Cumulative Social Influence Set

What is obedience?

A form of social influence where an individual follows a direct order or command from an authority figure, often seen in studies such as Milgram's experiment.

What was Milgram’s Obedience Study (1963)?

A series of experiments conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram to examine the extent to which individuals would obey authority figures, even when requested to perform actions conflicting with their personal conscience.

What percentage of participants in Milgram’s study were obedient until the end?

65%

What is the slippery slope of actions? (Obedience)

Participants gradually obey increasingly demanding commands and are reluctant to quit as it is seen as an admission of fault

What comes from the definition of the situation and “role”? (Obedience)

Refers to how individuals interpret and respond to the demands of authority within a given context, significantly influencing their likelihood to obey.

What did we mean by fragmentation of the human act? (Obedience)

Minimizing the responsibility of the participant by placing the majority of blame on the experimentor

Define “Avoidance of the victim” (Obedience)

Avoiding or refusing to acknowledge the victim of the harmful actions, making it easier to comply with authority demands.

What ways can you reduce obedience?

Increase participant responsibility for harm, indicate that total submission is inappropriate, question the motives and expertise of authority figures, and increase awareness of the power of obedience

What is "click-whirr”?

The notion that we are often on auto-pilot [usually the word "because" is good enough for us to agree]

Reciprocity Principle

-One of the most universal cultural norms

-We are nice to people who are nice to us

-Receiving gifts makes us feel indebted

Coca-Cola Reciprocity Example

-Joe is polite or rude

-Reciprocity is more powerful than liking

-If P's received a Coke, they bought more tickets REGARDLESS of whether or not Joe was nice

Door in the face

Rejection then retreat

-Big request followed by a smaller request.

- "Rejection then retreat"

-Perception of flexibility seems reasonable

- Guilt?

Thats-not-all technique

Before the person can respond, improve the deal

Commitment principle (and consistency)

We feel uncomfortable when we are not consistent with a previous action, statement, or choice

-Often this involves self-image

Low-Ball

Agree to conditions, then conditions are changed for the worse

-Something good was removed or something bad was added

- Post-decisional dissonance is included here

Foot in the door

The small request is followed by a bigger request, which is the one you really want

- Might work better with two different requesters, and if there is a bit of a delay between requests

"Would you do me a favor"

- The first request could simply be to ask for a favor

- Asking "could you do me a favor" gets higher compliance than if you don't ask

Bait-and-switch

The original product is out of stock, but you are already at the store

-Lures people into the store

Labeling technique

"You're the kind of person who..."

"You are a helpful/ kind person..."

-Whatever people say I am, I am

Legitimization of Small favors

"Even a penny would help!"

Foot-in-the-mouth technique

"How are you doing today"

-Social norms demand a positive response almost all the time

-Real request is much harder to resist

Liking

- Flattery

- Manipulating similarity; classical conditioning

Scarcity

Playing hard to get, more valuable if it's scarce

Pique technique

Unusual request "piques" your interest, making it harder to ignore

- Can't do mindless rejection

Disrupt-then-reframe technique

Saying something a different way that is distracting, making it harder to resist

-Membership value club: $3 or 300 pennies

Music

- Pleasant and familiar background music enhanced compliance rates vs. no music

-Ps asked to call a fellow student to give bad news

-Researcher "didn't feel like" making the call"

Touch

A light touch increases compliance for signing petitions, volunteering, and... trying pizza

-"Would you like to try a sample of this Frozen pizza?

-79% of the touched sampled; only 51% of the control

-37% of the touched BOUGHT it; only 19% of control

-No difference in ratings of pizza

(Equal across all gender combos, other research has said otherwise)

"You are free to accept or refuse"

Reminding people that they are free to refuse increases compliance

-Compliance rose from 10% to 47.5% when reminded of their freedom

-Heightened sense of freedom helps with reactance

Culture and Compliance

o Think about individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures and how they differ

o Social proof OR commitment/ consistency principle affects on different types of culture

o Studies conducted in Poland (collectivistic) and the US (individualistic) tried both approaches at 3 different intensity levels (within subjects)

o "Would you take a 40-minute survey by the Coca-Cola company?"

o All, half, or none of their peers agreed to do surveys like these (social proof)

o THEY themselves had agreed to do surveys like this all, half, or none of the time in the past (commitment consistency)

