Referral Code- KVINOD
SOCIAL
INFLUENCE
BY VINOD
DEFINITION
• Efforts by one or more persons to change the behavior, attitudes, or feelings of
one or more others.
• Conformity- A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or
behavior to adhere to existing social norms.
• Compliance- A form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to
another.
• Obedience- A form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more
others to perform some actions.
• Social norms- Rules indicating how individuals are expected to behave in specific situations.
• Symbolic social influence- Social influence resulting from the mental representation of
others or our relationships with them.
CONFORMITY
• Introspection illusion- Our belief that social influence plays a smaller role in shaping our
own actions than it does in shaping the actions of others.
• Asch’s research on conformity
• Asch created a compelling social dilemma for his participants whose task was ostensibly to
simply respond to a series of perceptual problems such as the one in Figure. On each of the
problems, participants were to indicate which of three comparison lines matched a standard
line in length. Several other people (usually six to eight) were also present during the session,
but unknown to the real participant, all were assistants of the experimenter. On certain
occasions known as critical trials (12 out of the 18 problems) the accomplices offered answers
that were clearly wrong; they unanimously chose the wrong line as a match for the standard
line. Moreover, they stated their answers before the real participants responded. Thus, on these
critical trials, the people in Asch’s study faced precisely the type of dilemma described above.
• Should they go along with the other individuals present or stick to their own judgments? The
judgments seemed to be very simple ones, so the fact that other people agreed on an answer
different from the one the participants preferred was truly puzzling. Results were clear: A large
majority of the people in Asch’s research chose conformity. Across several different studies,
fully 76 percent of those tested went along with the group’s false answers at least once; and
overall, they voiced agreement with these errors 37 percent of the time. In contrast, only 5
percent of the participants in a control group, who responded to the same problems alone,
made such errors.
• Public conformity- doing or saying what others around us say or do.
• Private acceptance- actually coming to feel or think as others do.
• Sherif ’s research on autokinetic phenomenon
• Autokinetic phenomenon- The apparent movement of a single, stationary source of light in
a dark room. Often used to study the emergence of social norms and social influence.
• When placed in a completely dark room and exposed to a single, stationary point of light, most
people perceive the light as moving about. This is because in the dark room, there are no clear
cues to distance or location. The perceived movement is known as the autokinetic
phenomenon.
• Sherif (1937) realized that he could use this situation to study the emergence of social norms.
This is so because there is considerable ambiguity about how much the light is moving and
different people perceive it as moving different distances. Thus, when placed in this setting with
several others and asked to report how much they perceive the light to be moving, they
influence one another and soon converge on a particular amount of movement; that
agreement, in a sense, constitutes a group norm. If the same individuals are then placed in the
situation alone, they continue to give estimates of the light’s movement consistent with the
group norm, so clearly, the effect of such norms persist. This suggests that these effects reflect
changes in what participants in these studies actually believe—private acceptance or
commitment; after all, they continue to obey the group norm even if they are no longer in the
group!
ZIMBARDO PRISON EXPERIMENT
• Zimbardo and his colleagues (1973) were interested in finding out whether the brutality
reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards
(i.e., dispositional) or had more to do with the prison environment (i.e., situational).\
• To study the roles people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the
Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. He advertised asking for
volunteers to participate in a study of the psychological effects of prison life. The 75 applicants
who answered the ad were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate
candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug
abuse.
• Within a very short time both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles, with
the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily.
• According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment revealed how
people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles
are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards.
• Because the guards were placed in a position of authority, they began to act in ways they would
not usually behave in their normal lives.
FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
1. Cohesiveness- The extent to which we are attracted to a social group and want to belong
to it.
2. Group Size- Up to 3
3. Social norms-
• Descriptive norms- Norms simply indicating what most people do in a given situation.
• Injunctive norms- Norms specifying what ought to be done; what is approved or disapproved
behavior in a given situation.
• Normative focus theory- A theory suggesting that norms will influence behavior only to the
extent that they are focal for the people involved at the time the behavior occurs.
• Motives for conformity
1. Normative- Social influence based on the desire to be liked or accepted by other people.
2. Informative- Social influence based on the desire to be correct (i.e., to possess accurate
perceptions of the social world).
• Factors for not conforming- Several factors encourage nonconformity—refusing to “go
along” with the group. These include the desire to attract a desirable mate, which may
encourage men to demonstrate nonconformity, power, and the desire to be unique.
MINORITY INFLUENCE
• When, precisely, do minorities succeed in influencing majorities?
• First, the members of such groups must be consistent in their opposition to majority opinions. If
they waiver, or seem to be divided, their impact is reduced.
• Second, members of the minority must avoid appearing to be rigid and dogmatic. A minority
that merely repeats the same position over and over again is less persuasive than one that
demonstrates a degree of flexibility.
• Third, the general social context in which a minority operates is important. If a minority argues
for a position that is consistent with current social trends (e.g., conservative views at a time of
growing conservatism), its chances of influencing the majority are greater than if it argues for a
position out of step with such trends.
