POL 679: Social Influence
Fall 2011
Instructor: Lindsey Levitan
Time: Thursdays, 2-5
Location: SBS N705
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 4-5, Thursdays, 11-12, or by appointment
E-mail: Lindsey.Levitan@stonybrook.edu
Social Influence plays a pivotal role in behavior, be it political or otherwise. This course
is intended to expand students’ understanding and appreciation of social influence through in
depth examination of sources and consequences of social influence. The course is divided into
two basic sections. The first section examines particular sources of social influence, and the
types of influence that may arise from each of these sources. The later portion of the course
focuses on particularly notable outcomes of social influence, and examines the processes
underlying these outcomes in greater detail.
Grading
The first component of grades will be in class participation. This course will be primarily
a discussion oriented course. As such, student participation is vital.
The second component will be weekly response statements. Each student will prepare a
two-page response to the readings each week, which will be due the day before class by 5pm.
These brief papers should not be summaries of the reading, but critical responses to the reading.
Response may critique studies, discuss questions raised by readings, identify conceptual links or
contradictions between readings, etc.
The final component of grades will be a final paper. This paper will be a research
proposal that briefly reviews the appropriate literature, identifies an unanswered question (or
posits a new answer to an old question), and proposes an empirical project to answer that
question.
Class Participation: 20%
Weekly Response Statements: 30%
Final Paper: 50%
Week 1
9/1
Week 2
9/8
Organizational Meeting
Social Influence of the Self on the Self
Festinger, L. & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959) Cognitive consequences of forced
compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210.
Bem, D. J. (1967). Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive
Dissonance Phenomena. Psychological Review, 74(3), 183-200.
Dickerson, C. A., Thibodeau, R., Aronson, E., & Miller, D. (1992). Using cognitive
dissonance to encourage water conservation. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 22(11), 841-854.
Diener, E., Wallbom, M. (1976). Effects of self-awareness on antinormative
behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 10(1), 107-111.
Week 3
9/15
Groups, Deviance, and Rejection
Baumeister & Leary (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments
as a fundamental human motive. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497-529.
Gonsalkorale, K. & Williams, K. D. (2007). The KKK won't let me play: ostracism
even by a despised outgroup hurts. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37,
1176 – 1186.
Latane, B. (1981). The Psychology of Social Impact. American Psychologist, 36,
343-356.
Schachter, S. (1951). Deviation, rejection, and communication. Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 46, 190-207.
Week 4
9/22
Compliance & Balance (Influence of Individuals)
Cialdini, R.B. (1995). Principles and techniques of social influence. In A. Tesser
(Ed.), Advanced Social Psychology, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 7.
Heider, F. (1946). Attitudes and cognitive organization. Journal of Psychology, 21,
107-112.
Sigel, R. S. (1964). Effect of Partisanship on the Perception of Political Candidates.
The Public Opinion Quarterly, 28 (3), 483-496.
Visser, M. (1994). Policy Voting, Projection, and Persuasion: An Application of
Balance Theory to Electoral Behavior. Political Psychology, 15 (4), 699-711.
Week 5
9/29
Holiday – No Class
Week 6
10/6
Group influence on Thought and Efficiency
Isenberg, D. J. (1986). Group polarization: A critical review and meta-analysis.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1141-1151.
Janis, I.L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes
(2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Chapter 8, The groupthink syndrome]
Latane, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light work: The
causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 37, 822-832.
Tetlock Philip E., Randall S. Peterson, Charles McGuire, Shi-jie Chang, & Peter
Feld. 1992. Assessing Political Group Dynamics: A Test of the Groupthink Model.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 403-425.
Week 7
Informational and Normative Influence (Influence of Groups)
10/13
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7,
117-140.
Kelley, H. H. (1952). Two functions of reference groups. In G. E. Swanson, T. M.
Neewcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in Social Psychology (2nd ed., pp.
410-414). New York: Holt.
Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of
judgment. Groups, Leadership, and men; research in human relations, 177-190.
Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social
influences upon individual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
51, 629-636.
Levitan L. C. & Verhulst B. (in prep). Conformity in Groups: The effects of groups
on expressed attitudes.
Week 8
10/20
Minority Influence
Nemeth, C. J. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence.
Psychological Review, 93, 12-32.
Moscovici, S., Lage, E., & Naffrechoux, M. (1969). Influence of a consistent
minority on the responses of a majority in a color perception task. Sociometry,
32(4), 365-380.
Phillips, K. W., & Loyd, D. L. (2006). When surface and deep-level diversity collide:
The effects on dissenting group members. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 99(2), 143-160.
Wood, W., Lundgren, S., Ouellette, J. A., Busceme, S., & Blackstone, T. (1994)
Minority influence: A meta-analytic review of social influence processes.
