Week 7 - Lecture 7 - Social Influence Flashcards
What is social influence?
- Process whereby attitudes and behaviours are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people;
- Efforts by one or more individuals to change the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions or behaviours of one or more others;
What is compliance?
A means of social influence used to reach goals or attain social or personal gains;
compliance more superficial - changing behaviour rather than attitudes
what are the types of social influence?
compliance, conformity, obedience
factors influencing compliance in an individual
group strength
group size
immediacy
similarity
what is similarity in compliance and how does similarity influence compliance?
sharing something in common with the person making the request - more likely to comply is request comes from someone similar to us
what is group strength in compliance and how does group strength influence compliance?
importance of group affiliation –> compliance with social pressure
if a group is important to us, we want them to like us and therefore comply with their request
what is group size in compliance and how does group size influence compliance?
increasing the number of people present increases the likelihood of compliance
what is immediacy in compliance and how does immediacy influence compliance?
being in the immediate presence of a group - physical presence makes it more difficult to say no
what are the techniques used to gain compliance?
foot-in-the-door technique
door-in-the-face technique
low-balling
norm of reciprocity
what is the foot-in-the-door technique?
- Small request –accepted – followed by the ‘real’ one – large;
- Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the goal request is preceded by a smaller request that is bound to be accepted.
example showing how the foot-in-the-door technique can be used to gain compliance
Freedman and Fraser (1966)
- Small request: to put up a small sign or to sign a petition;
- Large request: to install in their front lawn a very large sign which said “Drive Carefully.“
- control group had no small request first.
- 20% of people in control group allowed the sign, 55% in experimental group agreed to put up a sign
critique of the foot-in-the-door technique
However, FITD not as robust as assumed; the time between 2 requests is crucial and the sex of the experimenter might affect the results (Beaman et al., 1983)
what is the door-in-the-face technique?
- Huge request –rejected –followed by the ‘real’ one;
- Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a larger request that is bound to be refused;
Example of how door-in-the-face technique can be used to gain compliance
Cialdini et al. (1975) – Unpaid student counsellors field trip
experiment.
- asked to be unpaid counsellors to juvenile delinquents for 2 years, then asked instead to be a chaperone to them for 2 hours on the trip to the zoo.
- rejections and acceptance - 50% said yes, control (small request only) - 16.7% said yes
- 3rd - exposure control, given choice to decide between the 2. 25% said they’d go to zoo.
- giving people control may contribute to more success than just asking small request
what is the low-ball technique?
A persuader gets you to commit to some action and then, before you actually perform the behaviour, they increase the ‘cost’ of that same behaviour;
example of how low-balling can be used to gain compliance
- Cialdini et al. (1978) –7am start experiment
- asked to commit experiment and then told after they had committed to start at 7am
evidence for whether the foot-in-the-door technique or the low-ball technique is more effective in gaining compliance
Joule, 1987
- Students were requested to stop smoking for 18 hours for 30 French francs. The researchers used either FITD or LB technique;
- 7 conditions
- Lowball technique first offered 50 francs but then revealed they’d have to stop smoking and for only 30 francs, but they had already committed
- foot in the door first filled in questionnaire but then told the actual request
- Results: the low-ball technique was more effective than the foot-in-the-door technique;
(why? In the lowball technique they are already invested in process whereas FITD technique they are not)
what is the norm of reciprocity?
- ‘Doing a favour’ for a person before asking them to do something for you;
- The persuader relies on the accepted convention that people will treat others as they are treated themselves;
example of how norm of reciprocity can be used to influence compliance?
Regan’s (1971) raffle tickets study;
- confederate gave people waiting soft drinks before asking them for a favour (buying raffle tickets)
- more likely to buy tickets if they were first given a soft drink
How are power and compliance linked?
Compliance is not only linked to the perceived power exhibited by the source of influence.
what is power?
the capacity to influence others whilst resisting their attempts to influence
Moscovici link to power
Moscovici - came up with the distinction between power and influence.
- Power is about obtaining compliance and submission through domination.
- If you have power you don’t need influence
French and Rave (1959, 1993) types of power
reward power
coercive power
informational power
expert power
legitimate power
referent power
reward power
ability to give us something for compliance
coercive power
ability to threaten or punish for non-compliance
informational power
someone treated as source of information to us
expert power
someone perceived as expert
legitimate power
person is in position of power, e.g. police officer
referent power
admire/are attracted to source of power
what is conformity?
- how does it happen?
- Happens through social pressure – the norms of the majority;
- Does not refer to effects of other people on internal concepts like attitudes or beliefs;
Allport (1954) findings on conformity
In groups, people tend to give less extreme and more conservative judgments
characteristics of people who tend to conform
Individual characteristics:
– Lower self-esteem;
– High anxiety;
– Lower IQ;
– More of an authoritarian personality;
– High need for social support or approval;
– Needforself-control;
– Inferiority complex;
Group characteristics:
– Feelings of insecurities in a group;
– (perceived) Low status in a group;
factors influencing conformity:
- individual and group factors
- situational/contextual factors
situational/contextual factors influencing conformity
culture (collectivist vs individualist)
group size
group unanimity
how does group unanimity influence conformity?