COMPLIANCE
• Six basic principles
1. Friendship- In general, we are more willing to comply with requests from friends or from
people we like than with requests from strangers or people we don’t like.
2. Commitment- Once we have committed ourselves to a position or action, we are more
willing to comply with requests for behaviors that are consistent with this position or action
than with requests that are inconsistent with it.
3. Scarcity- In general, we value, and try to secure, outcomes or objects that are scarce or
decreasing in availability. As a result, we are more likely to comply with requests that focus on
scarcity than ones that make no reference to this issue.
4. Reciprocity- We are generally more willing to comply with a request from someone who has
previously provided a favor or concession to us than to someone who has not. In other words,
we feel obligated to pay people back in some way for what they have done for us.
5. Social Validation- We are generally more willing to comply with a request for some action if
this action is consistent with what we believe people similar to ourselves are doing (or thinking).
We want to be correct, and one way to do so is to act and think like others.
6. Authority- In general, we are more willing to comply with requests from someone who holds
legitimate authority—or simply appears to do so.
• Tactics based on liking
1. Impression Management- various procedures for making a good impression on others.
2. Ingratiation- getting others to like us so that they will be more willing to agree to our
requests
3. Flattery- praising others in some manner.
4. Self-Promotion- informing others about our past accomplishments or positive
characteristics
5. Incidental Similarity- Calling attention to small and slightly surprising similarities between
them and ourselves
• Tactics based on commitment
1. Foot in the door technique- A procedure for gaining compliance in which requesters
begin with a small request and then, when this is granted, escalate to a larger one (the one
they actually desired all along).
2. Low-ball procedure- A technique for gaining compliance in which an offer or deal is
changed to make it less attractive to the target person after this person has accepted it.
• Tactics based on reciprocity
1. Door-in-the-face- A procedure for gaining compliance in which requesters begin with a
large request and then, when this is refused, retreat to a smaller one (the one they actually
desired all along).
2. That’s-not-all technique- A technique for gaining compliance in which requesters offer
additional benefits to target people before they have decided whether to comply with or
reject specific requests.
• Tactics based on scarcity
1. Playing hard to get- A technique that can be used for increasing compliance by suggesting
that a person or object is scarce and hard to obtain.
2. Deadline technique- A technique for increasing compliance in which target people are
told that they have only. limited time to take advantage of some offer or to obtain some item
OBEDIENCE
• Milgram’s experiment- Milgram designed an ingenious, if unsettling, laboratory simulation. The
experimenter informed participants in the study (all males) that they were taking part in an
investigation of the effects of punishment on learning. One person in each pair of participants
would serve as a “learner” and would try to perform a simple task involving memory
(supplying the second word in pairs of words they had previously memorized after hearing
only the first word). The other participant, the “teacher,” would read these words to the
learner, and would punish errors by the learner (failures to provide the second word in each
pair) through electric shock. These shocks would be delivered by means of the equipment, this
device contained 30 numbered switches ranging from “15 volts” (the first) through 450 volts
(the 30th).
• The two people present—a real participant and a research assistant—then drew slips of paper
from a hat to determine who would play each role; as you can guess, the drawing was rigged so
that the real participant always became the teacher. The teacher was then told to deliver a
shock to the learner each time he made an error on the task. Moreover—and this is crucial—
teachers were told to increase the strength of the shock each time the learner made an error.
This meant that if the learner made many errors, he would soon be receiving strong jolts of
electricity. It’s important to note that this information was false: In reality, the assistant (the
learner) never received any shocks during the experiment. The only real shock ever used was a
mild pulse from button number three to convince participants that the equipment was real.
• During the session, the learner (following prearranged instructions) made many errors. Thus,
participants soon found themselves facing a dilemma: Should they continue punishing this
person with what seemed to be increasingly painful shocks? Or should they refuse? If they
hesitated, the experimenter pressured them to continue with a graded series “prods”: “Please
continue”; “The experiment requires that you continue”; “It is absolutely essential that you
continue”; and “You have no other choice; you must go on.”
• Since participants were all volunteers and were paid in advance, you might predict that most
would quickly refuse the experimenter’s orders. In reality, though, fully 65 percent showed total
obedience—they proceeded through the entire series to the final 450-volt level. Many
participants, of course, protested and asked that the session be ended. When ordered to
proceed, however, a majority yielded to the experimenter’s influence and continued to obey.
Indeed, they continued doing so even when the victim pounded on the wall as if in protest
over the painful shocks (at the 300-volt level), and then no longer responded, as if he had
passed out. The experimenter told participants to treat failures to answer as errors; so from
this point on, many participants believed that they were delivering dangerous shocks to
someone who might already be unconscious!
• Destructive obedience- Why it occurs?
• Resisting destructive obedience- Several factors can help to reduce the occurrence of
destructive obedience. These include reminding individuals that they share in the responsibility
for any harm produced; reminding them that beyond some point, obedience is inappropriate;
calling the motives of authority figures into question.