Psyc 342 social influence

what should we ask for each study

• What is the underlying theory?

• What is the research question?

• What is the hypothesis?

• What were the findings?

• What theoretical conclusions can be drawn?

  

What is social influence?

the application of techniques derived from social psyc to influence behaviour, beliefs, and/or attitudes

what is social psychology?

the science, behaviour, and mental processes as influenced by others

types of social influence: conformity

most passive, doing what everyone else is doing

types of social influence: compliance

agree to a direct request

types of social influence: obedience

 agree to command (by authority)

types of social influence: persuasion

more direct, attitude change in response to communication

thoughtfulness

Social influence techniques success depends on this

ability to scrutinize

click-whirr

• Cialdini describes behaviours that automatically take place in response to triggers (click whirr)

Automaticity: copy printer study Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz (1978)

findings

Giving a reason leads to greater compliance - certain triggers will activate automatic behaviour patterns.

Small favours may not generate enough motivation to process a request ->  automatic behaviour pattern

Pique technique (Burger et al. 2007)

• Confederates asked for money at a shopping mall ("excuse me, can you spare ___?")

• Control 25c, control 2 50c, pique 37c.

• Specific amount might increase someone's compliance.

• As long as you're giving a reason, the automatic behaviour pattern can occur. Can be disrupted by unique/unusual requests, heuristic shifts back to a non-thoughtful small favour

  

Disrupt-then-reframe technique (DTR) Davies and Knowles, 1999.

• confederates sold Christmas cards door-to-door for a local charity.

• Control - they're $3, reframe - they're $3. that's a bargain. DTR - they're 300 pennies, that's 3 dollars, that's a bargain.

• Control and reframe 35% compliance, disrupt then reframe 65% compliance.

  

Automaticity: copy printer study Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz (1978)

• Confederates requested to cut in line to make photocopies (imagine in coffee shop)

• Control - no reason for cutting in front.

• Sufficient - I'm in a rush

• Placebo/nonsensical - I have to make copies.

Disrupting an automatic script (GTFO) can allow for potential reframing of a request leading to increased compliance

More susceptible to amplify wanting to give.

Reframe-then-disrupt does not work as well as DTR because you need to disrupt one pattern to influence another.

Dtr

DTR

• When goals are conflicted, it can be used to attenuate the negative and amplify the positive

• Disrupting typical thought processes can prevent automatic

If motivated + able to scrutinize a request, the techniques are not as effective

non-thoughtful techniques

automaticity, pique, DTR.

Behavioural scripts

• We are prone to automatic behaviours

• These patterns stem from heuristics and learned associations developed over time

what are social norms?

rules and standards understood and shared by members of a group that guide or constrain social behaviour.

Informal, mostly unwritten outline of what is expected of you.

• Typically only concern behaviour (prescribed and proscribed)

types of norms

• Prescribed dictate what you should do

• Proscribed dictate what you should not do.

Norm formation: functional perspective

• Civilizations have practical needs

• Norms developed to encourage behaviours advantageous to survival at the individual/group level.

• Get ahead individually and get along socially

• Stems from functionalism (we can look at functions of actions)

• Evolutionary psychology points to cultural universals

• e.g. names, sharing food, property

Functional perspective flaws

• Assume all social norms are adaptive or "objective"

• Some social norms can be harmful (e.g. racism, sexism) deeply engrained

• Not all social norms have to do with survival (i.e. fashion, fads, memes, do not enhance our survival)

• Practically unfalsifiable - hard to predict norms but easy to create post-hoc reasons (they survived therefore their norms helped them survive)

Societal-value perspective

• Norms are culturally specific and their value is dictated solely by those cultures

• Stems from cultural relativism

• Norms are learned and enforced by society based on what is deemed valuable. The value of a norm can only be understood in this context.

• Explains cultural variation in social behaviours

• e.g. fashion, diet, humour, personal space.

