26.04.2012
Social Influence
Chapter 8 & pages 265 – 269 (obedience & conformity
sections from chapter 9)
Social Influence
 The exercise of social power by a person or group to
change the attitudes or behaviors of others in a
particular direction (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
 Three types of social influence
 Conformity – a yielding group pressure/social norms
 Compliance – a yielding to a direct request
 Obedience – a yielding to authority (direct order)
Yielding vs. resisting
Research on social influence has concentrated on
yielding, with relatively less known about resisting.
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26.04.2012
Social Influence vs. Persuasion
 Persuasion– influence appeals typically include
detailed arguments that is presented to (individual)
recipients in a context with minimal social
interaction.
 Aims attitude change
 Social influence –information is delivered in more
complex social settings that may include interactions
among participants.
 Aims a more overall change, in attitudes, beliefs,
opinions, values, and behavior
Conformity
 Change in one’s behavior or opinion as a result of real
or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
 Is it good to be a conformist or non conformist?
 Labels matter:
 Non conformist vs. Individualist vs. Deviate vs Slider
 Conformist vs. Team player
Two reasons for conformity
 Informational social influence (private conformity)
 Desire to be right
 ambiguous situation, we look to others
 e.g., (Sherif) autokinetic effect (1935)
 Normative social influence (public conformity)
 Norm
 Desire to be liked, “fit in”
 don’t want to be deviant
 e.g., (Asch) lines experiment (1951)
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Conformity: Doing as Others do
 Sherif’s (1935) autokinetic effect studies
 A stationary point of light in a dark room appears to move of
its on accord.
 Social norms can lead us to converge with others in
estimates of the amount of movement.
 Ambiguous situation  Uncertainty  Informational influence
 Conformity
 Norms can persist over generations.
8
Sherif’s studies (1936) of norm formation
 The autokinetic effect is an optical illusion: If you place people
in a completely dark room, and let them observe a pinprick of
light for some time, they will have the illusion that this light
starts moving erratically after some time.
 Sherif asked individuals to estimate how far the light moved
on several trials:
 Their estimates converged on an idiosyncratic value (typical
to that individual).
 Sherif then asked people to estimate how far the light
moved in groups of 2 or 3
Convergence to a group norm
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Autokinetic effect: Why did people
conform?
 People need to be certain and confident in the
correctness of their actions
 The situation was ambiguous and uncertain
 People looked to others to help define “reality”
 Once developed, the norm persists beyond the
immediate situation
Informational Social Influence:
The Need to Know What’s “Right”
Conforming to others because we believe that others’
interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours
and will help us choose an appropriate course of action
 see others as a source of information to guide our behavior
Norms: acceptable values, beliefs, and behaviors
 Injunctive Norms – What ought to be done
 Descriptive Norms – What is normal
Informational Social Influence:
The Need to Know What’s “Right”
May lead to:
Private Acceptance :Conforming to other people’s behavior out
of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right.
Public Compliance: Conforming to other people’s behavior
publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or
saying
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Applications
Social contagion – the rapid spread of emotions or
behaviors through a crowd
Mass psychogenic illness – a group suffers from similar
symptoms but no physical cause
 Energy consumption
 Recycling
 Reduce drinking /alcohol abuse
Cialdini, Reno and Callgren (1990)
Procedure: Subjects given chance to drop litter.
(Found handbill under windscreen wiper of their car.)
What would they do with it?
IV1: Clean vs littered environment.
IV2: Confederates dropped handbill or just walked
past subjects.
Results: The effect of the descriptive norm for littering
would be enhanced by observing someone else drop
litter.
Resisting Informational Influence
Inappropriate use of others as a source of information can
be guarded against by checking information against:
 Common sense
 Sense of morality
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Asch’s studies (1951) of group pressure
 What if you are already confident an certain about what
is appropriate and correct. Will others’ behaviors still
influence you?
 Asch (1951, 1956) tested whether people would
conform in situations in which the group’s judgments
were obviously incorrect
Asch’s line judgment task: Conformity in nonambiguous situations:
A visual discrimination task
Standard
Comparsion lines
a
PSYC 204 /SOCI 206
Fall 2009
b
c
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How many conformed?
•When alone, > 99% of participants got all the answers correct
•Average conformity rate is 33%
35
% of
participants
showing
each level of
conformity
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
20
1-3
4-6
7-9 10-12
Number of trials on which participants conformed
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What’s going on?
Unlike Sherif, Asch’s task was not uncertain or ambiguous. However
participants seemed willing to ignore the evidence of their own eyes
to go along with the groups. Why? Participants said that
 they knew they were out of step with group, but felt their
perceptions were inaccurate and the group was correct.
 they actually saw the lines as the group did.
 they did not believe the group was correct but simply went along
with the group in order to fit in.
 BEWARE that the group was composed of strangers – with whom
they would have
 Most of the case, people know that what they are doing is wrong but
go along anyway so as not to feel peculiar or look like a fool.
Normative Social Infleunce:
The need to be liked
 The influence of other people that leads us to conform in
order to be liked and accepted by them.
 We conform to the group/social norms:
Norms: The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the
acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members.
 This type of conformity results in public compliance with the
group’s beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private
acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors.
 Non-conformers may be dismissed from the group.
Physiology of Conformity
Recent research found that when participants conformed to a
group’s wrong answers, fMRI indicated brain activity in areas
for vision and perception.
However, when participants chose to give the right answer and
disagree with the group, different areas of the brain became
active: the amygdala, an area devoted to negative emotions,
and the right caudate nucleus, an area devoted to
modulating social behavior.
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Normative Social Influence in Everyday
Life: Women’s body image
Conclusions
 For ambiguous stimuli, norms can develop through
reciprocal influence, can be adopted implicitly, and
become internalized.
 For unambiguous stimuli, individuals may conform with
the group norms due to fear of social disapproval.
 Face-to-face situations increase the likelihood of
conforming.
 Even when being accurate is important and the right
answer is obvious, some people still conform.
 Find it difficult to risk social disapproval – even from
strangers.
Types of Conformity
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Automatically Activated Conformity
 Nonconscious mimicry
 Have you ever yawned after seeing someone else yawn?
 Such behavior is conformity we engage in days after birth (Meltzoff
& Moore, 1989).
 Believed to be a survival reflex.
Establishes an emotional bond, increasing likelihood of
being protected and nurtured by mother.
 In adulthood, such behaviors foster positive feelings in those
we mimic, even when they do not consciously notice.
 Creates affiliation and rapport, fostering safety in groups.

