Week 9 Flashcards
Social influence
- how people affect one another through changing beliefs, feelings or behaviors from the real or imagined presence of other people
Obedience
Doing as others command - changing behavior by favorably responding to someone who have power over you.
Compliance
Changing behavior by responding favorably to explicit requests from other - doing as there’s want
Conformity
- changing behavior in response to explicit or implicit pressure - doing as others do
Automatic mimicry study results by Chartrand and Barth
- people high in empathy or need to affiliate with others are more likely to automatically mimic others
Wegner explanation of ideomotor action
Thinking about an action increases the likelyhood of doing it
- when we see others behave in a particular way, that behavior is brought to mind, we are more likely to behave that way ourselves.
Automatic mimicry - Bargh explaination
- people who are mimicked are more pro social afterward
- mimicry may build social rapport and lead to more pleasant interactions
Autokinetic effect
- a visual illusion in which a small stationary dot of light in a dark room appears to move.
Sherif et al autokinetic effect
- pps exposed to autokinetic effect
- asked how much the light moved, and pps joined other pps in a small group and told to say answers out loud, and 4 trials were conducted.
- estimates converged when they were put together
When is normative social influence more likely to be in play?
- when a situation is unambiguous and clear.
When is informational social influence more likely to be in play?
When a situation is ambiguous and unclear
Factors that influence conformity
- anonymity
- expertise
- culture
- gender
Anonymity
Eliminates normative social influence, and thus reduces conformity
Expertise and status
- expert opinions often carry more weight - eg dissapproval of high status people hurts more
Culture
- interdépendant cultures tend to have higher rates of conformity
Prentice and Miller
- studies consequences of pluralistic igorance
- the social construction emergency situations as nonemergencies
- perpetuation of unsupported social norms
- individuals might conform to their mistaken estimates of the group norm
- behavior change was more prominent in males than females in the paper.
3 types of compliance
- reason
- emotion
- norm based
Difference between obedience and compliance
Authority/power - obedience involves authority figure, not compliance
Reason based compliance
- door in the face
- that’s not all
- foot in the door
DIF and TNA are based on norm of reciprocity
Norm of reciprocity
- you want to help those who help you and vice versa
Cialdini et al door in the face study
Condition 1: Would you be willing to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a zoo day trip?
•Condition 2: Would you be willing to counsel juvenile delinquents two hours/week for two years? No!
•Then, would you be willing to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a zoo day trip?
Condition 2 more effective
That’s not all
Adding sm to an original offer
Add o feels like a gift
Burger et al that’s not all study
- Condition 1: 1 cupcake + 2 cookies, $0.75
•Condition 2: 1 cupcake for $0.75… “and we’ll throw in 2 cookies!”
•Percent who purchased:
•Condition 1: 40%
•Condition 2: 73%
Foot in the door
- initially making a small request that anyone would agree to, and then follow it up with a larger request for what you acc want
- capatilises n the fact that we like to have a consistent self image - committing to the first one causes a change in the self schema via self perception
Freedman And Fraser Foot in the door study
Condition 1: “Will you display this large sign in your yard?”
•Condition 2: “Will you display this small sign in your window?” followed by “Will you display this large sign in your yard?”
•Results
•Percent who agreed to the large sign:
•Condition 1: 17%
•Condition 2: 76%
Emotion based compliance
- positive mood
- negative mood (guilt)
Positive mood compliance
- increases compliance when they are in a good mood.
Why is positive mood compliance effective?
- construal: you assume other people’s intentions are good if you’re happy and you feel good.
- give other people the benefit of the doubt
- Positive mood maintenance: saying no is awkward and creates a negative affect so to continue feeling good you comply.
Isen & Levin
Participants given a cookie (positive mood) or not (neutral mood)
•Asked if they would serve as a confederate for a quick experiment
•Half told their role was to help the “real” participant
•Half told their role was to hinder the “real” participant
•Result: positive mood increased compliance only when the task involved helping someone else, not hindering them
Emotion based compliance - negative mood
- specifically guilt increases compliance
Negative State relief hypothesis
- negative moods increase compliance because doing something for someone else makes you feel better .
Why does negative mood compliance work?
- when someone feels guilty, its an uncomfortable feeling, and thus they will be motivated to do whatever they can to get rid of that feeling
Norm based compliance
- explicit OR implicit suggestion to conform to those around you.
Schultz et al. Norm based compliance
CA homeowners received messages about how much electricity they used in previous weeks and how much the average use was in their neighborhood
Result: people who consumed more than average started using less; people who consumed less than average started using more (unintended effect)
•To counteract the unintended negative effect, the info was accompanied by a smiley or frowny face to indicate approval or disapproval
Descriptive norms
- Objective and factual descriptions of what most people do
Prescriptive norms
- what most people SHOULD do according to some rule or tradition
Cialdini et al - Norm Based compliance
placed signs in Petrified Forest National Park (AZ) to stop people from taking petrified wood with them
•Sign 1: “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, changing the state of the Petrified Forest. Please help stop this problem”
•Sign 2: “The majority of past visitors have left the petrified wood in the park, preserving the natural state of the Petrified Forest”
Results: Theft was four times lower for Sign 2 than Sign 1!
What types of norms are better in order to promote positive behavior
- descriptive norms
If you are trying to reduce negative behavior, what types of norms might backfire?
- descriptive norms
How do you make it easier for pps to disobey int he Milgram experiments?
- Make the victim closer to
- Make authority figure further away
- making it easier to disobey is more effective than increasing desire to disobey
Why were the Milgram experiments ideal for obedience?
- pps released from responsibility
- step by step involvement
- lack of practice disobeying authority
