SOCIAL INFLUENCE REVISION - DONE!

OBEDIENCE: DONE

Obedience definition:

→ Obedience is a form of social influence when an individual responds to a direct order, usually from an authority figure.

Milgram’s study on obedience: procedure and outcome

→ Milgram’s study is testing obedience

→ People involved include:

• Teacher (Only Participants)

• Learner (Confederate)

• Authority Figure (Researcher Confederate)

→ Process:

• Recruited people to take part in study investigating the effect of punishment on learning when it was really about testing obedience (Deception)

• Drew straws to determine roles, thinking there was a fair chance to get either learner or teacher, however, it was rigged so the participants would always get the teacher role and the confederate would always get the learner role. (Deception)

• Teacher asked the learner questions and administered increasing electrical shocks for the wrong answers given, however, these electrical shocks were not real. (Deception)

• The authority figure said to continue shocks when teacher did not want to do so

→ Outcome:

• Teacher kept shocking the learner at high levels of volts due to obeying the authority figure

Learning from Milgram’s study

• People have a strong tendency to obey an authority figure as fear of consequences trumps one’s morals

• Situational factors may influence crimes done rather than dispositional factors

7 Factors affecting obedience

Personal Responsibility:

→ More responsibility one holds, decreases obedience

→ Less responsibility one holds, increases obedience

Peer Support:

→ More support from friends disobey declining obedience

→ Less support from friends to disobey, increasing obedience

→ More support from friends to obey, increasing obedience

→ Less support from friends to obey, declining obedience

De-individuation:

→ When in a crowd, less responsibility, increases obedience

→ When not in a crowd, more responsibility, decreases obedience

Prestige or Status of the Authority Figure:

→ Higher status, increases obedience

→ Lower status, decreases obedience

Legitimacy of the Authority Figure:

→ Higher amount of expertise / qualification, increases obedience

→ Lower amount of expertise / qualification, decreases obedience

Proximity of the Authority Figure:

→ More (physically) closer, increases obedience

→ Not (physically) close, decreases obedience

Status of Location

→ Higher / formal status, increases obedience

→ Lower status, decreases obedience

Deindividuation and factors affecting it

Deindividuation means when one loses a sense of identity and behaves in different ways than normal.

→ The more the individuation, the lower the compliance

→ The more the deindividuation, the higher the compliance

Factors affecting Deindividuation:

→ Group Contagion: Increases compliance within group

• People copying others nearby physically or online

→ Anonymity

• Protected from being known, cancelling out personal responsibility

→ Heightened Arousal

• Increased excitement due to presence of others or intake of alcohol and / or drugs

Ethical concerns of Milgram’s study

Psychological Harm and Distress:

→ Participants were under emotional strain, being forced to go against their morals and values to intentionally hurt someone. Seeing the learner/confederate be harmed could have caused trauma. Knowing that they actually chose to ‘shock’ someone would’ve caused cognitive dissonance, therefore causing distress

Right to Withdraw:

→ When the participants asked and begged to leave to stop ‘hurting’ the confederate/learner, the authority figure told them to stay and keep going, disobeying their right to withdraw

Deception:

→ Milgram advertised the study to be about the relationship between punishment and learning when it was really testing obedience

→ The chance of being either put as learner or teacher was rigged so that the teacher would always be the participant and the confederate would always be the learner

→ As the participants didn’t know that they weren’t actually shocking someone, the act is classified as deception.

Zimbardo Prison Experiment: procedure and outcome

The study was done to find out the dispositional versus situational effects prison life

→ Selection of participants : emotionally stable Uni students

→ Arrested them from their home (D), stripped, deloused, dressed in a smock to dehumanise them

→ Simulator jail in basement of Uni'

→ Random allocation into guards + prisoners (experimental aspect)

→ No physical violence to control prisoners, but acts of public humiliation and degradement was done instead if they ‘crossed the line’

→ Psychological violence in the form of petty activities that was pointless + boring & dehumanising comments, + called by their number

→ Was supposed to last two weeks, only lasted 6 days as another psychologist disagreed with the process.

