Topic 22: Social Influence, Conformity and Obedience

Question 1

What is social influence?

Answer 1

Modification of a person’s attitudes (i.e. affect, cognition and/or behaviour) by a real or imagined other.

Imagined other means either memory of a person or just imagination of a person or even a symbolic representation of a person

Question 2

What is a real life example of social influence?

Answer 2

Anti-vax movement (online/offline): Protesters carrying anti-vaccine banners in Bristol City Centre.

Social influence: in many Western countries - rise in the opposition to vaccines. (against covid vaccines and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine)
Consequence: multiple measles outbreaks in Western countries where the virus was previously considered eliminated.

Question 3

When is social influence bad?

Answer 3

when it leads people to take unnecessary risks (e.g. drink driving) or join immoral (e.g. sexist, racist) or illegal (e.g. violent) behaviour.

Question 4

When is social influence good?

Answer 4

when it inhibits people from joining immoral/illegal behaviour, or makes them more moral/aware (e.g. environmentally/socially aware) etc.

Question 5

When is social influence neutral?

Answer 5

e.g. where to put a keyboard cover while working on a computer. (Coultas, 2004)

Question 6

Is social influence bad?

Answer 6

In essence, social behaviour is not bad or good, it’s the type of behaviour that is being influenced that makes it potentially bad or good.

Question 7

What are the consequences of social influence?

Answer 7

Conformity: a change in one’s behaviour to accord with other and/or social norms.

This can either be due to:
Acceptance: conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with others. (e.g. an attitudinal change after feeling persuaded by others, such as joining in a standing ovation and meaning it).

Compliance: conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with others even if privately disagreeing (e.g. joining in a standing ovation but privately thinking the performance was bad)

Obedience: acting in accord with a direct order by an authority (e.g. occasionally without privately thinking anything other than that the order must be followed).

Question 8

What are the mechanisms/types of social influence?

Answer 8

Informational influence: change of attitude/behaviour because other people’s behaviour provides information about what is the correct thing to do

Normative influence: change of attitude/behaviour because other people’s behaviour provides information about what is the appropriate thing to do

Normally when we experience social influence it is the outcome of both of these types of influences.

Question 9

What is a study of informational influence?

Answer 9

Sherif (1935, 1937)
Used autokinetic effect (optical illusion whereby stationary small light appears to move in dark room)
Control session: participants alone in dark room, light switched on, asked to report how far they perceived the light to move (average of several trials)
Days 1-4: three participants in same room, took turns in reporting their estimate first, second or third
Results: their judgements converged over time (and when re-tested along a year later they continued to support group norm) - suggests acceptance rather than compliance.

Question 10

When does informational influence happen?

Answer 10

When a situation is ambiguous (and social norms are missing), people tend to look to others for orientation
communication/behaviour of others provides clues regarding what they consider to be correct.
Over time, this mutual ‘checking in’ can easily establish and maintain norms without direct orders or incentives.

Question 11

What’s a study of normative influence?

Answer 11

Asch (1951, 1955, 1956)
Used less ambiguous task than Sherif
Task: line judgement task (participants asked to judge length of standard line in comparison to 3 other lines)
Control: task done alone (99% correct)
Experimental condition: participant and 6 confederate ‘participants’ - each participant says which comparison line matches the standard (confederates all given the same wrong answer in 12 out of 36 trials)
Results: overall 37% conformity with wrong confederates; 76% of participants confirmed at least once.

Question 12

When does normative influence happen?

Answer 12

People may conform even when situation is not ambiguous
I.e. they are not actually searching to find the ‘correct’ response
Often change in behaviour to fulfil others’ expectations
E.g. to avoid social disapproval/exclusion (James and Olson 2000)
But, evidence that people become agitated in this type of situation
I.e. heightened autonomic arousal (Bogdonoff et al. 1962)
Variations of the task further revealed: for stable influence it takes 3 or more confederates; 1 dissenting confederate reduces the effect greatly (even if s/he does not agree with the participant).

Question 13

Why do people obey?

Answer 13

This question inspired by Milgram’s studies on obedience:
How far would someone go to administer higher and higher voltage shocks to someone?
What is the willingness of people to comply with destructive order?

Question 14

Examples of majority groups’ poor decision making?

Answer 14

Majority-based social influence (informational, normative, obedience) can cause strong convergence of attitudes/behaviour in groups
This can be problematic, especially when groups make decisions
Real-life examples of poor decision making in groups:
Titanic (many iceberg warnings)
Space shuttle Challenger (engineers knew there was a potential problem)
UK governments delayed COVID restrictions in March 2020 (despite reports of rapidly rising COVID-related deaths)

Question 15

What type of social influence must minority groups rely on to make a change?

Answer 15

Minority can’t (per definition) use normative influence as this requires majority. Instead, they must rely and capitalise on informational influence.
But this can succeed: minority influence very important to promote change and creativity in a society.

Question 16

What is a study of minority influence?

Answer 16

Moscovici et al. (1969) modified Asch’s paradigm
Task: line colour judgement task (participants asked to judge colour of series of blue lines)
Control: 22 participants - only 1 calls a line green
Experimental condition: 4 participants and 2 confederates
Each participant says which colour each line has
Confederates call all lines green
Results: overall 32% of real participants reported at least once a green line

Question 17

When is minority influence most effective?

Answer 17

When:
They disrupt majority norm - deliberately draw attention to an alternative view and produce uncertainty

Demonstrate that they are committed to this alternative, against the majority norm

Are consistent (i.e. members of minority must agree and express same view over time) and show self-confidence (i.e. they are firm when promoting their message)

Avoid being seen as dogmatic (i.e. they should be flexible in non-core issues)

If they act this way, according to studies, they can cause renewed in-depth processing of the issue at stake as majority seeks to understand why this view and commitment exists (“if they are being so persistent, there MUST be something in it”

Question 18

What is the ‘door in the face technique’?

Answer 18

Cialdini et al. (1975)
Uses norm of reciprocity to influence a person’s behaviour
Approached people and asked for something quite extreme
E.g. could you work for next 2 years for 2 hrs a week in youth detention centre
E.g. would you be willing to supervise a group of adolescents for one field trip
Results: of people directly asked to go for field trip only 17% agreed; of people asked with door in the face technique 50% agreed.
Upon being declined (i.e. when they get the door slammed in their face) they ask for something that sounded more reasonable (and that they were actually after all along)
As people feel like a concession has been made, they then feel obliged to also make one in return

Question 19

How can individuals exert social influence?

Answer 19

Several strategies seem particularly effective to induce, at the minimum, short-term compliance:

Consistency: people like to be (seen as) consistent, a desire that can tempt them into compliant behaviour (foot in the door technique)

Liking: building up positive relationships with someone (e.g. establishing similarity: same date of birth, spending time in same room etc.) increases compliant behaviour

Reciprocity: doing something for someone else usually results in them feeling obliged to do something for you in return (door in the face technique)