox & Hoffman, 2002). In other
words, once you started with something that takes considerable effort, it becomes difficult to stop
because otherwise all the previous effort would have been in vain. Another related concept is the
foot-in-the-door technique of persuasion (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), which describes the
phenomenon that people are most likely to agree to a larger request once they agreed to a smaller
request. Such processes explain why people often go along with certain behaviours simply because
it’s one small step at a time, rather than a dramatic action at once.
Another relevant factor is proximity and immediacy of the authority figure . Obedience was reduced
when the experimenter was absent from the room and conveyed directions only by telephone. When
the experimenter gave no orders at all, and the participant was entirely free to choose when to stop,
only 2.5% persisted to the end. Perhaps the most dramatic influence on obedience is group pressure.
The presence of two disobedient peers (i.e. others who appeared to revolt and refused to continue
after giving shocks in the 150-210 V range) reduced complete obedience to 10%, while two obedient
peers raised complete obedience to 92.5%.
The** legitimacy of the authority **figure is also critical because it allows people to abdicate personal
responsibility for their actions. For example, Bushman (1984, 1988) had confederates, dressed in
uniform, neat attire or a shabby outfit stand next to someone fumbling for change for a parking
meter. The confederate stopped passers-by and ‘ordered’ them to give the person change for the
meter. Over 70% obeyed the uniformed confederate (giving ‘because they had been told to’ as the
reason) and about 50% obeyed a confederate who was either neatly attired or shabbily dressed
(generally giving altruism as a reason). These studies suggest that mere emblems of authority can
create unquestioning obedience.
Milgram’s original experiments were conducted by lab-coated scientists at prestigious Yale
University, and the purpose of the research was quite clearly the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
Milgram’s original experiments were conducted by lab-coated scientists at prestigious Yale
University, and the purpose of the research was quite clearly the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
What would happen if these trappings of legitimate authority were removed? Milgram ran one
experiment in a run-down inner-city office building. The research was ostensibly sponsored by a
private commercial research firm. Obedience dropped, but to a still remarkably high 48%.
Stanford prisoner experiment
