Week 1 Flashcards
What is Social Influence?
The use of techniques from social psychology to change someone’s behaviour, beliefs, or attitudes.
Four Types of Social Influence
Conformity
Compliance
Obedience
Persuasion
Aligning behaviour with group norms.
Conformity
Behaviour change due to a direct request
Compliance
Behaviour change due to authority commands
Obedience
Changing attitudes through communication
Persuasion
Results of the Copy Printer Study (Langer et al., 1978)
Compliance increases when a reason, even nonsensical, is given
Results of the Pique Technique (Burger et al., 2007)
Unique requests (37 cents) disrupt automatic refusal and increase compliance
Results of the Disrupt-Then-Reframe Technique (Davies & Knowles, 1999)
Disrupting typical scripts (300 pennies) followed by reframing increases compliance
Non-Thoughtful Influence
Techniques are most effective when people are not motivated or able to scrutinize requests
What are Social Norms?
Unwritten rules or standards shared by a group that guide behaviour
Types of Norms
Descriptive Norms
Injunctive Norms
Results of the Hotel Towel Study (Goldstein et al., 2008)
Telling people that others do something (descriptive norm) works better than telling them they should do it (injunctive norm).
Results of the Littering Study (Cialdini et al., 1990)
People were more likely to litter if they saw someone else littering (descriptive norm)
Results of the National Park Study (Cialdini, 2006)
Descriptive norms (what people do) can sometimes encourage bad behaviour
