social influence key studies

NSI

+schultz et al - hotel towel, reduced need for fresh towels by 25%

ISI

Lucas et al - greater conformity to harder maths questions

-Asch - individual differences - students less conforming

Conformity

Asch

Conformity to social roles

Zimbardo

Obedience

Milgram
+hofling et al - 21/22 nurses fatal dose

-orne and holland - ppts didnt believe the shocks were real

situational variables for Obedience

Milgram - presence of two non obeding confederates drops obedience from 65% to 10%

location

uniform

proximit

social - psychological/ situational factors of obedience

Agentic state

Blass and Schmidt, milgram replication - condition where Experimenter told ppt they were responsible

Legitimacy of authority

-Kilham and Man - only 16% of Australians went to the top in milgram experment

Dispositional explanations

Authoritarian personality

Adorno

Adorno et al - 2000 middle class americans - higher on the F scaler meant they were had a correlation with looking up at the authority and down at those below

elms and milgram - 40 out of ppts from milgrams original study, 20 obedient scored higher on F- scale

Resistance to social influence

+Asch - unanimity supports social support as an explanation

+Milgram - unanimity supports social support

-Rotter - locus of control is only used in unfamiliar situations

+Holland replication of Milgram - Internal LOC meant lower obedience and vice versa

minority influence

Moscovici - 32% incorrect at least once

-nameth - while consistency is important, a minority must be flexible and willing to compromise to effectively influence the majority. Her studies, such as the 1986 ski-lift accident simulation, showed that rigid, dogmatic minorities fail, whereas adaptable ones encourage divergent thinking and genuine attitude change

Social Change

Nolan - investigates how normative social influence can drive behavioral shifts for large-scale social change. The Normative Message: "Most of your neighbors use fans to save energy." gave out signs for doors in San Diego. One group were given signs saying they were reducing their intake, whereas the other group were given signs saying to save energy. This shows that NSI can be used to create social change.

- Bashir et al -people are reluctant to align with environmental activists because they do not want to be associated with negative stereotypes