Midterm 2: Social Influence
Social Influence
A change in a person's thoughts, feelings or actions due to the real or imagined prescence of another.
Basic lesson from this entire course
We underestimate that we're all in a social ecosystem where what other people do influence how we feel, think and behave. We overestimate our independence.
3 major types of social influence
1. Compliance
2. Conformity
3. Obedience
Compliance
Responding favourably to a request made by someone else.
Foot-in-the-door-technique
A strategy to gain compliance where you get someone to agree to a big request by getting them to first agree to a small request.
Safe Driving Sign Experiment and it's corresponding concept
Authors went door-to-door to ask if they could put a huge safe driving sign on people's lawns, and were rejected most of the time. However, if they went days in advance to ask them to put a safe-driving sticker on their fridge, they have a much bigger chance of agreeing to the safe driving sign.
Concept: foot-in-the-door technique
Consistency and Commitment for Cancer Experiment and it's corresponding concept
When people are asked to spend 3 hours collecting donations for cancer research, people would likely say no. However, their chances of agreeing to do so increases when they are asked if they supported cancer research before you ask them to volunteer.
Concept: foot-in-the-door technique
Reciprocity Trick
When you notice somebody helping you, you are more likely to help them back.
Mint Tip Experiment and it's corresponding concept
Waiters were told to leave mints with the check. The more mints they left, the bigger the tip. When they went back to give another mint because the customer's been "so good", the tips double.
Concept: reciprocity trick
Conformity
Changing your thinking, feeling or behaviour to match that of another person or group.
Thing that go in and out of trend because they are determined by conformity
1. Fashion
2. Moral values
3. Reproduction
4. Language
Mate Choice Copying
If we see some individual being favoured as a mate, we are more likely to favour them as a mate as well.
Asch's Line Experiment and it's corresponding concept
Participants were given simple perception tests of looking for a line that was longest. When put into a condition group with others that gave an obviously wrong answer, they also gave the same wrong answer. only 25% of people stayed independent throughout the study.
Concept: conformity
Motivators of conformity
1. Normative conformity: fear of social rejection and needing to be likes.
2. Informational conformity: to be correct and relying on other people for information.
Injustinctive Norms
What everybody should/should not do.
Descriptive norms
What people are actually doing, seeing what others are doing and conforming to the same thing.
61 Million Voting Experiment and it's corresponding concept
People on facebook were shown a number of those who have voted or others they know that have voted. More people who saw the informational message rather than the social message.
Concept: informational conformity
Principles of conformity
1. Conformity can lead to private acceptance, not just private compliance.
2. When we aren't conforming, our brains generate a conflict signal.
3. Conformity can alter preferences rapidly
Private acceptance
A person has changed how they think and feel in response to social pressures instead of just going along with things
Public compliance
Simply matching the behaviour of others on the surface but still clinging to personal opinions privately
Peer Face Attractiveness Experiment and it's corresponding concept
People rated the attractiveness of faces followed by a 2 second social feedback of other's ratings of the same face. When asked to rerank the faces, the new rankings were similar to that of the other's ratings. When brain activity is measured, it reacted more to faces ranked attractive by others.
Concept: conformity can lead to private acceptance, not just public compliance.
What affects levels of conformity
1. Ambiguity
2. Lack of expertise
3. Group size
4. Uniformity
Passerby Pointing Experiment and it's corresponding concepts
People around a participant point and look up. The larger the group, the more likely the participant will also look up, nowever, it is not linear and there's a point where the bigger group size does not make people more conforming.
Concept: Group size affects levels of conformity.
Conformity is more likely with:
1. Unimonisity
2. Anonymity
Emotional Contagion
We absorb and exhibit the emotions of others
Facebook Post Manipulation Exepriment and it's corresponding concept
Manipulated what participants saw on their feed to reduce either positive content or negative content. People are more likely to make negative life updates when positive content is reduces and positive life updates when negative content is reduced.
Concept: Emotional contagion
Obedience
Changing one's behaviour in response to the demands of an authority figure.
"The Banality of Evil"
Evil can be so boring and mundane that we don't even recognize it. If people don't recognize social influences, even the worst deeds can be explained away with "I was just following orders".
Milgram's Experiments and it's corresponding concepts
Participants were led to believe that they were helping in a study about learning and told to give shocks to someone at the instruction of another. The person getting shocked is shown to be in pain as the voltage gets higher before eventually pretending to be dead. 65% of people will obey their instructions. This drops to 10% if there are others who rebel.
Concept: Obedience
Acceptance
Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accordance with social pressure.
Mood Linkage
Our moods tend to be similar to those around us.
The Chameleon Effect
Our behaviour is mimicked from those around us.
The Werther Effect
Imitation suicides effect, fata car accidence and private plane crashed increase after well-publicized suicides.
4 determining levels of obedience for Milgram's study
1. Victim's emotional distance
2. Authority's closeness and legitimacy
3. Whether authority was part of a respected institution
4. Liberating effects of another disobediant participant
Factors that influence conformity
1. Group size
2. Unanimity
3. Cohesion
4. Status
5. Public response
6. No prior comittment
Culture and conformity
Collectivist cultures conform more.
Some might conform more due to conformity being evolutionarily beneficial.
Working class people conform more while middle class likes individuality
Gender and conformity
No large gender differences in conformity, each conform more on topics others would be more knowledgable about.
but women's conform more in situations where other's reactions can be observed.
Conformity and context
People conform to differenct social roles in different contexts and locations.
When you eant to be different
In Western cultures, people feel uncomfortable when they are too much like everyone else, and they need to be moderately unique.
Anti-conformity
Happens as a response to restrict people's freedom, with reactance as a motive.