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Social Influence

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

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Social Influence

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  1. Social Influence

  2. Social Influence • How do we influence each other? • How are we affected by pressures to conform and obey, and by group interaction? • Class Activity

  3. Ha Ha • Why did you complete (all) those silly requests?

  4. Outline • Conformity • Conditions that strengthen conformity; Reasons for conforming • Obedience • Milgram Study • Group Influence • Social facilitation; Social Loafing; Deindividuation • Group Interaction • Groupthink; Group Polarization

  5. 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”

  6. 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

  7. Asch’s Conformity Experiment • Imagine you are a participant in the study…

  8. 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”

  9. 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

  10. Activity • Team-Building Activity • Reflection

  11. 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!

  12. 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 Hortonsfor coffee • Activity: • With a partner, think of 5 social norms that are characteristic of Ghana.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. Informational Social Influence • Experiment was varied as follows: • Easy: View person for 5 seconds • Difficult: View person for ½ second • Unimportant: A preliminary test of eyewitness id procedures • Important: establishing norms for an actual police procedure.

  16. Results

  17. Informational Social Influence Therefore: • When we are unsure of what is right, and when being right matters, we become more receptive to others’ opinions

  18. Obedience • Milgram’s Obedience Studies (1965, 1974)

  19. Milgram’s Obedience Studies

  20. Milgram’sObedience 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?

  21. Milgram’s Obedience Studies • Video:

  22. 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:

  23. 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

  24. 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.

  25. 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.

  26. 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…

  27. 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.

  28. 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.

  29. 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).

  30. 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

  31. Group Interaction Groupthink: • The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony within the group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

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