Flaws of societal perspective:

• Makes cross-cultural comparisons difficult

• Resistant to functional critique

• Subject to regress - acceptable behaviours can only be determined by smaller and smaller groups

• Also practically unfalsifiable (difficult to disprove)

how does Norm transmission happen?

• Education: many norms are directly taught and reinforced by authority figures, peersand institutions. (not putting elbows on dinner table)

• Inferences - other norms are indirectly observed: modelling your behaviour after a role model

• Behavioural inference: common in immigrants when enculturating to adapt.

descriptive norms

 describe what other people usually do in a given situation

• Effective action goals (wanting to be right)

  

injunctive norms

what other people would approve or disapprove of

• Social relationship goal (wanting to be liked)

Personal norms

unaffected by others and vary a lot between individuals

littering study 1990

• Participants in a parking lot saw a confederate either litter or walk by before finding a useless flyer under their windshield wiper

• Parking lot was either littered or clean

• Measured % of participants who littered

2 by 2 design, measuring the norms.

littering study findings

• Anti-littering is a very prevalent injunctive norm

• Despite this, presence of descriptive norms showing littering (parking lot) significantly predicted littering behaviour

• Directed salience increases the strength of this norm

• "he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones" (do not be a hypocrite)

hotel towel study 1

Control message - "please help save the environment by reusing your towel"

• Descriptive norm message - "75% of guests reuse their towels"

• No rational reason to be more persuaded by one than the other, according to authors

• Results showed descriptive norms might work better than injunctive norms.

hotel towel study follow-up

• Customised descriptive norm signs to manipulate perceived similarity with the descriptive group

• asked how much each variable was of value to participants.

• Guest identity and same room identity descriptive norms had highest participation of reusing their towels.

• Least meaningful but most situationally relevant were most powerful

Whatever is the most in line with current situation, the more powerful it will be.

National Park study

• Distributed PSAs containing either descriptive vs injunctive

• First sign was descriptive - changing natural state of forest

• Other was injunctive - disapproval

national park study findings

Highlighting a negative descriptive norm increased undesirable behaviour

• Descriptive norms highlight behaviours solely in terms of occurrence

• Heuristic - If people are doing it, it must be fine

• Injunctive norms introduce an element of morality/social judgment

• Suggests there may be a dimension of thoughtfulness influencing behaviour

power usage study

Observed a "boomerang" effect - participants regressed toward the avg energy expenditure regardless of their initial consumption

• When paired with injunctive norm, the undesirable effect is erased and everyone behaves prosocially

  • Being judged through the use of smiley or frown faces.

fitness program study 2012 Kredenster et al.

• Presented participants with a message about campus fitness program

• Measured intention to sign up as DV

Manipulated norm type

• Descriptive - highlighted how many students signed up

• Injunctive - highlighted values reflected by fitness

Also manipulated thoughtfulness

• High thought - program held at queen's, no distraction while reading the message

  • Low thought - program held at another university, and had to remember an 8-digit number

fitness program study results

In low-thought = descriptive worked better, in high-thought = injunctive worked better. Intention to sign up

fill in the blank: Descriptive norms work better in ___ stakes or _______ conditions

low, ambiguous

fill in the blank: Injunctive norms work better in ____ conditions where people are _______ to process the message

ethical/moral, motivated

what is conformity?

• Tendency to align one's behaviour or beliefs to a perceived social norm. oldest studied social influence effect. Completely passive.

• Most likely mechanism for guiding automatic/unconscious behaviours

Sherif studies (dot study) 1935

• Had participants stand in a dark room and watch a dot of light. Participants asked to estimate how far the dot of light moved (1-10 inches)

• Dot actually never moved, was a product of the autokinetic effect.

• Had participants make initial estimates alone, then come back and do it in a group setting.

• Alone = only influenced by illusion in their minds, group = influenced by group answers.

  

sherif studies results

• Estimates were initially varied but then started to converge when in a group setting.

• Convergence strengthened after each session

• Participants reported zero awareness of conforming to group estimates. If later separated, group norms persisted in later estimates (subconscious)

why is conformity so common?

