Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 Social Influence

2. Social Influence • Conformity • Changing one’s beliefs or behavior to be consistent with group standards • Compliance • Doing what we are asked to do even if we prefer not to • Obedience to Authority • Complying with a person or group perceived to be a legitimate authority

3. Conformity • Sherif’s Autokinetic Effect Study • Participants estimated the apparent (but illusory) movement of a light. • When alone, estimates varied from one inch to 800 feet. • When put in groups of 2 or 3, participants’ estimates converged. • The effect of group influence persisted when individuals were alone again.

4. Conformity Asch Line Judgment Study • Subjects’ task was to pick the line on the left that best matched the target line on the right in length. • Alone, people virtually never erred. But when four or five others before them gave the wrong answer, people erred about 35% of the time.

5. Conformity • To understand conformity, one must understand the cultural context. • Individualistic cultures emphasize freedom and independence, so “conforming” means loss of control. • Collectivist cultures emphasize ties to the social group, so “conforming” means maturity and inner strength.

6. Conformity • Why do people conform? • Informational Influence • The Desire to Be Right • Normative Influence • The Desire to Be Liked

7. Conformity • Others’ behavior often provides useful information. • Trust in the group affects conformity. • Task difficulty affects conformity. • Conformity due to informational influence affects both public behavior and private beliefs.

8. Conformity • The desire to be accepted and to avoid rejection from others leads us to conform. • Conformity due to normative influence generally changes public behavior but not private beliefs. • However, through dissonance reduction, a behavioral change can lead to a change in beliefs.

9. Group Size Group Unanimity The larger the group, the more conformity—to a point. Even one dissenter dramatically drops conformity. Confomity When do people conform?

10. Commitment to the Group The Desire for Individuation Commitment fosters increased conformity. Desire for individuation decreases conformity Conformity When do people conform?

11. Conformity • Minority Influence • Dissent from a minority can reduce conformity from the majority

12. Conformity • To be effective, a minority must be • Consistent in its position • Flexible in style of presentation • Forceful • Otherwise similar to majority • Not appear to be driven by self-interest

13. Conformity • Moscovici study: • Members of 6-person groups rate color of slides; all slides are blue w/variation • Experimental group has two confederates call some slides green; control group has no confederates • In experimental groups, about a third of participants report at least one slide as green.

14. Conformity • The “dual processing hypothesis” suggests that minority influence leads to systematic processing of information while majority influence is less thoughtful. • Under this view, minorities’ influence is disproportional to their size. • View is not universally accepted.

15. Compliance • “Mindless conformity” • Langer: A “placebo reason” (“Can I use the copier now because I have to make copies?”) increases compliance over no reason, and almost as much as a real reason (“because I’m in a rush”).

16. Rewards Coercion Expertise Information Referent Power Legitimate Authority Power of Helplessness Providing + outcome Providing – outcome Special knowledge Message content Identifying w/other Influencer’s right to make request Helpless have power because of norm of social responsibility Compliance Six Bases of Social Power

17. Foot-in-the-Door Technique Door-in-the-Face Technique First make a small request, then a large one. First make an unreasonably large request, then a smaller one. Compliance

18. Low-Ball Technique That’s-Not-All Technique Pique Technique First make a reasonable request; then reveal further costs First make a large request, then offer a bonus or discount Make an unusual request to disrupt target’s mindless refusal script Compliance

19. Compliance • Reactance theory (Brehm 1966): people attempt to maintain their personal freedom of action. • Thus, influence attempts that threaten perceived freedom may backfire.

20. Obedience • Obedience is based on the belief that authorities have the right to make requests.

21. Obedience • People are more likely to obey • If they receive benefits from belonging to the group • If people feel fairly treated • If people trust authorities’ motives • If people identify with the group

22. Obedience • “Crimes of obedience” can occur when the demands of authorities are immoral or illegal • The “Eichmann defense” refers to Adolph Eichmann’s claim that he was “just following orders” when he supervised the murder of 6 million Jews in Nazi Germany

23. Obedience • The Milgram Experiments • Men from the New Haven community were assigned to serve as the “Teacher” and administer shocks to the “Learner” (a confederate). • Shock levels ranged from 15 to 450 mv • Milgram was interested in the point at which people would disobey the experimenter in the face of the learner’s protests

24. Obedience

25. Variations increasing obedience Watching a peer give shocks Two other teachers continue Variations decreasing obedience Increasing closeness of learner Increasing distance of experimenter Two other teachers quit Obedience

26. Obedience • The Milgram experiments illustrate the “normality” or “banality” of evil and the power of the social situation

27. Obedience • People sometimes do resist pressures to obey • When victims’ suffering is salient • When person feels responsible for their actions • When others model disobedience • When people are encouraged to question authority