→ The prisoners and guards lost all sense of indivdiuality and humanity, internalising stereotypical roles.

→ One prisoner was suffering mentally due to the experiment and requested to leave, yet was denied the right to.

Ethical concerns about Zimbardo’s study

Deception

→ The prisoners were unaware that they would be arrested at their own home (or arrested at all), causing distress to not only themselves but also those living with them. Zimbardo wanted this to be the case as to make the experiment have a higher ecological validity

Informed Consent

→ Zimbardo could not (and did not) give out to the volunteers a full run-down of the experiment as it was totally subjective of what was going to happen. The outcome of the proposed two weeks was unpredictable.

Psychological Harm

→ Those who were playing the prisoner role, experienced high levels of distress and humiliation due to the guards fully internalising their roles.

Right to Withdraw:

→ After one participant (prisoner) started to experience signs of mental distress and had asked to leave because of so, Zimbardo denied his request as it was important that the experiment continued, despite the prisoner having all rights to withdraw

Learning from Zimbardo's study

Situational factors may have more of an influence than dispositional factors on one’s behaviour, especially when stereotypes are internalised.

The importance of social influence on obedience

When acting as a group, the influence of others upon yourself cause obedience to be higher or lower depending on the situation

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CONFORMITY DONE

Conformity definition

• A form of social influence where individuals yield to group pressure

• ‘A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure’

Types of conformity

Compliance:

→ A public change in behaviour to be more like the majority, however, internally no change in original beliefs, values or ways to act. The shallowest level of conformity and lasts short term.

Identification:

→ Taking on the views of individuals or groups we admire (changes public and private behaviour and beliefs only when with a certain group, keeping own opinion when you are on your own) The middle level of conformity and lasts short term.

Internalisation

→ A true change of beliefs → believing a group is right in their actions, so one will adjust their behaviours and beliefs accordingly. The deepest level of conformity and lasts long term.

Normative social influence

(This is why people conform)

Normative social influence is when a person conforms to be accepted or belong to a group. This relates to the following types of conformity: Compliance and Identification (short term changes)

Informational social influence

(This is why people conform)

Informational social influence is when a person conforms to gain knowledge or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’. This relates to the following type of conformity: Internalisation (long term changes)

4 individual characteristics

(This is why people conform)

High Self Monitor

→ Form of impression management (masking) where the person organises how other people view them. A H.S.M almost constantly watches other people’s behaviour and tries to be like them

Low Self Monitor

→ When you value your own individual beliefs more than the opinions of the group

Low Status

→ A person new to the group or of low status is likely to conform more

Culture

→ Some cultures that value the good of the community more than the good of the individual conform more. This cultural aspect affects the level of individual conformity

6 Factors increasing/decreasing the level of conformity

Individual differences

→ Decrease in level of conformity as the contrasting characteristics between members of the group can cause a lack of agreement

Size of the Group

→ Increase in level of conformity as group size increases, although optimal group size is 4-5 for height of conformity

Lack of Group Unanimity (agreement)

→ Decrease in level of conformity because if one person gives a different answer than the others (when asked a question), conformity has dropped as the group’s answer wasn’t unanimous

Difficulty of Task

→ Increase in level of conformity as people tend to rely on others when they need help, so in doing so, conformity levels are expected to increase.

Answer in Private

→ Decrease in level of conformity as the chance for an individual to answer in private / away from the group, causes less social pressure and normative influence isn’t as powerful. However, identity of the individual is still known.

Anonymity

→ Decrease in level of conformity as when an individual has the opportunity to keep answers or beliefs to themself rather than announcing them public to the group, conformity drops and therefore, the individual’s identity is unknown.

Status of Majority Group

→ Increase in level of conformity because if someone of high status is in the group, they will have more influence over individuals, thus having people conform more to their opinions and beliefs. The higher the status of the group, the higher the level of conformity.