• Informational influence - epistemic motivations

• Effect of individuals turning to the group seeking correct judgments

• Parallels with descriptive norms, social proof (compliance).

  • Seen in product reviews, social media, voting polls.

    

Asch studies (line study) 1951

• Line comparison task (alone vs group)

• Participants were asked to select the line identical to a reference

• Confederates initially answered correctly, then unanimously answered incorrectly.

asch line study results and discussion

• p's in alone condition were wrong in <1% of trials. At baseline we are able to complete this task.

• Group condition conformed at least once in 74% of sessions

• Avg - approx 1/3 gave the wrong answer.

 relational motivations

• Effect of individuals conforming for social approval

• Parallels to injunctive norms, liking (compliance)

• Group deviance can lead to negative social consequences and ostracism, which we are motivated to avoid.

• Normative influence can be strong enough to lead to informational influence.

Social impact theory (SIT) Latane & Wolf 1981

• 3 key factors for determining the strength of social influence

• Strength, immediacy, number of influences (SIN)

SIN Strength

• Magnitude of impactfulness

• Characteristics of source of influence and environmental factors that moderate the strength of those characteristics

• Covers most theories and effects

Strength - conformity moderators

Difficulty/ambiguity (Asch, 1955) conformity weaker factor if task more difficult.

 

conformity moderators

Unanimity (Asch 1955) conformity weaker if less unanimous.

conformity moderators (strength)

Decreased confidence (Hochbaum, 1954) if less confident, will rely on others more.

 

strength - conformity moderators

Public response - if you do not have to say out loud, you do not tend to conform to wrong answer. Normative influence is circumvented.

Group interdependence (Deutsch & Gerard 1955) - when group has shared goal, you do not want to go against group

moderator of conformity

Need for social approval/social exclusion (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000) - if feel unaccepted then will conform more.

Need to Belong/Ostracism

• One of the strongest social forces recorded in psychology

• Fundamental need, cultural universal

• leads to not just psychological but physical pain (DeWall & Baumeister, 2006)

• Also predicts negative health outcomes. Loneliness leads to poor health.

• Serotonin guides our sense of social status and belonging. Everyone has an innate sense of status in a group.

• Normative influence and self-concept goal of conformity.

cyberball study

• Had participants go through cyberball task and a conformity task after

• Manipulated inclusion/ostracism with cyberball paradigm

• Measured % conformity

• Average conformity after no interaction: 16.65 (30% at least once)

• Average conformity after inclusion: 17.86 (36% at least once)

• Average conformity after ostracism: 29.65 (54% at least once)

cyberball study interpretation

• Social exclusion is a threat to our sense of belonging

• People will try to resolve the threat by seeking social approval and avoiding social deviance

• People are more likely to help you if they want you to like them

immediacy effect on conformity

• Physical, temporal, or psychological proximity of the influence AND/OR how similar the medium of one's response

• the closer you feel to your group, the more likely you are to conform

• Increased distance or delayed responses decrease conformity

• Increased sense of similarity/liking increases conformity

number of sources

• Perceived amount of members in a given group

• Typically, higher numbers = higher conformity (until about 6-7)

• Source characteristics can moderate this influence

• If confederates are seen as more independent, conformity may increase with numbers (Gerard, 1968)

• More likely to be correct if using different approaches to come to conclusions (informational influence)

Looking up study (Milgram et al)

• Had groups of 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, or 15 people stand on sidewalk staring up at a building

• Filmed passing pedestrians, coded percent that looked up

• People who looked up 42-86%, increasing with numbers.

• People who stopped and looked up 4-40%.

• Linear effect - the more people, the more likely you see conformity.

conformity is not always negative

• Amoral - can be used for any reason and is not inherently good or bad.

• Does not completely control your behaviour.

• It is inescapable, brains conform naturally.

