Week 6-Social Influence

Question 1

Define Norms

Answer 1

Attitudes and behaviours that define group membership and
differentiate between groups.

Question 2

Define Social Influence

Answer 2

Process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by
the real or implied presence of other people.

Question 3

Define Compliance

Answer 3

Superficial, public change in behaviour and expressed
attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure.

Question 4

Define Obedience

Answer 4

Compliance with another’s authority

Question 5

What procedure did Stanley Milgram (1974) do on obedience?

Answer 5

■Teacher (participant) and a learner (confederate)
■Learner had to remember and recall a list of paired associates
■Teacher administered an electric shock to the learner after every error made.
■Teacher administered progressively larger shocks to the learner.
■Shocks were fake however

Question 6

Define the agentic state

Answer 6

-Unquestioning obedience in which personal responsibility is transferred to the person giving order
-Milgram (1963) – people are socialised to respect authority

Question 7

What 3 factors influence obedience?

Answer 7

1.Sunk Cost Fallacy (Foot-in-the-door-technique of persuasion)
2.Immediacy of the victim
3.Immediacy of authority figure

Question 8

How does immediacy of the victim influence obedience?

Answer 8

Milgram (1974)
■When victim was neither seen nor heard – 100%
■When the victim was visible (in the same room) – 40%
■When the teacher had to hold victims hand down – 30%
■ ↑ immediacy of victim may prevent dehumanisation of victim

Question 9

How does immediacy of authority figure influence obedience

Answer 9

–When experimenter relayed instructions via telephone=20.5%
– When no orders were given at all=2.5%
–Presence of two disobedient peers=10%
–Presence of two obedient peers =92.5%

Question 10

What’s conformity?

Answer 10

–Deep-seated private and enduring change in behavior and attitudes due to group pressure.
■Social influence can also operate in a less direct manner, through
conformity to social or group norms

Question 11

What’s the convergence effect (Sherif, 1936)?

Answer 11

Linked with group norms: the need to be certain that behaviour is
correct and appropriate

Question 12

What’s frame of reference?

Answer 12

Middle positions perceived to be more correct than fringe positions
– Allport (1924) – people in groups give less extreme judgements of
odours and weights in groups, as compared with when they are
alone

Question 13

Do people still conform in
‘unambiguous’ situations?

Answer 13

■Sherif’s (1936) may have been considered ambiguous
–Participants likely felt uncertain regarding the level of movement – a norm arose and guided uncertain behaviour.
■Might it be true that if one is confident about what is appropriate and correct, then others’ behaviour will be irrelevant and less influential?

Question 14

What was Asch’s (1951) procedure?

Answer 14

■Groups of seven to nine respondents
–Took it in turns in a fixed order to call aloud their response
–All were confederates except on naïve participant
■Participant always provided the penultimate response
–18 trials
■Confederates gave incorrect responses on 12 trials and correct responses on 6 trials.

Question 15

What was Asch’s (1951) results?

Answer 15

■Control group – performed the same task privately
–1% of responses were incorrect – confirmation of unambiguity
■Main findings
–25% of naïve participants did not conform to confederates incorrect responses at all
–50% conformed to the erroneous majority on six or more trials
–5% conformed on all twelve erroneous trials
–Overall conformity rate of 33%

Question 16

Why did participants conform in Asch’s study?

Answer 16

■Feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt
–Evolving into self-consciousness, feelings of anxiety
■Many participants knew that they saw differently to how the group responded
–This led to some doubting themselves
–Others believed they were correct but went with the majority to avoid standing out.
■Self-presentational concerns
■Neuroimaging data show stronger amygdala response to
nonconformity (Berns, Chappelow, Zink, Pagnoni, Martin-Skurski,
& Richard, 2005)

Question 17

What variations were there of Asch’s task?

Answer 17

■Incorrect majority responded publicly but participant wrote their response down privately – 12.5% conformity rate
■Deutsch and Gerard (1955) 3 conditions:
1.Responded face-to-face with three confederates
2.Responded anonymously and privately in a cubicle
3.Responded face-to-face with confederates and was told to be as accurate as possible.
–Subjective certainty was also manipulated
■ Half of the participants responded whilst the stimulus was present
■ Half of the participants responded after the stimulus had been removed
(increased uncertainty)

Question 18

What Individual and Group Characteristics are there of Conformity?

Answer 18

■Lack of expertise/familiarity may increase conformity (Sistruck and McDavid (1971))
■Males and females faced group pressures in identifying various stimuli
Stimuli were either:
■Typically masculine
■Typically feminine
■Neutral.

Question 19

Individual and group characteristics of conformity: How can cultural variation affect it?

Answer 19

–Individualist vs collectivist cultures
■Bond and Smith (1996): Meta-analysis of the Asch paradigm in 17 countries
–People who score high on Hofstede’s (1980) collectivism scale conform more than people who score low.
–Conformity may be more favourable in collectivist cultures
■Acting as a form of social glue.

Question 20

What situational factors are there in conformity?

Answer 20

■Group Size Asch (1952): as the unanimous group increased, conformity increased.
■Group unanimity:
–Conformity rates are significantly reduced if the majority is not unanimous
–Presence of a correct reporter – reduces conformity from 33% to 5.5%

Question 21

What’s informational influence?

Answer 21

Accepting information from another as evidence about reality and affects us when we are uncertain:
■Ambiguity
■Social Disagreement
–Likely present in Sherif’s (1936) study

Question 22

What’s Normative Influence?