Asch conformity study procedure and outcome

The aim of Asch’s study was to examine the extent that social pressure to conform from a unanimous majority affects conformity in a group / situation.

Asch gathered 123 undergraduate males (USA) and told them that they were partaking in a vision test. Along with the volunteer participants were also confederates of Asch’s. To test levels of conformity, Asch placed one participant in a room of confederates and gave them sheet with lines of different height to determine which was the tallest. However, the confederates were instructed to present with the incorrect answer, in order to see if the volunteer participant would answer the same. This process was done multiple times over.

The results concluded that 32% of the critical trials, the volunteer participants conformed, 74% of participants conformed at least once, and 26% of participants never conformed.

From this study, it was supported that people conformed due to wanting to fit in, and not be left out / embarrassed, meaning people usually comply due to normative social influence and wanting to fit in publicly although not changing their private beliefs.

Ethical Issues:

→ Deception:

• Asch had told the participants that they were to be taking a vision test rather than a line judgment task testing conformity

→ Informed Consent:

• Again, because of the deception, the participants were unaware of the full process of the conformity test as they believed it were to be testing vision

→ Psychological Harm:

• Many of the individuals would’ve started to stress and be anxious at the thought that they were getting the answers wrong, feeling internal shame and fear at the thought that they may have poorer vision than believed

Ethnocentric bias effects on Australian indigenous people

-> Must include them in process of creating study

-> Must not have ethnocentric view

-> If they are portrayed incorrectly, they might experience more stigma, discrimination, social isolation, and refuse to be in studies as of past experiences

ATTITUDE DONE

Definition of an Attitude

Attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs and behaviours towards a particular object, person, issue or event, that is a consistent way in which we operate

4 Types of attitude

Positive:

→ Liking for a person, object, issue or event

Negative:

→ Disliking for a person, object, issue or event

Neutral:

→ Not interested in having an attitude to the person, object, issue or event

Ambivalent:

→ Having both positive and negative attitides to the person, object, issue or event

ABC model to explain the structure of an attitude

Affect:

→ Refers to the emotions (feelings) that the person with the attitude has

Behaviour:

→ Refers to the actions carried out by the person with the attitude

Cognition:

→ Refers to the thinking part of the attitude that the person has

Example:

Affect: Football makes me feel angry

Behaviour: I don’t go to football

Cognition: I think that football is a waste of time

Disagreement between Behaviour and Affect + Cognition

Behaviour may not always be in agreement with Affect and Cognition because:

→ Factors within an Attitude

• Strength

• Accessibility

• Specificity

• Ambivalence

→ Personality

→ Outside Factors

• Social Pressure

Definition of Persuasion

Persuasion is the process by which a person’s attitudes or behaviours are influenced by communication from other people, most critical in advertising and politics

Theories of Persuasion

Yale Attitude Change Approach (source, message content, audience)

Components Includes:

→ Who (the source)

• Credibility

• Status

• Expertise

• Power

• Trustworthiness

• Likeability

• Speaking style

• Similarity

• Attractiveness

→ What (the content of the message)

• Produces strong emotions (fear, happiness)

• Two sided argument is better than one sided

• Repetition

• Novelty

• Genuine

→ To Whom (the audience)

• Personality

• Low esteem

• Expectations

• Pre-existing attitudes

• Age

• Intelligence

• Serious thought

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (central and peripheral route to persuasion)

Central Route: FIIRM

→ Facts and Statistics

→ Intellectual Processing

→ Intelligence and Cognitive Capacity

→ Reasoning

→ Motivation

• Most likely to be a permanent attitude change as processing is deep and thorough

• The persuasive argument may become part of the audience’s belief structure

Peripheral Route:

→ Beauty / attractiveness

→ Fame

→ Similarity

→ Pleasure

→ Novelty

→ Fun

• The association made between the product (idea) and the beauty / pleasure is a form of classical conditioning to encourage the person to buy the product or be convinced about the idea

