Download Social Influence

Social
Influence
Social Influence
The greatest contribution of social psychology is
its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and
actions and the way they are molded by social
influence.
NON SEQUITER © 2000 Wiley. Dist. by Universal
Press Syndicate Reprinted with Permission
Mimicry & Copycats
• Humans are natural mimics
– Yawns, laughs, look up….eventually others
will follow (Chimps, too)
• Columbine High School Shootings, 1999
– Every state, except Vermont, experienced
copycat violence
• Cluster suicides
• The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic
Conformity & Obedience
Behavior is contagious, modeled by one
followed by another. We follow behavior of
others to conform.
Other behaviors may be an expression of
compliance (obedience) toward authority.
Conformity
Obedience
The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).
Conformity
• Are these people asserting
individuality or identifying with
others of the
same
microculture?
Conformity
• Adjusting one’s
behavior or
thinking to
coincide with a
group standard.
How did you feel the
first time someone
asked you to smoke?
Drink?
Conditions that Strengthen
Conformity
•
•
•
•
•
•
One is made to feel incompetent
The group is at least three people
The group is unanimous
One admires the group’s status
One had made no prior commitment
The person is observed
Lab
• Take out a piece of scrap paper
• Take off your watch and put it out of sight
• Look down at your paper during the lab. Do not look up
or around.
• I am going to give you a time interval that I want you to
estimate. I will say “begin” at the start and then “stop” at
the end of the interval. Then I want you to write down
how long you think the interval was.
• Now, let’s try that again. Please give me you responses
orally as I call your name.
• Next, let’s compare your written responses to your oral
ones.
• What is the reason for the difference?
Group Pressure & Conformity
Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity,
adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some
group standard.
Group Pressure & Conformity
An influence resulting from one’s willingness to
accept others’ opinions about reality.
Solomon Asch conducted experiments to see
how this worked.
William Vandivert/ Scientific American
Reasons for Conforming
Normative Social
Influence
• Influence resulting
from a person’s
desire to gain
approval or avoid
disappointment
Informational Social
Influence
• Influence resulting
from one’s willingness
to accept others’
opinions about reality
Informative Social Influence
Baron and colleagues (1996) made students do
an eyewitness identification task. If the task was
easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity was
low in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec.
exposure) task.
Informational Conformity
• Sample task: After seeing slides 1 & 2, participants
judged which person in slide 2 was the same as the
person in slide 1
Lab
• Violating a Social Norm
– Select a behavior that is outside your comfort
zone or outside the code of behavior
– “perform” this violation
– Take note of your own reaction leading up to
and during the “performance”, as well as
those of observers, and report back to class
Obedience
Stanley Milgram
designed a study that
investigates the effects of
authority on obedience.
Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
People comply to social
pressures. How would
they respond to outright
command?
Stanley Milgram
(1933-1984)
Obedience
Milgram’s Experiments
Milgram’s Obedience Study
Results of Milgram’s Experiment
• Men between 20-50
complied fully 63% of
the time—right up to
the last switch
• Later women were
involved in the
experiment…the
results were similar to
men
• Real world
correlations
• Nazi Holocaust
– Exceptions  those
that did not bow to
authority
– Anne Frank protectors
– Danes rescuing their
Jews by sending them
to Sweden
• Abu Ghraib
Individual Resistance
A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study
resisted social coercion.
AP/ Wide World Photos
An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen
Square.
What did we learn from
Asch & Milgram?
• Ordinary people can do shocking things.
Group Influence
How do groups affect our behavior? Social
psychologists study various groups:
1.
2.
3.
4.
One person affecting another
Families
Teams
Committees
Group Influence on Behavior
Lets look at how groups effect our behavior.
Individual Behavior in the Presence of
Others
•Occurs with simple or well
learned tasks.
•Not with tasks that are
difficult or not yet mastered.
Michelle Agnis/ NYT Pictures
Social facilitation: Refers to
improved performance on
tasks in the presence of
others. Triplett (1898)
noticed cyclists’ race times
were faster when they
competed against others
than when they just raced
against the clock.
Social Loafing
• The tendency for
people in a group
to exert less effort
when pooling
efforts toward a
common goal than
if they were
individually
accountable.
Deindividuation
• The loss of self-awareness and selfrestraint occurring in group situations that
foster arousal and anonymity. (Mob
behavior)
Effects of Group Interaction
Group Polarization
enhances a group’s
prevailing attitudes
through a discussion.
If a group is likeminded, discussion
strengthens its
prevailing opinions
and attitudes.
Group Polarization
• The concept that a
group’s attitude is
one of extremes
and rarely
moderate.
As a group, both the Black
Panthers and the Ku Klux
Klan are more extreme than
the average individual in the
group.
Groupthink
• The mode of thinking
that occurs when the
desire for harmony in
a decision-making
group overrides
common sense.
How could the hazing incident at Northbrook High
School be an example of groupthink?
2003 – Flag football game served as an initiation
into the senior class for the juniors– got out of hand.
Groupthink
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire
for harmony in a decision-making group
overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Historical fiascos that were the result of
groupthink
•Failure to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor
•Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs Incident
•Watergate Cover-up
•WMBs in Iraq
We also influence ourselves
The Power of the Individual can
be stronger than a group.
Power of Individuals
Non-violent fasts and
appeals by Gandhi led
to the independence of
India from the British.
Margaret Bourke-White/ Life Magazine. © 1946 Time Warner, Inc.
The power of social
influence is enormous,
but so is the power of
the individual.
Gandhi
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Occurs when one
person’s belief
about others leads
one to act in ways
that induce the
others to appear to
confirm the belief.
If you think someone finds you attractive,
they more likely will!!!