The Chameleon Effect
 Chartrand and Bargh
(1999)
 Participant and
confederate worked on a
task together
Situational factors
 Ambiguity of the situation
 Task difficulty
 Task importance
 Motivation
 Group size
 Group unanimity
 Who the other group members are
 Commitment to the group
 Accountability
 Public response vs. Anonymity
 Culture (collectivistic > individualistic)
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30
Who conforms?
 Low self-esteem
 High need for social support/ social approval/self-control
 Low IQ
 High anxiety
 Insecurity in the group
 Perceived low status in the group
 Women (?)
 All show interactions with situational factors.
Gender
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Why do people conform?:
 Informational influence (private conformity)
 Desire to be right
 When the situation is ambiguous
 When the situation is a crisis
 When other people are experts
 Normative influence (public conformity)
 Desire to be liked, accepted, fear of social disapproval
 When the group is unanimous
 When the group size is three or more
 When the group is important
The Minority Can Influence the
Majority
 Minority influence: the process by which dissenters
produce change within a group.
 Those who dissent from majority are often seen as
competent but are disliked.
 Often results in social isolation.
 Isolation can result in a hesitation in voicing opinions.
 Minority slowness effect: tendency of those who hold minority
opinion to express that opinion less quickly than people who hold the
majority opinion.
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Koyunlar 15 metre derinliğindeki uçuruma düşerek
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ölülerinin üzerinden geçen bin 100 koyun ise kurtuldu.
Köylüler maddi zararlarının 100 bin YTL civarında
olduğunu söyledi.
35
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26.04.2012
Compliance
 People make (direct) requests of us all the time.
 Salespeople, Peers, Friends and Family, advertisements
 The request may be implicit or explicit, but the target feels
pressured to response in the desired way.
 Honoring those requests helps maintain the social fabric. In
the future you may expect that other will also do what you
ask them
 Usually results in covert/public compliance – does not reflect
internalization.
People are more likely to comply when
 They are in a positive mood (Forgas, 1998).
 The reciprocity norm is evoked. The expectation that one
should return a favor or a good deed.
 Commonly used in making sales (free samples).
 Reasons are provided (Langer, 1978).
Langer et al. (1978)
Percentage
That Complied
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
No Reason
Reason Given
Irrelevant
Reason
May I Use the Xerox Machine?
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26.04.2012
Compliance within the framework of
persuasion
 Commonly used tactics:
 Ingratiation: strategic attempt to get someone like you first,
in order to obtain compliance with a request.
 Reciprocity principle: “treat others as they treat me”
 If someone does a favor – reciprocate. E.g.
Windscreen washers in the traffic.
 Use multiple steps (usually two) to get others comply with a
complex request / big favor
 Also remember induced compliance within the context of
cognitive dissonance
39
“Multiple steps” techniques for inducing
compliance
40
Role of power on compliance
 Compliance is influenced
not only by persuasive
tactics that people use to
make requests, but also by
how much power they are
perceived to have.
 Power – capacity or ability
to exert influence
 Different types of power:
41
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26.04.2012
Obedience to authority
 Obedience is defined as complying with orders from a
person of higher social status within a defined hierarchy
or chain of command.
 An internalized framework of norms, values, customs,
procedures specifies that such influence is appropriate.
 Underlying motives?
Classic Obedience study (Milgram, 1965)
43
Milgram’s Obedience Study:
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26.04.2012
Statements By
Shock Recipient:
Shock Generator
Caution
On
Amp Meter
Amps
Slight
Shock
Moderate
Shock
Intensity
Strong
Shock
Resistance
Very
Strong
Shock
Intense
Shock
Extreme
Shock
Danger
XXX
“That’s
out ofExperimenter:
here!
“LetAll!
meGet
out me
of here!
Let
me out of here!
I told you I had heart trouble.
My heart’s bothering me!…
“Treat
notono
response
as a wrong response.
“Ugh!”
…silence...
My hearts
starting
bother
now!
You
have
right
tome
hold
me here!
“Hey!
This
Really
Hurts!”
Get me out
of here,
please!
out!”
Let
me out!
Let ….Let
me
out!me
Let
me out!”level of shock.”
Deliver
the
next
higher
How many obeyed?
Predicted versus actual levels46of shock given to a victim
47
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26.04.2012
Reducing Obedience:
1.
by increasing the obviousness of the learner’s plight
Victim not seen or heard ..... 66%

