Social Influence

Social Influence

How do we influence each other?

How are we affected by pressures to conform and obey, and by group interaction?

Class Activity

Ha Ha

Why did you complete (all) those silly requests?

Outline

Conformity Conditions that strengthen conformity;

Reasons for conformingObedience

Milgram StudyGroup Influence

Social facilitation; Social Loafing; Deindividuation

Group Interaction Groupthink; Group Polarization

Social Influence

Behavior is contagious: giggling, yawning, laughter, tipping generously, smiling …

Some people take advantage of this principle: e.g. Street performers “seed” their tip containers with money

We are often unconscious of this social mimicking. We do it to feel what other people are feeling (empathy).= “the chameleon effect”

Conformity

Conformity = adjusting our behavior or thinking to bring it into line with some group standard

Asch’s Conformity Experiments (1955) Solomon Asch devised a simple test to

study conformity, and the extent to which people conform to others’ behavior

Asch’s Conformity Experiment

Imagine you are a participant in the study…

Asch’s Conformity Experiment

What answer would you give? Be honest! Do you go with your instinct and risk

being seen as the oddball? Or do you conform to the standard set

by the other participants?

Asch found that over 1/3 of the time, participants were “willing to call white black”

Conformity

Conditions that strengthen conformity:

One is made to feel incompetent/insecure Group has at least 3 people Group is unanimous One admires the group’s status One has made no prior commitment to any

response Others in the group observe one’s behavior The culture encourages respect for social

standards

Activity

Team-Building Activity

Reflection

Reasons for Conforming

Frequently, we conform to avoid rejection, or to gain social approval.

Normative Social Influence

We are sensitive to social norms, the understood rules for expected and approved behavior, because the price we pay for being different may be severe!

Social Norms

Canadian Social Norms: Apologize for everything Recycle and compost when possible Drive to get most places Watch ice-hockey (Toronto Maple Leafs) on

Saturday nights Stop at the local Tim Hortons for coffee

Activity: With a partner, think of 5 social norms that are

characteristic of Ghana.

Reasons for Conforming

Sometimes, we conform because the group may provide valuable information.

Informational Social Influence

When we accept others’ opinions about reality. Only an uncommonly stubborn person will never listen to others.

Informational Social Influence

Baron et al (1996)

Modified the Asch Experiment to see what effect the difficulty and importance of the task had on conformity.

Participants were shown a picture of one person, and were afterwards asked to chose that correct person out of a 4-person lineup.

Informational Social Influence

Experiment was varied as follows:

Easy: View person for 5 secondsDifficult: View person for ½ secondUnimportant: A preliminary test of

eyewitness id procedures Important: establishing norms for

an actual police procedure.

Results

Informational Social Influence

Therefore:

When we are unsure of what is right, and when being right matters, we become more receptive to others’ opinions

Obedience

Milgram’s Obedience Studies (1965, 1974)

Milgram’s Obedience Studies

Milgram’s Obedience Studies Imagine you are the teacher. At what

voltage would you stop shocking the learner?

Imagine you were the learner, and one of your classmates was the teacher. At what point do you think your classmate would stop shocking you?

What % (if any) of the participants went all the way to the end?

Milgram’s Obedience Studies

Video:

Milgram’s Obedience Studies

Results: 63% of the participants fully complied

with the instructions, all the way to the final 450-volt switch!

Further experiments revealed that obedience in his study varied from 0 to 93% according to certain factors:

Obedience

Obedience was highest when: Person giving orders is close at hand,

and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure

Authority figure represents a prestigious institution

Victim was depersonalized or at a distance

There were no role models for defiance

Obedience

Why was Milgram so motivated to investigate the power of authority figures and obedience? (to the point of conducting these controversial experiments)

The Holocaust of WWII, and genocide.

Obedience

“The most fundamental lesson of our study is that ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”

Evil does not require monstrous characters; all it takes is ordinary people corrupted by an evil situation.

Discussion

Is a soldier to blame for shooting another if he/she is following a general’s orders?

Is an employee to blame for following orders to design, produce and market harmful chemical products?

etc…

Group Influence

Social Facilitation:

In the presence of others, an individual: performs better at a task that is already

well-learned. Performs worse at a task that is normally

difficult.

Group Influence

Social Loafing:

Ingham et al (1974) Blind-folded participants and told them

to pull as hard as they could on a rope. Participants were fooled into believing other people were also pulling.

Exerted only 82% as much as effort as when they thought they were pulling alone.

Group Influence

Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts towards attaining a common goal

Deindividuation: the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in a group situations that foster arousal and provide anonymity (mob behavior).

Group Interaction

Group Polarization: The enhancement of a groups

prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group.

In other words, if like-minded people get together, a discussion will strengthen their attitude towards an issue they already agree on

Group Interaction

Groupthink:

The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony within the group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.