PSYC 2001 Social Psychology
Lecture 2: Social Influence
Part 1
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Review Questions
1.
Why do people conform? When and where are people more or less
likely to conform? What happens when people don't conform? Any
examples of conformity?
2.
How does conformity influence health?
3.
Why is conformity more prevalent in collectivistic societies?
4.
How is conformity different from obedience and compliance?
5.
What are some specific things you can do to make compliance more
likely?
6.
How do individuals with power tend to behave?
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Social influence: changes in attitudes, beliefs,
feelings, and behavior that result from the
comments, actions, or even mere presence of
others.
Obedience: Behavior or belief is elicited by
someone in power or authority. Command not
a request.
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Cont. Obedience to Authority (Milgram, 1963)
The original Milgram study included only male
participants. An identical study with women
participants showed that 65 percent also reached the
450-volt level (Burton & Sanderson, 1996).
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Where else do we see obedience?
Any examples?
The Norton Social Psychology DVD clip 7
https://youtu.be/sMiiW-sXVL4
iLecture will resume after the video
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Social influence: changes in attitudes, beliefs,
feelings, and behavior that result from the
comments, actions, or even mere presence of
others.
Obedience: Behavior or belief is elicited by
someone in power or authority. Command not
a request.
Conformity: changing one’s behavior or
beliefs in response to (often) implicit pressure
from others.
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Conformity (Asch, 1966)
Image from Vaughan & Hogg (2011, p. 264)
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Asch’s conformity experiment
Which of the 3 lines is identical
to the standard line?
Among a group of 8 participants,
only 1 is a real participant, and
others are confederates.
In the beginning, confederates’
answers are same as yours. But
then in one trial, all the
confederates say the wrong
answer. Now it’s your turn.
The trial was repeated 11 times.
70%~ of the participants
conformed at least once.
images from http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
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Asch’s Line Study
https://youtu.be/mg2PYamsZx0
iLecture will resume after the video
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Factors that influence conformity
1.
Group size. In a large group, people are more likely to
conform. No difference after 4 or 5 people.
2.
Unanimity. If a participant has an ally (does not have to
be the same answer), conformity decreases
significantly.
3.
Expertise and status: judgements of experts pose
greater influence.
4.
Behavior is transparent to others. When participants
answer privately, conformity decreases.
5.
Culture. Less conformity in individualistic societies.
Less conformity in the US in recent years.
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Conformity across =me and place…
Meta-analysis (statistical summary of all past studies) on
conformity shows that...
Bond & Smith (1996)
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Where else do we see obedience?
Any examples?
(funny) Video on Conformity: https://vimeo.com/441503093
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Conformity (Sheriff, 1936)
In complete darkness, a stationary point of light
appears to move, as there is no reference point
(autokinetic illusion).
Sheriff conducted an experiment, in which a
participant estimated how much the point moved in
a dark room.
Then, participants estimated in a group. Each
participant’s estimate was heard by others and this
was repeated several times.
A group norm started to emerge and the norm
influenced participants’ estimate.
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From Aronson et al (2013)
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Conformity Processes: Motivations
■
■
To be accepted (or not rejected)
■ Normative Influence. Research indicates deviants are liked less
than conformists (Schacter, 1951)
To be correct
■ Informational Influence
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mirroring, mimicry yields liking, and automatic
imitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8uo17MTH8o
iLecture will resume after the video
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PSYC 2001 Social Psychology
Lecture 2: Social Influence
Part 2
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Conforming to social norm on Facebook
■
■
■
■
■
One experiment manipulated Facebook feeds
so that the user will see either more positive
or negative posts (Kramer et al. 2014).
After seeing more negative posts, users
tended to post more negative posts.
After seeing more positive posts, users tended
to post more positive posts.
Emotions perceived in the online space were
contagious in the online space.
The study was conducted without the
permission of individual Facebook users.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-emotion-study-breached-ethical-guidelines-researchers-say
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Conformity and Health
■
■
Female students rated their eating habits, body
image, exercise motivations (Sanderson et al.,
2002). Also rated other women at their university.
Students generally believed that other women
weighed less and exercised more
■
■
■
Believed that average BMI is about 20.5.
Average BMI was actually 22.
Believed that others exercise about 5.5 hours a
week. Average was actually about 4 hours a
week.
Those who felt they didn’t meet the norm (of
being thin and fit) were more likely to experience
symptoms of eating disorders, such as an extreme
focus on thinness, binge eating.
from Burton & Sanderson (2016)
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A school teacher noticed a funny smell in a school kitchen. She
felt sick to her stomach. Several of her students felt strange too.
Soon, students throughout the school, more than 170 in total,
complained nausea, dizziness, headaches, and drowsiness.
The school was closed down for more than 2 weeks and nearly
$100,000 was spent on emergency care alone.
Government investigators looked for the cause, viruses, germs,
pesticides, anything that conceivably could make so many
people ill so quickly. They found…nothing.
Conformity was the likely cause.
from http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000113&slug=A20000114010145
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Mass psychogenic illness: the occurrence of similar
physical symptoms with no known physical cause.