Behavioural mimicry (subconscious conformity)

• Conformity is deeply engrained in us. We don't know all the social norms we do/don't align with

• Tendency to mimic the non-verbal behaviour of another person

Copycat study (Chartrand + Bargh, 1999) 

• Participants interact with confederate who smiled/did not smile and rubbed face/shook foot during interaction

• When confederate rubbed face, participant rubbed face a lot more. Same for foot shaking.

• Asked p's if they knew they were aware of this and they denied.

• Even seemingly inconsequential/unconscious behaviours can be influenced by those around us.

Moderators of behavioural mimicry

• Pre-existing rapport

• Goal to affiliate or disaffiliate

• Prosocial orientation

• Similarity

• Mood

• Automaticity

• If you're single

• Pre-existing rapport as a moderator for mimicry

• people mimic friends more than strangers

• Goal to affiliate or disaffiliate as a moderator of behavioural mimicry

want to be friends/don't

• Prosocial orientation

tend to want to help (altruism) - more mimicking

similarity (as a moderator of behavioural mimicry)

• (compliance), build rapport, trust

mood as a moderator for mimicry

• when in a good mood, more likely to mimic.

• Automaticity as a moderator of mimicry

• : if doing a task already, engage in mimicry by default.

what are the consequences of behavioural mimicry

• Liking/prosociality - if confederate mimics more, can help feel connected

• Creativity - convergent thinking reduces this type of conformity

• Consumer behaviour - tend to enjoy products more/buy if salesperson

• Prejudice - if shown people in outgroup homogenize behaviour more, both implicit and explicit measures reduce if told to mimic

• In excessive cases, can cause discomfort.

• Best left to auxiliary/unconscious processes

what is Culture?

• aggregate of shared values, beliefs, language, or behaviour of group

Individualism

Emphasize interests of individual over the group. Values independence, creativity, strong sense of self. Often Western countries

Collectivism

group over individual. Social harmony, social roles, and loyalty. Often Asian, Latin American, or African countries.

what is homogeneity?

Cross-cultural variance

findings from Bond & Smith’s replications of Asch Line study

• Collectivist cultures tend to conform at higher rates

• Found conformity has been decreasing since 1950s

• Globalization and increased individualism in society

  

Pen study (Kim and Markus (1999)

• Gave both East Asians and Americans task. Offered to pick a pen as a reward for completing the study.

• Recorded what colour pen. collectivistic chose the plain coloured pen.

• Perceived "norm" of pens was either preferred or shunned depending on culture

• Conformity (or resistance thereof) can be found even in mundane choices

• Individuals choose minority more often.

what is morality?

the distinction between good/bad behaviour/beliefs

Moral Asch study (MacGillvry and Mikulka, 2024)

• Designed Asch line study for responding to moral dilemmas

• Compared responses in anonymous vs unanimous public response.

• Control and test conditions. People will conform to public judgments so publicly express something different than their inner thoughts.

• Conformity works better when dilemmas are more ambiguous and/or culturally specific

Conformity in online environments

• Algorithms (catered to you), echo chambers

• Role models

• Seeing what friends like/follow

• Ease in marketing

Algorithms

curated feeds powered by programs that attempt to predict/guide preferences

• Can be uniquely powerful in the shaping of beliefs and perceived social norms

• Confirmation bias: tendency to engage with information that aligns with pre-existing beliefs

• can exacerbate an already pervasive and powerful cognitive bias by:

  • Creating a feedback loop of homogeneity

  • Making it harder to find dissenting/diverse arguments

    

censorship online

Chinese platforms suppress LGBTQ+ content and promote nationalistic/consumerist views (2024)

• '1989' in China

• Perceived unanimity in online settings can polarize existing political views (2024)

• Algorithms can be altered to covertly 'nudge' people to engage with specific content (2020)

• Algorithms can discourage user agreement which leads to up to 400% polarization

• Knowledge of how algorithms work can encourage people to be more mindful and able to practice "active curation" (2023)

Minority influence

minority (group/individual) influences the majority to accept the behaviour/belief. Reverse conformity.

what did the reverse asch study find (Moscovici 1969)?

