Social Influence

Question 1

Types of social influences.

Answer 1

• Compliance
• Obedience
• Conformity

Question 2

The six psychological principles of compliance.

Answer 2

• Reciprocity: obligation to requester ‘tit for tat’.
• Consensus: injunctive/descriptive social norms.
• Consistency: accepting request consistent with role.
• Liking: complying with requests of liked individuals.
• Scarcity: Brehm’s ‘psychological reactance theory’.
• Authority: willingly accepting requests of authorities.

Question 3

Compliance definition.

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Factors influencing obedience.

Answer 4

• Commitment to course of action.
• Immediacy of the victim: visibility of the consequences.
• Immediacy of authority: presence of authoritative fig.
• Group pressure

Question 5

Conformity definition.

Answer 5

Deep-seated, private and enduring change in behaviour and attitudes due to group pressure.

Question 6

Dual-process dependency model.

Answer 6

A general model of social influence in which two separate processes operate – dependency on others for social approval and for information about reality.

Question 7

Kelly’s reference/membership groups.

Answer 7

Reference group: a group that is psychologically significant for our behavior and attitudes - positive/negative.

Membership groups: a group to which we belong by some objective external criterion.