Answer 22

To conform to the positive expectation of others to gain approval or avoid social disapproval. (Likely present in Asch’s (1951) experiments)

Question 23

How did Herman, Roth, and Polivy (2003) investigate conformity in eating?

Answer 23

–Significant concern for most people is not being seen to eat
excessively.
■Often negative stereotypes have been applied to those who eat excessively.
■Eaters may then take care to ensure that their food intake is not
perceived as excessive.
–People might engage in social comparison to avoid this.

Question 24

How’s the dual-process model of social influence an oversimplification?

Answer 24

More to social influence than only normative and informational forces

Question 25

Define Social Identity Theory + Referent Informational Influence

Answer 25

SI:Group membership based on self-categorisation and social
comparison.

RII:Pressure to conform to a group norm that defines oneself as a
group member.

Question 26

True or false: If the only effective social influence was majority
influence then social homogeneity would have already been reached.

Answer 26

True

Question 27

Did Asch’s study actually measure
minority influence? Moscovici and Facheux (1972)

Answer 27

–Asch’s lone participant was a member of a large majority
confronted by a small minority
■Those outside of the experiment who identify the lines ‘correctly’ vs the confederates who identified the lines ‘incorrectly’

Question 28

What 3 social influence modalities are there?

Answer 28

1.Conformity – majority influence – majority persuades the minority
2.Normalisation – mutual compromise leading to convergence
3.Innovation – minority creates a conflict in order to persuade the majority.

Question 29

What’s the genetic model of minority influence?

Answer 29

■Consistency across time and context
■Showing investment in its position
–Making a significant sacrifice
■Autonomy
–Acting out of principle rather than from ulterior motives

Question 30

How is consistency effective in minority social influence?

Answer 30

■Argued to be the most important component for effective minority influence because it:
–Disrupts the majority norm and produces uncertainty and doubt.
–Draws attention to the minority as an entity.
–Creates the impression that an alternative, coherent view exists.
–Demonstrates certainty and commitment to this view.
–Shows that to resolve the social conflict, one must adopt the minority’s viewpoint

Question 31

How did Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux (1969) investigate conformity?

Answer 31

■4 participants confronted 2 confederates in a colour perception task
Confederates were either:
■Consistent – always calling the slides ‘green’
■Inconsistent – calling the slides ‘green’ 2/3 of the time and ‘blue’ 1/3

Question 32

Conversion Theory (Moscovici (1980)): Majority Influence

Answer 32

■Direct public compliance through normative or informational dependence.
■Comparison processes: focussing on how others behave to know how to fit in
■Majority views are accepted passively
■Public compliance involves little/no private attitude change

Question 33

Conversion Theory (Moscovici (1980)): Minority Influence

Answer 33

■Produces private change in opinion due to cognitive conflict
■Validation processes: examine the validity of their beliefs
■Outcome: Little/no overt public agreement with minority but private internal change.
■Conversion Effect: sudden internal change in the attitudes of the majority.

Question 34

How did Moscovici and Personnaz (1980) investigate conversion theory?

Answer 34

–Used the blue-green paradigm described earlier
–Individuals judged the colour of clearly blue slides, varying in intensity
–Exposed to a single confederate who always called the slides ‘green’
–Participants were led to believe that either most (82%; majority influence) or very few (18%; minority influence) people would respond the same way.
–Participants publicly called out the colour of the slide. The slide then disappeared and the participant had to write down the colour of the after-image
■ Blue slides: Yellow after-image
■ Green slides: Purple after-image

Question 35

What contradicting theories are there for Moscovici and Personnaz’s (1980) theory?

Answer 35

–Doms and Van Avertmaet (1980): found after-image changes after both minority and majority influence.
–Sorrentino, King, and Leo (1980): found after-image shift after minority influence only among participants suspicious of the experiment (demand characteristics?).

Question 36

What’s the convergent-divergent theory? Nemeth (1986)

Answer 36

■When we have attitudes which are in disagreement with the majority, we find this surprising and stressful
–Leads to narrow-focused (convergent) thinking.
■In contrast, disagreement with the minority is not stressful (but expected) and may allow for more divergent views.
■Minority influence improves performances on tasks related to divergent thinking, as compared with majority influence (Martin & Hewstone, 1999)
■Nemeth (1986) – using Asch and blue-green paradigm, showed that
exposure to minority influence stimulated divergent, novel, creative thinking

Question 37

How does Social Identity theory link to minority influence?

Answer 37

■Referent informational influence theory:
–Prototypical in-group members are the most reliable source of
information.
–Therefore, surely minorities should be particularly ineffective at
influencing a majority.
■ Minority must cause the majority to focus on intergroup comparisons which are shared.
–E.g., a radical faction within Islam may have more influence within
Islam if there is a focus of intergroup comparisons between Islam and the west

Question 38

What’s a leniency contract?

Answer 38

■Typically when a message involves strong attitudes, it is difficult for minority influence to prevail.
■However, the minority is already part of the in-group
–Majority may be more reluctant to reject this message.
■Leniency contract:
–There is a greater leniency towards in-group minorities because they are unlikely to want to destroy the majority’s core attributes.
–Outgroup minority does not invite leniency

Question 39

What issues are there with conversion theory? (Moscovici, 1980)

Answer 39

–Whether minorities or majorities are influential or not may be a matter of social identity dynamics.
■Wood et al. (1994): meta-analysis
–People who are confronted with a minority position with real social minorities/majorities, tend to not only resist overt alignment with minority but also privately avoid alignment.