Intro to social influence + conformity

Social influence def

How people affect the attitudes, beliefs, feelings + behaviours of others, through comments, actions or mere presence

Forms of social influence (3)

• Conformity

• Compliance

• Obedience to authority

Automatic mimicry

The tendency to mindlessly/nonconsciously imitate other people’s behaviours + movements

Reasons for automatic mimicry

• Ideomotor action: simply thinking about a behaviour makes the likelihood of performing the behaviour more likely, due to overlapping brain areas for perception + action

• Facilitating social connection: mimicry fosters smoother, more gratifying interactions + increases social liking + prosocial behaviour

  • Synchronous mimicry (e.g. walking in step) in particular creates strong feelings of closeness

Conformity def

Changing behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined pressure from others

Two main types of conformity

• Informational social influence

• Normative social influence

Informational social influence

The reliance on other people’s comments + actions as an indication of what’s likely to be correct, proper or effective

When informational social influence is prevalent

• In uncertain/unfamiliar situations

Sherif’s experiment description (2) what type of influence present

• Participant’s estimates of how much a light had moved (which was actually an illusion and hadn’t moved), converged when they revealed their estimates to other participants

• Participant’s used others as a frame of reference in an ambiguous situation

• Informational social influence

Normative social influence def

Influence of other people that comes from desire to avoid being criticised, disapproved of, or shunned

Internalisation def

Private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology

Important difference between informational and normative social influence

• Informational → leads to internalisation/private acceptance of majority belief

VS

• Normative → usually doesn’t lead to internalisation, just outward/public compliance (can be discrepancy between actions + private beliefs)

Asch’s conformity experiment description (1) + result (1)

• 7 confederates,1 participant, confederates answered line judgement question incorrectly, participant answered last

• 75% of participants conformed at least once over 12 trials

Explanation for Asch’s conformity study results (2)

• Distortion of reality: people believing they misinterpreted the visual stimuli (informational social influence, smaller impact because participants got answer right almost 100% of time when social pressure removed)

• Distortion of action: people not wanting stand out negatively in the group (normative social influence, main influence)

Replication of conformity experiment with moral dilemmas

Replications using moral dilemmas (e.g. dialysis patient scenario) → participants still conformed some of the time → willing to override moral judgements to align with group

Impact of normative social influence on general behaviour

• Tends to lead to public compliance (doing or saying one thing while privately believing another) rather than internalisation

Factors affecting conformity pressure: group membership, group size, group unanimity, anonymity, expertise + status, culture type

• Group membership: more likely to conform to in-group members (even if arbitrary)

• Group size: conformity increases with group size up to 3 or 4 members, then levels off (start to think that people after this are simply conforming themselves, a meta-awareness of sorts)

• Group unanimity: single dissenter from majority(of any kind, even if they give opinion different from one participant has) reduces conformity by reducing informational + normative social influence

• Anonymity: eliminating need for public response reduces conformity by removing normative social influence (but not informational)

• Expertise more likely to affect informational influence, status more likely to affect normative influence

• More conformity in tight cultures

How minorities can influence majority opinion (2)

• Not through normative social influence (because agreeing with minority would be disagreeable)

• Primarily through informational social influence: people wonder why minority keeps reasserting divergent opinion, think minority knows something they don’t → internalise opinion of minority → leading to private attitude change + meaningful shift in public opinion over time

Characteristics of effective minority

• Consistent in its position (but not degree of being dogmatic)

• Flexible in negotiating style

• Relatively similar to majority in other ways

Moralised minority practice identities (MMPIs)

• Minorities advocating moral behaviours face challenges, because their “good deeds” can provoke “do-gooder derogation” (feeling judged) that creates negative intergroup dynamics and makes influence harder

• This also affects willingness of moralised minorities to assert influence (vegans won’t always tell you they’re a vegan, contrary to popular belief)

Dynamic norm interventions

• Highlighting that norms are changing can be more effective than static norms in promoting minority behaviours, as people want to be on “the right side of history”

• E.g. “the number of men who consider themselves feminist is increasing) > (35% of men consider themselves feminists”)