Social Influence - Majority Influence

Question 1

What do we mean by social influence?:

Answer 1

• Other people make deliberate attempts to persuade us
  
  • But we are susceptible to social influence even when others are not necessarily trying to influence us.

Question 2

Social influence definitions:

Answer 2

• Majority influence (conformity) - “Social influence resulting from exposure to the opinions of a majority or the majority of one’s group” (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015, p. 247)
  
  • Minority influence (innovation) - “Situation in which either an individual or a group in a numerical minority can influence the majority” (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015, p. 247)

Question 3

Classical studies on majority influence:

Answer 3

• Sherif’s autokinetic effect
  
  • Asch: classical paradigm and findings

Question 4

Solomon Asch:

Answer 4

· The “Asch” experiments
- Often referred to as his studies of “conformity”

Question 5

Muzafer Sherif:

Answer 5

· Asch’s work central and influential
· Asch’s work stimulated by the work of Sherif on social norm formation and transmission

Question 6

Social norms:

Answer 6

· Social norms are “belief systems about how (not) to behave, that guide behaviour, but without the force of laws, and reflect group members’ shared expectations about typical or desirable activities” (Hewstone, Stroebe & Jonas, 2015, p. 238)

Question 7

Muzafer Sherif (1936):

Answer 7

· Used autokinetic effect (ambiguous stimuli) and asked groups of male participants to determine how much the point of light had moved
· The point of light never moved
Sherif (1936): influence of others on our behaviour when faced with ambiguous stimuli.

Question 8

Asch:

Answer 8

· Asch (1951, 1955, 1956): influence of others on our behaviour when faced with unambiguous stimuli.

Question 9

Asch paradigm:

Answer 9

· Series of experiments
· Basic experiment
· 18 trials
· Differing number of confederates (e.g., 9)
· Naïve participant last but one to call out
· Correct responses on 6/18 trials (1/3rd of trials)
· Confederates made errors on 12/18 trials (2/3rds of trials), starting trial 3
· Unanimous majority

Question 10

Basic findings (Asch 1951; 1956):

Answer 10

· CONFORMITY
- 37% of responses were incorrect.
- 75% of participants made at least one error (compared to almost 0% when doing task alone).
- 5% of participants yielded all the time
· INDEPENDENCE
- 63% of responses were correct.
- 95% of participants gave correct responses at least once.
- 25% of participants never yielded.
- 65% of participants gave correct answers most or all of the time.

Question 11

Asch’s take on his results:

Answer 11

· “Despite this large effect, the preponderance of judgments was independent, evidence that under the present conditions the force of the perceived data far exceeded that of the majority. (Asch, 1956, p. 10).”

Question 12

When do we conform?:

Answer 12

· Group size
· Unanimity
· Culture

Question 13

When do we conform? - group size:

Answer 13

• Inconsistent: leveling off (e.g. majority of 3 in Asch, 1951) vs linear increase (Gerard et al., 1968) (see meta-analysis by Bond, 2005, suggesting inconclusive findings!)

Question 14

When do we conform? - unanimity:

Answer 14

• Variation where confederate gives a deviate but wrong answer decreases conformity. Dissent in Asch’s paradigm, regardless of accuracy, decreases conformity

Question 15

When do we conform? - culture:

Answer 15

• Effect replicated across various cultures but conformity degrees vary
  
  • Collectivistic cultures show greater conformity

Question 16

How do we conform?:

Answer 16

· Stated reasons for independence and yielding based on post-experimental interviews

Question 17

How do we conform 2:

Answer 17

· Independent participants:
- Confident (the others are wrong)
- Tension and doubt (feeling of discomfort and feeling incorrect but obligation to respond truthfully)
· From Asch (1956):
- “Only rarely did we find an independent subject completely free of doubt.”

Question 18

How do we conform 3:

Answer 18

· Yielding participants:
- Distortion of perception
- Distortion of judgment
- Distortion of action
· Participants in reality fell into more than one group (contradictory motives)

Question 19

Distortion of perception:

Answer 19

· Yielding without awareness
· Rare

Question 20

Distortion of judgement:

Answer 20

· One participant:
- In those four to six cases I agreed because I figured they were right. […] I only assumed my answers to be wrong, because I disagreed with everyone else”.

Question 21

Distortion of action:

Answer 21

· One participant:
- “I might be alienating a few people. Here was a group; they had a definite idea; my idea disagreed; this might arouse anger.”

Question 22

Theoretical explanations include:

Answer 22

1. Informational social influence
   
   2. Normative social influence
   3. Referent informational influence

Question 23

Deutsch & Gerard (1955) - Informational social influence:

Answer 23

• “Accept information as evidence of reality”
  
  • Goal to make accurate and valid judgments
  • Evidence:
  • Sherif’s 1936 autokinetic study on norm formation (ambiguous stimuli)
  • Meta-analysis on Ash-like experiments found that conformity was significantly higher the more ambiguous the stimulus (Bond & Smith, 1996).

Question 24

Deutsch & Gerard (1955) - normative social influence:

Answer 24

• “To conform with the positive expectations of another”
  
  • Need for social approval or harmony
  • compliance (public) without acceptance (private)
  • Evidence:
  • Asch variation with answers written down when faced with incorrect majority: 12.5% conformity rate.
  • Deutsch and Gerard (1955) experiment

Question 25

Turner (1982); Hogg & Turner (1987):

Answer 25

1. Referent informational influence
   · Adopt the norms, beliefs and behaviours of the prototypical ingroup member
   · Maximises similarities between ingroup members and differences between ingroup and outgroup members
   · Evidence:
   
   • See Abrams et al. (1990). British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 97-199, especially experiments 1 and 2
   • Meta-analysis by Bond & Smith (1996): lower conformity when the majority consist of out-group members

Question 26

Asch paradigm:

Answer 26

· If the others are outgroup members, conformity should decrease

Question 26

Social influence in the digital age - (In)exposure to different views:

Answer 26

· Filter bubbles: social media feeding us personalized (targeted) content through algorithm, content from “people like us”, content that is consistent with our views. (e.g. ads, newsfeed etc).
· With social media we now have access to ways of hearing the views of others who are similar to us.