Unit 7: Chapter 7-Social Influences Flashcards
(23 cards)
Define social influence.
The term social influence refers to the ways that people are affected by the real and imagined pressures of others p.267
(This whole chapter is about automatic processes)
Distinguish three forms of social influence: conformity, compliance, and obedience.
C-The tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behavior in ways that are consistent with social or group norms.
Compliance-Changes in behavior that are elicited by direct requests.
Distinguish between normative influence and informational influence
II: Influence that produces conformity when a person believes others are correct in their judgments
NI:Influence that produces conformity when a person fears the negative social consequences of appearing deviant.
Describe the effects of being socially ostracized.
In a series of controlled experiments, people who were socially ostracized—for example, by being neglected, ignored, and excluded in a live or online chatroom conversation—react with various types of emotional distress, feeling alone, hurt, angry, and lacking in self-esteem
” our need to belong is so primitive that rejection can inflict a social pain that feels just like physical pain.”
Distinguish between public conformity and private conformity.
Private: The change of beliefs that occurs when a person privately accepts the position taken by others
Public:A superficial change in overt behavior without a corresponding change of opinion that is produced by real or imagined group pressure
Explain how normative and informational influence, and public and private conformity operate in Sherif’s and Asch’s studies.
A comparison of Sherif’s and Asch’s studies suggests different kinds of conformity for different reasons. Sherif used an ambiguous task, so others provided a source of information and influenced the participants’ true opinions. Asch used a task that required simple judgments of a clear stimulus, so most participants exhibited occasional public conformity in response to normative pressure but privately did not accept the group’s judgments. Table7.1
How can social psychologists tell the difference between the private and public conformist when both exhibit the same change in observable behavior?
The difference is that compared with someone who merely acquiesces in public, the individual who is truly persuaded maintains that change long after the group is out of the picture.
When this distinction is applied to Sherif’s and Asch’s research, the results come out as expected. At the end of his study, Sherif (1936) retested participants alone and found that their estimates continued to reflect the norm previously established in their group—even among those who were retested a full year after the experiment
Distinguish between majority influence and minority influence.
Differences between the influence of a majority and the influence of the minority. Majority tends to have stronger public control where minority has more impact on private.
Explain the different processes by which majorities can exert pressure to affect people’s behaviour.
the size of the group, a focus on norms, the presence of an ally, and gender.
Size-diminishing returns up to a point, number counted not just by bodies but by groups of bodies
Norms-Whether the goal is to get people to vote, volunteer time, sign a petition, attend a rally, conserve energy, recycle, or make a charitable contribution, people are more likely to mobilize if they believe that others, particularly similar others, will do the same
Two important conclusions follow from this research. First, it is substantially more difficult for people to stand alone for their convictions than to be part of even a tiny minority. Second, any dissent—whether it validates an individual’s opinion or not—can break the spell cast by a unanimous majority and reduce the normative pressures to conform.
Gender: This finding suggests that one’s familiarity with the issue at hand, not gender, is what affects conformity
Explain the different processes by which minorities can exert pressure to affect people’s behaviour.
The process by which dissenters produce change within a group.
1) be consistent
2) gain insider status (eg, ive been a teacher also for x years)
3)
Discuss the differences on influence between majority and minorit influence.
1) found that majorities have greater influence on factual questions, for which only one answer is correct (“What percentage of its raw oil does Italy import from Venezuela?”), but that minorities exert equal impact on opinion questions, for which there is a range of acceptable responses
2) on more indirect or private measures of conformity, on attitude issues that are related but not focal to the point of conflict, or after the passage of time—all of which softens the extent to which majority participants would appear deviant—minorities exert a strong impact
Describe how mindlessness and the norm of reciprocity can influence compliance with the requests of others.
Mindlessness participates on what we agree to do. Using the word “because” is indicative of a reason without it needing an actual reason.
A simple, unstated, but powerful rule of social behavior known as the norm of reciprocity dictates that we treat others as they have treated us (Gouldner, 1960). On the negative side, this norm can be used to sanction retaliation against those who cause us harm
In the United States, reciprocity grants immunity from future obligations. Yet in India, the obligation to help others continues despite prior reciprocation
Compare several two-step request techniques that are effective in influencing compliance. (4+1 explanation)
Foot in the door
Door in the face
Lowball
Thats not all!
all these strategies work in subtle ways by manipulating a target person’s self-image, commitment to the product, feelings of obligation to the seller, or perceptions of the real request.
Explain why the foot-in-the-door technique works.
…is to break the ice with a small initial request that the customer can’t easily refuse. Once that first commitment is elicited, the chances are increased that another, larger request will succeed
Other processes may be at work, but it appears that the foot opens the door by altering self-perceptions, leading people who agree to the small initial request—without any compensation—to see themselves as helpful
Explain why the low-balling technique works.
Why? The reason appears to hinge on the psychology of commitment (Kiesler, 1971). Once people make a particular decision, they justify it to themselves by thinking of all its positive aspects. As they get increasingly committed to a course of action, they grow more resistant to changing their mind, even if the initial reasons have been changed or withdrawn entirely.
Explain why the door-in-the-face technique works.
Two dollars’ worth of candy bars is not bad compared with 10 dollars for circus tickets.
A more compelling explanation involves the notion of reciprocal concessions. A close cousin of the reciprocity norm, this refers to the pressure to respond to changes in a bargaining position. When an individual backs down from a large request to a smaller one, we view that move as a concession that we should match by our own compliance.
Explain why the “that’s-not-all” technique works.
Briefly describe the hypothesis, research design, procedure, and results of Milgram’s original experiment on obedience to authority.
That people will knowingly cause harm when instructed to do so by an authority figure. He got people to believe they were shocking a confederate as part of a learning memory exercise in increasing increments of 15. 65%—delivered the ultimate punishment of 450 volts.
List the variables that affected the level of obedience in Milgram’s series of experiments on obedience to authority. Summarize how each of these variables affected the level of obedience in the studies.
Not gender
Location played a part, the more official looking the location, the more obedience
authority position (eg. regular person got less obedience then uniforms)
Physical distancing from the victims (emotional and physical distance)
Level of perceived responsibility(this has MAJOR implications ie homeless etc.)
Haste may have been a varriable
Unknowns of social conditons were a variable (when other participants refused in front of the actual participant, obedience dropped to 10%)
Describe how the participants in the Milgram study behaved differently from the participants in the Gamson et al. study (1982; described in our textbook on p. 306), and explain why.
This was the test trying to get participants to make a fake video to convict a gas station clerk on behalf of an oil company. Few participants participated, most rebelled strongly, likely because they were in groups (of 9).
Describe the social impact theory.
The theory that social influence depends on the strength, immediacy, and number of source persons relative to target persons
Identify the factors that influence the source’s impact and the target’s resistance. (5)
According to social impact theory, the total influence of other people, or “sources,” on a target individual depends on three source factors: their strength (size of source circles), immediacy (distance from the target), and number (number of the source circles). Similarly, the total influence is diffused, or reduced, by the strength (size of target circles), immediacy (distance from source circle), and number of target persons.
Explain how the social impact theory is relevant to conformity, compliance, and obedience.