Victim not seen but heard ....62%

Victim one meter away ........40%

Victim’s hand placed on shock plate....30%

2.
Reducing the authority or influence of the experimenter
At Yale university....... 65%

At a run-down office ....48%

With experimenter giving orders via telephone ... 25%

With confederates of experimenter refusing to give shocks.... 10%
Nothing the victim did or say had any effect on the % of obedience!


Factors that increase obedience
 Legitimacy of the authority
(vs ordinary person)
 Greater distance from the
victim –
 touch - different room
 Closer supervision by authority
(absent, present, remindful)
 Presence of people who
modeled obedience
 Lack of dissent in group
 Gender, age, education not
relevant
Cross-cultural replications
Country
USA
Subjects
% obedient
Male general population
65
Female general population
65
USA
Students
85
Italy
Students
85
Germany
Male general population
85
Australia
Male students
40
Female students
16
UK
Male students
50
Jordan
Students
62
Spain
Students
90 +
Austria
General population
80
50
The Netherlands General population
92
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26.04.2012
Why did people obey?
 Obedience to a legitimate authority is a norm
 Initial commitment by administering trivial levels of
shock
 Self-justification.
 No personal responsibility for harming the learner.
 Emotional distance of the victim
 Voluntary participation of the victim
 Closeness, legitimacy and responsibility of the authority
 Institutional authority
Do these effects occur in "real life"?
 Hofling et al. (1966)
 Nurses were telephoned by a doctor they didn't know.
 They were ordered to administer a nonprescribed
drug in double the maximum dosage to a patient.
 22 nurses were called.
 Results: 21 out of 22 nurses (95.5%) followed the
doctor's orders.
Would people still obey today?
 29 men and 41 women, age range 20-81, American with
different ethnic backgrounds.
 Replicated Milgram’s procedure – only let the subjects
administer shocks up to 150 V
 Previously, experts & psychiatrists had guessed nobody would go
beyond 150V
 70% continued after 150 volts
 66.7 % of men and 72.7 % of women
 Ref: Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people
still obey today? American Psychologist, 64, 1-11.
 Also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w
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26.04.2012
Implication of Milgram study: abuses at Abu
Ghraib
Why did American soldiers commit abuses
at Abu Ghraib and record their crimes on
film? For "psy-op reasons," according to
Private Lynndie England (above), who
insists that she was following orders from
"persons in my higher chain of
command."
To sum up:
 Obedience to legitimate authorities is normative
 Obedience serves numerous productive functions.
 Necessary for some social order
 May be educative, refer to acts of charity and kindness
 But may also be destructive.
4 distinctions between
conformity and obedience:


1.
1.
Conformity
Peer influence
2. Performance of a
modeled act
3. Implicit pressure
4. People deny conformity
Obedience
Hierarchical structure
2. Performance of a
required act
3. Explicit pressure
4. People acknowledge
authority figure
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26.04.2012
A unified understanding of social
influence: Social Impact Theory
 The amount of influence others have in a given situation
is a function of three factors (Latané ,1981)
 Strength
 importance of the group for you.
 power of the authority
 Immediacy  How close is the group/authority in space and time during the influence
attempt.
 Number
 3 or more (does not matter, if it is 5 or 6 etc.)
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