• Had incorrect colours, and 32% of participants agreed with confederate at least once.

• Minority opinion can have effect.

facets of social impact theory

Strength, immediacy, numbers

• Predicts smaller minorities will garner less conformity

• Have to appear confident and answer consistently across phases

• Partly driven by source credibility (authority)

• Distinct weakness compared to majority conformity

• If minority affects unanimity of majority, It can discourage conformity to majority

reciprocation click whirr holiday cards

You are more likely to do a favour for someone if they did one for you. Also liking is affected by being subject of a favour.

• The feeling of indebtedness is unpleasant (we do not want to feel obliged to people)

what is Rejection-then-retreat = foot in the door technique

• Starting with a larger request produced more positive results in smaller requests asked for after.

• called the contrast principle

FITD side effects?

• Feelings of responsibility for the terms of a contract will feel more obliged to live up to them

• Satisfaction with the agreement: the more likely to be willing to agree to similar arrangements. Since the tactic uses concession to bring about compliance, the victim usually feels more satisfied.

tupperware sales technique

having sellers host parties and try to sell to their friends increases the chances they will sell vs going to strangers. The strength of that social bond Is twice as likely to determine product purchase as is preference for the product itself.

reciprocity

what can we observe from the boys who went to camp?

successful joint efforts toward common goals bridged the riff between the two groups

what is compliance?

change in behaviour in response to a request

compliance examples

• Letting someone cut in line, buying a product

• First active social influence

• Broadly studied topic with many factors/influences

• Challenging to study as it is difficult to causally determine organic liking

Cialdini's compliance perspective

• Compliance involves the activation of automatic behaviour sequences

• Through relatively non-thoughtful processes that lead us to think we should comply

what are Cialdini’s six basic principles underlying compliance? RASSCL

• Reciprocity

• Commitment/consistency

• Social proof

• Liking

• Authority

• Scarcity

principle of linking

• People  are more likely to comply to requests from people they like

• Thinking something is funny or attractive makes you more inclined to comply with their requests

  

attractiveness

• We like people we are physically attracted to, deem them more worthy of attention and our affiliation

• Attractive political candidates receive 2.5x more votes. Attractive defendants 2x less likely to serve prison time.

• Judgements of facial features can predict congress elections with 70% accuracy, 100ms pictures,

halo effect

tendency to examine a positive attribute and infer other positive attributes.

• Horn effect

one negative feature of someone can bring down their entire rating in society.

similarity

• We like people that we perceive as similar to us

• Clothing: hippie vs straight clothing study, 1971. asked for a dime and recorded levels of compliance. Mismatching 33% compliance, matching clothes 66% compliance. The older the study, the more exaggerated the effect.

• People are more likely to sign a petition if propositioned by someone dressed similarly

The Burger studies -

I like burgers because they are the same everywhere and it’s a familiar food.

Incidental similarity 1 (essay feedback)

Burger et al. (2004): Experiment 1

Collected participant birthdays under the guise of studying astrological sign

• Similarity condition – confederate shares birthday with participant.

• Control condition – confederate had a different birthday

• DV – Confederate requested feedback on an essay after the “experiment” had concluded

• Measured compliance

results of burger exp 1

Control – 34.2% (did not have expressed explicit similarities)

• Similarity – 62.2%

Sharing a birthday with someone gives you a feeling of similarity.

 

Incidental similarity 2 (CHARITY)

Burger et al. (2004): Experiment 2

• Participants completed a supposed creativity study, were told to bring 5 $1 bills

• Participant approached by confederate when leaving the building and asked for a donation to charity, shown picture of girl with disease

• Measured how much donated on average

• Similarity condition 1: confederate has name tag with the same name as participant. Excluded super unique names $2.07

• Similarity condition 2: photo girl has same name - $0.81

• Control condition: confederate has a different name - $1

More willing to comply to requester with similarity to us.