Social Influence
How other people affect our behaviour
Social Facilitation – people tend to work better when working with
other people, than when working alone
Triplett (1898)
Found that cyclists in pairs were faster than those training alone
Why? Competitive nature?
But… Allport (1924) said this effect occurs even when there is no
competitive element
Allport – ‘co-action effect’ (people work better when they can see
others doing the same task)
1
Social Facilitation in everyday life
Social facilitation can be used to improve people’s performance
e.g. children at school
Audience effects = a person’s performance may also be affected by
someone watching
This is called ‘audience effect’
Participants doing an easy task perform better when there’s an
audience
Michaels et al (1982) = looked at the ability of pool players =
researchers stood by the table =
…above average players = increased from 71% to 80% (increase
arousal)
… below average players = decreased from 36% to 25% (arousal
overload)
???
2
conclusions: audience improves performance of well learned skills
but damages the performance of poorly learned skills
Audience effects in real life
Improvements in performance has been seen in employment
Hawthorne effect = research on factory workers = productivity
increased when watched (even when conditions were made worse)
Due to audience effect?
Social Loafing
When working in a group – each person tends to reduce their
personal effort
This is called the ‘Ringelmann effect’ (Max Ringelmann, 1913)
He measured the amount of effort men put into a tug of war task
The greater the number of men pulling the less each man pulled
3
This is also called ‘social loafing’ = Latane (1979) asked
participants to shout and clap (sometimes alone/sometimes with
others)
They wore headsets and the amount of noise was recorded
Results = the larger the group, the less effort each person made
Conclusion = people made less effort in groups because others
were contributing
Social Loafing in everyday life
Work, education and sport etc provide opportunities for social
loafing
To avoid social loafing in team sports, coaches provide feedback
both to individuals and to the team as a whole
In education – when students work in groups on a piece of work –
teachers are encouraged to identify the effort that each members
offers
Social loafing is mainly a western phenomenon
In other collectivist cultures, the opposite happens – ‘social
striving’
4
Why? In collectivist cultures, individual goals are NOT as
important as team goals
Bystander Behaviour
Bystander behaviour – how people behaviour in an emergency
Darley and Latane (1968) – interested in seeing hwat people would
do in an emergency which others also knew about
= asked participants to discuss a topic with some people close by
They were told this was to be via an intercom so as to reduce
embarrassment during the discussion
There were 3 conditions –
1. participants thought there was only 1 other person in
discussion
2. thought there were 2 others
3. thought there were 5 others
5
early in the discussion – one of the others mentioned he sometimes
had seizures
later in discussion – he had a seizure
how did participants react?
Found = the more ‘others’ present, the less likely any one person is
to help (diffusion of responsibility)
Imitating Others
If someone else goes to help, does that encourage others to follow
their example?
Bryan and Test (1967) – arranged for a woman (confederate) to
stand beside a car with a flat tyre (test condition)
A helping situation (experimental condition) was set up quarter of
a mile before the car with the flat tyre
In this condition – a woman stood beside a car watching a man
change the tyre (he was the model)
Results = more cars stopped to help when they had seen the
helping situation
6
Conclusion = people are more likely to help others when they have
seen someone else model helping behaviour
Conformity
In real life we adjust our actions and opinions to fit with others –
‘yielding to the perceived pressure of group members, even though
no one tells us to’
Philip Zimbardo carried out a conformity study called ‘Stanford
Prison Experiment’ (watch video)
7
Lesson on Social Influence
What you will need to know for the exam
1. studies which demonstrate the effect of other people
a. social facilitation
b. social loafing
c. audience effects
d. bystander behaviour
2. definitions of OBEDIENCE, CONFORMITY AND DE-INDIVIDUATION
3. studies of obedience, conformity and de-individuation
4. evaluation of studies
5. factors which affect obedience, conformity and deinidividuation
6. sources of social influence
a. group norms
b. internal filters (e.g. scripts)
c. external filters (e.g. media)
During today’s lesson, fill-in the blanks spaces with the appropriate definitions of the
key terms relating to Social Influence.
Conformity
Social Influence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social facilitation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social loafing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8
Audience effects --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bystander behaviour-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Conformity
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social norms
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Informational
Social influence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Normative
Social influence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Public compliance -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Private acceptance-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Personal norm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9
Studies of Conformity
Stanford Prison
Experiment
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Evaluation of
Stanford Prison
Experiment
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SherifAutokinetic
Effect
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10
Solomon Asch
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crutchfield
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Factors Affecting Conformity
Group identification------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Group size
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social support
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11
Personality
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Gender
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Culture
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social roles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obedience
Obedience
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Legitimate
Authority
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Coercion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Authoritarian
Personality
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12
Displacement
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Studies of Obedience
Milgram
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Evaluation of
Milgram
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Internal
Validity
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------External
Validity
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13
Factors Affecting Obedience
Proximity of
Victim
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Proximity of
Experimenter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Perceived authority------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Social support
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Individual differences----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dress of person
Giving the order -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Title of person
Giving the order --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14
Agentic state
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Victim
Derogation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cognitive
Dissonance
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dehumanization
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
De-individuation
De-individuation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hood
Experiment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15
Evaluation
Of Hood
Experiment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
Obedience
Conformity
16
ACTIVITY 1:
Normative and Informational Influence
(Item A)
Elaine, Ingrid, Pauline and Mary-Anne were enjoying a drink in the clubhouse
after a round of golf. Elaine was telling the others a story. She had been
asked by a neighbour if she could arrange a game of golf for a 15 year old
boy from Finland who was in England on holiday. She asked John, the young
assistant professional, to play with him. ‘Do you know,’ Elaine said, ‘I got the
shock of my life. The boy from Finland was black and my neighbour hadn’t
even told me. So I went to John and apologised. Not that I’ve got anything
against blacks,’ she added. The other women nodded and murmured
agreement.
However, Mary-Anne, who recounted this story later, was taken aback. ‘I
was disgusted with Elaine’s attitude,’ she said. ‘But I was even more
disgusted with myself. I had given Elaine every indication that I was in
complete agreement with her.’
Q
Is Mary_Anne’s behaviour an example of normative social influence or
informational social influence?
Q
Is it an example of public compliance or private acceptance?
Give reasons for your answers.
17
ACTIVITY 2:
Summary of main theorists of Social Influence
Using the blank sheet(s) provided, draw a summary poster of the four main
theorists of Social Influence: Asch, Sherif, Zimbardo and Milgram. Include
the following, for example:







Name of theorist
Date of study
Title of study
Methodology
Findings
Criticisms of study
Whether they relate to Conformity or Obedience
18