Market based

one on one exchange of favors

Family based

Comply with ingroup members, especially high-status

Friendship based

Loyalty to one's friends

System based

According to the rules and norms of the organization, one is a member of

Defending yourself

A. Reject the rule: if they say it's free, then hold them to it!

B. Take the Time you Need

C. What do your feelings tell you (and where did they come from)?

D. Turn the tables

E. Do some counterfactual thinking

Social Identity Theory

Perceiving the self as a member of a social group and identifying with it

o Ex. 30 room house is a lot of cleaning, we used to live in a one-room shack

· Consequence: self-esteem is involved with this identification

o A need to increase self-esteem can result in seeing other groups as inferior to one's own

o When group members feel that their identity is being threatened, they tend to exhibit increased levels of prejudice toward the other group

Minimal group paradigm

Classifying people on new, trivial criteria like a preference for art or a coin flip

- Rate outgroup members lower and give fewer resources to them

*Ethnocentrism

Kinship

- The power of family/ genetic ties

- Physical characteristics a cue for relatedness, but also attitude similarity

- Expanding the "family" by using certain words, emphasizing common fate

- Common enemies, minor similarities, and shared emotions to create a new "family"

Common Place matters

Neighborhood/ town, "We're Asian like you," Rabbi to Japanese during WWII

Acting together

- Marching, walking, and dancing together create a bond

- Brain patterns begin to sync

· Common and coordinating actions enhance similarity and helpfulness, less bias

- Greater sharing of success

Music Together

Music + joint action = more sacrifice

The IKEA Effect

It is not real, but when you act in the creation of it, you value it higher

Endowment effect

Simply owning something makes it more valuable

Shared suffering

-Himmler protecting one Jewish man

-They fought together in WWI

- Corporate and other team-building (not necessarily suffering)

- Irish helping Indigenous Americans to repay a debt from the 1847 potato famine

The emotional/ intuitive system

Not rational

- "I feel" instead of "I think"

- Merging identities (we), the inclusion of others in the self (others can be a person, group, or environment)

Contact hypothesis

a. Knowing people (more than one) from the other group

i. More fun context, informal

ii. Personal

iii. Positive

iv. Superordinate goal

Superordinate goals

- Cave study, two groups of boys at summer camp had to work together to achieve a goal bigger than themselves

Common Ingroup Identity Model

a. Find a commonality to incorporate two separate circles or at least part of them

b. Instead of focusing on the differences, expand the circle to include more people

c. Ex. Red Sox vs. Yankees baseball fans

Five step model of identity to develop collective hate

1. Cohesive identity

2. Exclusion

3. Threat (or perceived threat) from outgroup

4. Virtue of ingroup

5. Celebration

Cohesive identity

a. Advantages: trust, solidarity, well-being, coordination of actions, feeling supported

b. But taken to an extreme, identity fusion?

Exclusion

a. This can take almost any form or be arbitrary, but most often along religious, political lines

b. An "us" and a "them"

Threat

a. Outgroup threatens ingroup's values or culture

b. "Identity undermining" - not just that they're different, but they're preventing my group from reaching identity- consistent goals

c. Could be exaggerated or made up

d. Sometimes just fear of being outnumbered

i. Whites become more discriminatory and conservative when told white % is dropping

ii. "They're swamping us," "miscegenation"

e. Dehumanizing, such as animal images

i. Ex. Hitler calling Jewish people "parasites"

Virtue of ingroup

a. This is under-emphasized. Deifying one's leaders or one's group is a dangerous step

b. If ingroup is uniquely good and important, then one must defend it at all costs

Celebration

a. Merely self-defense of the virtuous ingroup

b. The moral imperative to protect the ingroup by harming the outgroup

c. Robespierre (French Revolution): "Virtue and terror hand in hand)

d. Even the massacre of innocents becomes necessary, even a holy act! Hate through identity and group process

Intellectual Humility

The extent to which we realize that our beliefs may be wrong

A. Recognizing the you might be wrong

B. You will be liked more but it might come with some existential or death anxiety (uncertainty)

C. Your relationships are probably healthier

D. You might process and remember information better

E. Perhaps the interpersonal benefits are worth the intrapersonal costs? Can we reduce existential anxiety? Learn to tolerate or even celebrate uncertainty?

F. Existential tradeoff but clear interpersonal benefits: we like humble people

G. Intellectual humility (your own and/or your partner's) can improve relationship quality

H. Some cognitive benefits too (better memory, more accurate processing of info)

Trust Crisis

o Only 6% of consumers agree with "companies generally tell the truth in advertising"

o Ex. Wells Fargo

§ Saying one thing, do the complete opposite

o 17.5 million search results when looking up "lied to customers"

· Almost 5 times more trust in small business than big business

Truth: a competitive advantage

o Truth is a rare commodity, making it increase in value

o Flawed is the new perfect

§ When someone lies, next time you want to see proof that they aren't lying

§ "Imported from Detroit," sales up 44%

o The Dove Dilemma

§ The company that owns Dove made an ad about not letting daughters see beauty standard commercials but turned around and made a sexist Axe Body spray commercial at the same time

What is a false dilemma?