Usually starts with an environmental trigger (e.g.,
strange smell), that makes people in a group believe
that they have been exposed to a germ, chemical.
Many of them start believing that they have been
exposed to something dangerous, and their body starts
reacting accordingly.
Such outbreaks are more common at schools and in
other close-knit communities.
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information from
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/articles/648.html
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Culture and Conformity
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
出る杭は打たれる（“The nail that sticks up is hammered down”）
image from http://tinybuddha.com/
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Image from Aronson et al (2015)
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Image from Burton & Sanderson (2016)
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Culture and Conformity
American and Asian travellers in San
Francisco airport were asked to select a pen
from a group of 5 pens, consisting of 2
colours.
majo rit y colo r
min or ity colo r
100
% of choice
75
50
25
0
Americans East Asians
Kim & Markus (1999)
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PSYC 2001 Social Psychology
Lecture 2: Social Influence
Part 3
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Social influence: changes in attitudes, beliefs,
feelings, and behavior that result from the
comments, actions, or even mere presence of others.
Obedience: Behavior or belief is elicited by
someone in power or authority. Command not a
request.
Conformity: changing one’s behavior or beliefs
in response to (often) implicit pressure from
others.
Compliance: responding favorably to an explicit
request by another person. As a result, endorse a
certain belief or perform a certain behavior
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You need to find someone willing to take a
group of troubled kids to a zoo.
You need to find someone willing to post your
big ugly poster outside their house.
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Compliance
Door-in-the-face technique: asking someone for a
large favor that she will certainly refuse, and then
follow up with a smaller favor.
Example: you want to find someone who takes a
group of troubled kids to a zoo.
When participants were asked, 83% said no.
Door-in-the-face condition
Big favor: “Would you like to mentor these kids
every week for 2 years?” (100% said no).
Then the real favor: take them to a zoo. 50% said
YES.
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Compliance
Foot-in-the door technique: get people say yes first
with a small request. Then, follow it up with a real
request.
Example: you want to find someone to post your
big ugly poster outside their house.
When homeowners were asked, 17% said yes.
Foot-in-the-door condition
Small request: “would you mind posting this small
pretty sticker in a window of your home?” over
90% said yes.
Then the real favor, 76% of the homeowners said
YES.
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■
Lowballing. a two-step technique in which the influencer
secures compliance with a request but then increases the
size of that request by revealing hidden costs.
from Burton & Sanderson (2016)
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Norm based approach for compliance
Descriptive norm: your belief about how most
people behave in a given context
Prescriptive norm: your belief about what
behavior is appropriate or discouraged.
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A Case Study
Officials at Petrified Forest National Park in
the U.S. were concerned about visitors taking
samples of petrified wood home as souvenirs.
A team of social psychologists were invited.
The team developed two plans that apply
social norm.
Cialdini et al., 2006
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■
Two types of signs developed:
■
■
■
Sign 1: "many park visitors have removed
petrified wood from the park, negatively
affecting the condition of the Petrified
Forest.”
Sign 2: "the vast majority of past visitors
have left the petrified wood in the park,
preserving the natural state of the Petrified
Forest.”
Which sign do you think was more effective?
Cialdini et al., 2006
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A Case Study
■
■
■
Two signs’ effectiveness was examined by placing
specially marked pieces of wood along trails near the
signs and by counting how many of them went missing.
Sign 2 was much more effective than Sign 1.
Why?
■ Sign 1: "many park visitors have removed petrified
wood from the park, negatively affecting the condition
of the Petrified Forest.”
■
Sign 2: "the vast majority of past visitors have left the
petrified wood in the park, preserving the natural state
of the Petrified Forest.”
Cialdini et al., 2006
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Compliance and Power
Compliance tends to be
associated with power
relations. Compliance is
affected not only by the
persuasive tactics, but also by
how much power is perceived.
Power, defined as the capacity
to influence others, can derive
from many sources.
Vaughan & Hogg (2013, Fig 7.1)
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Power and Social Influence
Individuals with power are inclined to go after their
goals more directly whereas low power individuals are
more likely to constrain behaviors and attend to others
carefully (Galinsky et al., 2003).
Power makes people behave in a disinhibited
manner.
attraction to a stranger, closer physical distance,
more interruptions in a conversation
Power leads to a quick and careless evaluation of
social situations.
more likely to rely on a stereotype.
less accurate in perspective taking
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From Aronson et al (2013)
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“If you ever want to understand
your boss, corner him (or her) at
the next office party and see if he’ll
play a little game. Tell him (or her)
you need only 30 seconds. Then ask
your boss to extend his (or her)
right forefinger. “Go ahead,” you
might need to assure him, “this
won’t hurt”
Then ask him to take that extended
finger and draw a capital E on his
forehead.”
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In one study, participants were randomly
assigned to recall a time in which they exerted
control on someone or were controlled by
someone.
Then, participants were asked to draw “E” on
their forehead so that someone across from
them could read it. This requires taking the
perceiver’s perspective and drawing “E” in
reverse.
Galinsky et al., 2006
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% who drew “E” from the partner’s perspective
100
75
50
25
0
High Power Low Power
Experiment Condition
Galinsky et al., 2006
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