more unanimous - higher conformity
example of research into conformity
Asch (1951, 1952, 1956) - Line Judgement Experiment;
- Aim: Extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform;
- Procedure: Lab experiment, 50 male students, using a line judgment task, naive participant in a room with seven confederates;
- Results: Experimental Group –75% conformed at least once, ~ 50% conformed in 6 or more trials, 25% never conformed; Control Group –99% chose the correct line;
- due to informational and normative influence
normative influence
conform to fit into the group
Conforming to obtain the rewards that come from being accepted by other people while at the same time avoiding their rejection;
- Conform to gain social approval and avoid social disapproval;
- Under surveillance by group;
- Group perceived to hold reward or coercive power;
- Creates surface compliance; change their answer but not beliefs
informational influence
believe the group is better informed than they are
Following the opinions or behaviour of other people because we believe that they have accurate knowledge and that what they are doing is right;
- Accept information from others as true;
- Need to be right;
- Occurs in ambiguous situations;
how does group size influence conformity
bigger the group - higher the conformity
reasons why people conform
- Demand characteristics
- Doubt own judgement
- Desire to be indistinguishable
- Size of majority and unanimity
- Fear of ridicule
- Task difficulty
- Private vs public answers
- Collectivist vs Individualistic cultures
what is obedience
- Form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual;
- Usually an authority figure;
- It is assumed that without such an order the person
would not have acted in this way; - Obedience involves a hierarchy of power/status;
- Person giving order has a higher status than the
person receiving order;
factors influencing obedience
– Social proximity of ‘victim’ (victim’s emotional distance)
– Social proximity and the legitimacy of the person giving the order (authority figure) (whether the authority is institutionalised)
– Diffusion of responsibility
– Group Pressure (disobedient fellow ppt?)
– Persuasion
study on obedience
- 1963, 1965, 1974;
- “Effects of punishment on learning”
- Electric shocks for incorrect answers ranging from 15 to 450 volts in 15-volt increments;
- 65% of the participants in this version of the experiment (exp. nr 5) continued to administer shocks all the way to the end.
Example of how closeness of authority influences obedience
Milgram: obedience dropped to 20% when given through phone
Would the result of Milgrams study still be the case today?
- “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?” (Burger, 2009);
- Obedience rates in the 2006 replication were only slightly lower than those Milgram found 45 years earlier;
how does the presence of others influence obedience?
Norman Triplett’s study (1898); (cyclists cycled faster in a group than when they were on their own)
* Social facilitation – presence of others improves
performance of simple tasks;
- Then why do some people perform worse when others
are present? - Robert Zajonc proposed that it’s due to arousal – arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant.
- increased arousal improves performance in easy tasks in which the dominant response is the correct one
- increased arousal decreased performance in complex tasks for which the correct response is not dominant
Hunt and Hilary (1973) - perform an easy maze. the presence of other decreased time, alone = impaired time to complete the maze.
social facilitation
presence of others improves performance of simple tasks;
Audience influence on obedience
- People respond to the presence of others;
- Even a supportive crowd/audience may affect performance negatively;
- The effect of other people increases with their number and a larger
audience may influence even automatic behaviours (e.g. speaking) [self-
conscious and arousal play a part]. - Being in a crowd intensifies both: positive and negative reactions. Physical proximity influences our perception.
why do other people cause our arousal levels to increase?
evaluation apprehension - anxiety regarding being evaluated
distraction - the conflict between paying attention to others and paying attention to the task overloads our cognitive system causing arousal
mere presence - even without evaluation or distraction, the mere presence of others affects our arousal
minority influence
Numeric or power minorities change the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours of the majority;
evidence from historical realities of minority influence
– Suffragettes Movement (founded in 1897)
– Civil Rights Movement (1896-1970) - Rosa Parks, MLK;
– Anti-war protests – e.g. Vietnam;
determinants of minority influence
– Consistency
– Self-confidence
– Defection from the majority
consistency in minority influence
sticking to one’s position, persistence
self-confidence in minority influence
consistency and persistence convert self-confidence
defection from the majority in minority influence
destroying the illusion of unanimity
definitions of leadership
- “the behavioral process of influencing individuals and groups towards set goals” (Barrow, 1977, p. 232);
- “the behavior of an individual when he [she] is directing the activities of a group towards a shared goal” (Hemphill & Coons, 1957);
- “leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2001, p. 3);
- Leadership has been studied from different perspectives, the most popular approaches include trait, skills, style, situational, and relational approach.
the role of leaders
- Leaders are critical to social movements:
– they inspire commitment,
– mobilize resources,
– create and recognize
opportunities,
– devise strategies,
– framedemands,
– influence outcomes.
approaches to study leadership
- personality traits (the Great Person Theory)
- situation
- behaviour (autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire)
leadership theories
- Fiedler’s contingency theory (1964)
- Path-goal theory (House, 1996)
- Transactional leadership (Burns, 1978)
- Leader-member exchange theory (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995)
- transformational leadership (Bass, 1985)
leader vs manager
- manager: planning, organising, scheduling, budgeting, staffing and recruiting
- leader: provide vision, determine direction of an organisation, goals, provide resources and support to get the job done.
- “too many teams are over-managed and under-led” (Martens, 1987)
is a leader born or made?
prescribed vs emergent leaders
prescribed leader
appointed to position, usually by a person in authority
emergent leader
emerge from group and take charge, usually more effective as they have the respect and support of the group members
leadership styles
democratic vs autocratic leadership
democratic leadership
leader offers guidance to members, allows group to participate in decisions but leader has final say, often most effective style as members are generally more engaged and motivated.
autocratic leadership
provide clear explanations for what needs to be done, clear division between leader and followers, make decisions with little input from group, best used when there is little time to make a decision or when leader is much more knowledgable than group members
types of leaders
task-orientated
person-orientated
task-orientated leaders
focus on working to get task done and meeting objectives, focus on providing technical instruction and how to correct errors after mistakes.
person-orientated leaders
focus on developing lines of communication, maintaining social interactions and ensuring all group members are involved, focus on giving positive feedback after good performances and encouragement after mistakes
approaches to studying leadership
trait
behavioural
situational
transformational
