Psychology - Social Influence

Social Influence

Processes by which individuals and groups change each other’s attitudes and behaviour

Conformity

Type of majority influence. An individual changes their behaviour or opinions to be the same as the group.

Obedience

An individual does what an authority figure tells them, or follows a rule set by authorities.

Minority Influence

Individual or small group persuades an individual or larger group to go along with minority instead of majority.

Independent Behaviour

When an individual resists the pressures to conform or to obey. Behaves how they would have done without influence of others.

Informational Social Influence (ISI)

The act of conforming to others' behavior or opinions because you believe they possess accurate information or are more knowledgeable, particularly in ambiguous situations where you lack knowledge or certainty.

Normative Social Influence (NSI)

A form of social influence where a person conforms to a group's behavior or beliefs to gain social acceptance and avoid rejection or ridicule

Factors Effecting Obedience

Location, Proximity, Situational Variables, Uniform

Jenness (1932) Study on Conformity

Participants estimated the number of beans in a jar. Then made a group decision about how many they believed there were and were given the opportunity to make new estimates of their own. Participants changed their estimate, on average, over 300 towards the group mean.

Landis (1924) Study of Facial Expressions Obedience

Participants were exposed to various stimuli, e.g. smelling ammonia, viewing pornography and even asking participants to decapitate a live rat. The majority complied, even though most showed extreme discomfort they still obeyed what they believed was authority.

Asch’s (1950s) Study on Conformity

123 American male students had to identify which line was the same length as the test line. In groups of between 5-7 confederates, they gave the wrong answer on 12/18 trials. Participants gave their answer after all but one confederate. The control group of 36 ppts tested individually made very few errors however in the investigation 75% conformed at least once and ppts conformed on 36.8% of trials.