week 5 Flashcards
Social influence
The process whereby people directly or indirectly affect each other’s thoughts, feelings and actions
incidental influence
- Social facilitation
- Social norms
deliberate influence
- Inducing compliance
- Influence of majorities
- Influence of minorities
- Obedience to authority
Social Facilitation
The effect of others on our behaviour
cyclists were faster in a group then individually
Social inhibition
decreased performance with audience in novel tasks
Zajonc (1965): Drive Theory
-The mere presence of others influences our behavior
-Increases arousal (extra energy)
-Facilitates dominant responses, inhibits non-dominant responses:
Improved performance on simple/routine/well-learnt tasks
Decreased performance on complex/novel tasks
Social Norms
Shared belief systems about how we should (and should not) think, feel and act
Autokinetic effect
an optical illusion
An example of norm development Muzafer Sherif
we use others as frame of reference particularly when in uncertain and unstable situations
norm development experiment Sherif
-Judge how many inches the dots move (about 100 judgements)
-3 times (conditions):
Alone
Then in groups of two or three
Alone again
First there were huge differences, then with group work the results were closer together and when alone they were almost identical
why? Uncertainty, ambiguity of task, look at others to interpret
Social Norms (2)
descriptive norm
injunctive norm
descriptive norms
how others (will) act in similar situations/ what is typical
injunctive norms
what behaviour should be performed/what is desired
Broken Windows Theory:
Signs of disorderly and petty criminal behaviour trigger more disorderly and petty criminal behaviour
The spreading of disorder: Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg
study 1
No conflict condition: No- graffiti sign (injunctive norm) and no graffiti on the walls (descriptive norm)
Conflict Condition: No- graffiti sign and graffiti on the walls
Dependent Variable: How many people will throw the fake flyer on the ground (no litter bins around) in each condition?
Cialdini effect
50% more was littered with the graffiti
cialdini effect
descriptive norm inhibits the injunctive norm
The spreading of disorder: Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg
study 5&6
Studies 5 & 6: stealing
Envelope, visibly containing a €5 note, hanging out of a mailbox
No conflict condition: mailbox - not covered with graffiti and ground around the mailbox - clean.
Conflict conditions:
Mailbox covered with graffiti without litter on the ground
No graffiti on the mailbox, but space around it - littered
with graffiti and litter more people who steal the envelope
inducing compliance
the target of influence goes along with the request from influence source
Giving in to a request
inducing compliance techniques
Door-in-the-face
Foot-in-the-door
Lowballing
Door-in-the-face (or mutual concessions) technique
Requester begins with an extreme request that is almost always refused
Then retreats to a more moderate request which is what s/he had in mind all along
Target of influence: likely to make a concession too
door in the face: blood donors
Condition 1: Request for blood donations for a year, followed by one-off blood donation request
Condition 2: Request for one-off blood donation
with condition 1 there were 20% more people who were willing to do a one-off blood donation request
Foot-in-the-door technique
The reverse of the door-in-the-face:
First request is small – almost
certain not to be refuted
can i lend 50 cents?
Second request is bigger – can’t be refuted
I’m actually 2 Euro short…
why does foot in the door work?
- Need to be consistent with our previous behaviour
- Self-perception theory (Bem, 1972): we infer who we are by what we do
Lowballing
Target of influence complies to the initial request
This request is followed by a more costly and less beneficial version of the same request
e.g. price for a car agreed, then salesman goes back on the deal with a good reason for which the car is no longer available at the initial prize
why does lowballing work?
need to be consistent with our previous behavior as well as commitments
Asch’s experiment
Conformity to group opinions:
› 75% sometimes followed the group
› 36% always followed the group
› The larger the group, the more conformity (up to a point)
(group of actors with one subject, line needs to match line other picture)
Majority Influence
There is safety in numbers!
Also called the social-proof heuristic
If the majority is saying/doing it, it must be right/the right the thing to do.
Minority dissent
can shape majority opinion
Characteristics of Minorities
- are distinctive
- can challenge dominant majority view
- can create conflict within majority
- offer new and different perspective
Minority Influence
Moscovici (1976):
- The individual often conforms to the majority, especially in public situations
- But the minority can still exert an influence, especially on private thoughts
conversion theory
Conversion theory
we react differently when we notice we are different from the majority vs. minority
Majority: comparison with self and group - “Am I doing it right?”
Minority: validation of others - “Why are they different?”
Minority Influence
Moscovici study: Reversing Asch
6 group members (two were confedetates)
Participants controlled for vision and then projected a series of 36 slides all of which are clearly blue but vary in intensity
Condition A: confederates consistently say slides are green (high-consistency)
Condition B: confederates say that 24 slides are green and 12 are blue (low-consistency)
Control condition: no confederates
in condition B a couple of times the participants said green
in condition A a lot of times participants said green
in Control condition they almost didnt
Consistency of minority is of superior importance in affecting judgments
The Dual Process Model (Moscovici) - majority
- Engages in social comparison
- Focus of attention are heuristics (number of others), not the argument -> convergent thinking
- Why? Disagreement with majority = stress = narrowing attention -> public compliance
The Dual Process Model (Moscovici) - minority
- Engages in validation
- Focus of attention is the argument’s content ->divergent thinking
- Why? Disagreement with persistent minority= scrutiny and open mind -> private, not public, conversion (and not compliance)
trial of adolf eichmann
“Only following orders”
› How can an individual be socially influenced to engage in antisocial acts?
› Obedience to authority
obedience to authority
Complying with order from a person of higher social status within a defined hierarchy or chain of command
Milgram Which factors made it more likely
that participants went so far
in their shock administration?
- Closeness to victim (in the same room vs. different rooms)
- Immediacy of authority figure
- Legitimacy (e.g. wearing a lab coat)
- Escalation of commitment - gradual increments (like foot-in-the-door)