Psychological Bulletin, 115(3), 323-345.
McGuire, W. J., & Papageorgis, D. (1961). The relative efficacy of various types of
prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion. The Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(2), 327.
Week 9
10/27
Close Others
Huckfeldt, R., Mendez, J.M., & Osborn, T. (2004). Disagreement, Ambivalence, and
Engagement: The Political Consequences of Heterogeneous Networks. Political
Psychology, 25, 65-95.
Levitan, L. C., & Visser, P. S. (2008). The Impact of the Social Context on
Resistance to Persuasion: Effortful versus Effortless Responses to Counterattitudinal Information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.44, 640–649.
Mutz, D.C. (2002). The consequences of cross-cutting networks for political
participation. American Journal of Political Science, 46, 838-855.
Granberg, D., & Bartels, B. (2005). On being a lone dissenter. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 35(9), 1849-1858.
Week 10 Normative Influence Part II (Influence of Large Groups and Society)
11/3
Miller, D. T., & Prentice, D. A. (1996). The construction of social norms and
standards. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology:
Handbook of basic principles. New York: Guilford.
Easton, D., & Dennis, J. (1967). The child's acquisition of regime norms: Political
efficacy. The American Political Science Review, 61(1), 25-38.
Reno, R. R., Cialdini, R., B., & Kallgren, C. A. (1993). The transsituational influence
of social norms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(1), 104-112.
Zimbardo, P. G. (1970). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order vs
deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation,1960. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Week 11 Priming & Environmental Influence
11/10
Berger, J., Meredith, M., & Wheeler, C. (2008). Contextual priming: Where people
vote affects how they vote. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105,
8846-8849.
Goodwin, S. A., Operario, D., & Fiske, S. T. (1998). Situational power and
interpersonal dominance facilitate bias and inequality. Journal of Social Issues,
54(4), 677-698.
Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (2005). Playing the Race Card in the PostñWillie Horton
Era. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(1), 99.
Risen, J. L., & Critcher, C. R. (2011). Visceral Fit: While in a Visceral State,
Associated States of the World Seem More Likely. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 100(5), 777-793.
Week 12 Mass Media
11/17
Chaiken, S., & Eagly, A. H. (1983), Communication Modality as a Determinant of
Persuasion: The Role of Communicator Salience. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 45(2), 241-256.
Anderson, C. A., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., Huesmann, L. R., Johnson, J. D.,
Linz, D., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological
science in the public interest, 4(3), 81.
Mutz, D.C., & Martin, P.S. (2001). Facilitating communication across lines of
political difference: The role of mass media. American Political Science Review,
95, 97-114.
Sommers, S. R., Apfelbaum, E. P., Dukes, K. N., Toosi, N., & Wang, E. J. (2006).
Race and media coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, implications, and future
research questions. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 6(1), 39-55.
Week 13 Pluralistic Ignorance – CORRECTION DAY
11/22
Latane, B., & Darley, J.M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in
emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 215-221.
Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1996). Pluralistic ignorance and the perpetuation of
social norms by unwitting actors. Zanna, Mark P (Ed). Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology, Vol. 28. (pp. 161-209). x, 468 pp. San Diego, CA, US:
Academic Press.
Langer, E. J., Benevento, A. (1978). Self-induced dependence. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 36(8), 886-893.
Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N. (2004). Public Opinion on Foreign Policy: The
Multilateral Public that Perceives Itself as Unilateral. Public Opinion Quarterly,
68(3), 323-348.
Week 14 Authority & Aggression
12/1
Kelman, H.C. (1958). Compliance, Identification, and Internalization: Three
Processes of Attitude Change. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2 (1), 51-60.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Haney, C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1977). The socialization into criminality: On
becoming a prisoner and a guard. In J. L. Tapp & F. L. Levine (Eds.), Law,
Justice, and the Individual in Society: Psychological and Legal Issues (pp. 198–
223). New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in
experimentally created "social climates.” Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271299.
Week 15 Prejudice
12/8
Czopp, A. M., Monteith, M. J., & Mark, A. Y. (2006). Standing up for a change:
Reducing bias through interpersonal confrontation. Journal of personality and
social psychology, 90(5), 784.
Sinclair, S., Dunn, E., & Lowery, B. S. (2005). The relationship between parental
racial attitudes and children's implicit prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 41, 283-289.
Sechrist, G. B., & Stangor, C. (2001). Perceived consensus influences intergroup
behavior and stereotype accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 80, 645-654.
Sherif, M. (1958). Super ordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict.
American Journal of Sociology, 63, 349-356.
Final paper due 12/14 by 5pm (email, in hand, or in mailbox)
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