When only two choices are presented yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes.

What is the fallacy of antecedent?

Basing your anticipation for the future on what has or has not happened before. E.g., "It's never happened before, so it won't happen now". A inductive error.

What is a tautological error?

Repeating your argument in a different way as if that is proof that you are correct. E.g., "This is a fantastic sale because it is 30% off."

What is a tautology?

A repetitive statement, true because it is simply the definition. E.g., Frozen ice, ATM machine

What is a red herring?

A fallacy that introduces an irrelevant issue to divert attention from the subject under discussion

What is "ignorance as proof" error?

Can be used two ways: "A lack of evidence means it doesn't exist" and "If you can't disprove it, it must exist."

What is the "all natural" fallacy?

The idea that members of the same category share the same attributes. E.g., that all natural ingredients are good simply because they are natural

What is an inductive argument?

An argument that starts with a specific point and generalizes it

What is a deductive argument?

An argument that starts with general information to come to a specific point

What is moral foundations theory?

a theory proposing that there are five evolved, universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgments

What are the five foundations of moral foundations theory?

Harm/care

Fairness/reciprocity

Ingroup/loyalty

Authority/respect

Purity/sanctity

What foundations do liberals tend to focus on?

Harm/care and fairness/reciprocity

What foundations do conservatives tend to focus on?

All five: Harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity

What does ethos refer to?

The values and character of the speaker/argument

What does pathos refer to?

The emotional appeal of the speaker/argument

What does logos refer to?

The logical appeal of the speaker/argument

What are some ways to use pathos?

Humor

Tell a story

Use some visible emotions, but not too much and not too little

Anger

Fear

Over-sympathize

Use the passive voice ("Mistakes were made...not by me")

What are some ways to use ethos?

Tailor your argument to the audience

Brag or have someone brag for you

Reveal a flaw or weakness that you have

Argue against your own interests

Use of buzzwords, language that appeals to the audience

What are Aristotle's three methods of arguments?

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Commitments are stronger when they are...

Active and public

Desire for consistency is stronger in ___ cultures

Individualistic

What is the realistic conflict theory?

That prejudice is stronger when resources are scarce

What did the infant study for the realistic conflict theory show?

Children expect favoritism when resources (cookies) are scarce, but expect a fair share when they are plentiful

What is the social proof principle?

The more others do something, the more likely we will also do it

More influential in collectivistic societies/cultures

What is "PTG"?

-Post Traumatic Growth (PTG)

-It is positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event.

What makes someone a hero?

Experiencing suffering then experiencing a positive transformation from it

What is the "Hero's arc"?

Order-disorder-reorder

What are the six types of transformations?

Emotional

Mental

Phsyical

Spiritual

Moral

Motivational

What is an appeal to popularity?

An argumentative fallacy that because everyone likes or does something, it must be right or the best

What are the main logical errors?

False comparison

Bad examples

Ignorance as proof

Tautology

False choice

Red herrings

What are the four false comparison types?

"All Natural" fallacy

Appeal to popularity

Fallacy of the antecedent

False analogy

What are the two types of bad examples?

Misinterpretation of evidence

Hasty generalizations

What are the three types of false choices?

Combining two things

False dilemma

Multiple causes

What is the multiple causes fallacy?

Reducing a complex issue to one cause

What is the importance of narratives and personal experience when talking to someone who disagrees with you?

When personal arguments are used in political disagreements, they are treated with more respect

Which study showed the importance of personal experience in political disagreements?

Kubin et al. (2021)

How did Kubin et al. conduct their study?

Analyzing YouTube comments, conducting one-on-one conversations, and reading media transcripts

Why do we rarely change our mind?

Confirmation bias - even when presented with opposing information, we will look for whatever proves our side right

What study showed the impact of confirmation bias?

Stanford "Consider the Opposite" Study (Lord, Lepper, & Preston, 1984)

What is the endowment effect?

What you already possess is more valuable to you

Hypothesis that people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them

What studies were used to demonstrate the pique technique?

Two unnamed studies:

Field-study: 4 groups, 2 were asked by panhandlers for either 17 cents or 37 cents; participants gave 55-60% more

Thought study: Ask students to imagine a panhandler approaches with a "strange" request, more likely to give money if it's interesting

What study was used to demonstrate the legitimization of small favors?

Costco toy drive: Customers were asked to donate toys, donations increased when employees wore a shirt that said "Even a marble will make them smile"

Conformity

The tendency to align attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those of a group or social norm, often to gain acceptance or avoid rejection.

Compliance

A type of social influence where an individual changes their behavior in response to a direct request from another person.