• This route is used when the audience motivation to think about an issue is low

• The persuasion is short-lived as the association is not very strong

Experience (direct/indirect)

Direct Experience:

→ The event happens to the individual

• The effect on the formation of attitude is quite strong and the change in attitude is resistant to further change

Indirect Experience:

→ The event occurs to someone else, such as in advertisements, or a person’s friend is being bullied

• The event has less effect on the person’s change in attitude and it is not so strongly held

Types of Persuasion Techniques (Increase Compliance)

The Norm of Reciprocity:

→ Involves responding to another’s action with another equivalent action

→ Can be both positive and negative

Door in the Face:

→ An unreasonably large request is asked before asking a smaller one

→ The large request is refused, but the smaller one is more likely to be accepted as the person feels bad about refusing the large one

Foot in the Door:

→ A small request is asked first, before asking a larger request as the likelihood of agreeing to the second one is increased after the person agrees to the first one

Ways of Resisting Persuasion by Increasing Attitude Strength

Counter Arguments:

→ Arguing against the persuasion ideas, so attitude strength increases

Attitude Bolstering:

→ Social comparison that affirms the attitude, increases attitude strength of

→ Positive feedback from someone else to strengthen own attitude

Source Derogation:

→ Dismissing the claims / expertise of the source, increasing attitude strength

Bidirectional Relationship between Attitude and Behaviour (A→B and B→A)

A→B: Attitude affects Behaviour

3 Factors within the Attitude affecting the Attitude : Behaviour link

→ Strength

• Strongly held attitudes affect behaviour more, endure over time and are more resistant to change

• High level information (Y & ELM:Cr) and direct experience (E:De) increase the strength of the attitude

→ Accessibility

• Highly accessible attitudes affect behaviour most

• Strong attitudes (Y & ELM:Cr), direct experience (E:De), priming by recalling attitude often, and relevance to a life event (E:De&Ie) increase the accessibility of the attitude

→ Specificity

• Specific attitudes affect behaviour most

• The more detailed one gets with their attitude towards something, the more payout in their behaviour

B→A Behaviour affects attitude:

When people engage in a behaviour, thoughts and feelings towards that behaviour are likely to change.

Self Perception Theory:

→ Founded by Daryl Bem in 1967

→ Theory is that people can analyse their own behaviour in the same way they would analyse someone else’s behaviour, especially when uncertainty is present

• E.G Susan completes many jigsaws while she was injured. While she completed these jigsaws, she realised she enjoyed doing them and had a positive attitude towards them. Before she was uncertain, now she is certain.

Attitude : Behaviour Link → Not Always Consistent due to:

Cognitive Dissonance:

→ The theory by Leon Festinger (1957) that people need to be consistent in attitudes and beliefs otherwise mental distress will arise

→ An uncomfortable feeling caused by having two contradictory ideas at the same time

→ Solutions to Cognitive Dissonance:

• Change the behaviour to agree with the attitude

• Change the thought to agree with the behaviour

• Add a new thought to justify the behaviour

• Trivialise the dissonance so it is of no importance

Social Situations on the Attitude : Behaviour Link:

→ Peer pressure to perform a behaviour that is not linked to your morals / attitude

→ Existing social norms that differ from ones attitude

Being a High Self Monitor on the Attitude : Behaviour Link:

→ High self monitors are concerned with how they appear to the outside world, regardless of their internal beliefs, so they adapt to each differing situation

Inconsistency of the Attitude : Behaviour Link Effects:

Mental Distress:

→ An individual with ongoing inconsistency between attitude and behaviour can experience negative stress that harms relationships and others

• E.G drinking alcohol when health issues indicate not to

Inability to Predict Behaviour:

→ Attitudinal Fallacy:

• Attitudinal fallacy is the discrepancy between what individuals report as their attitudes and their actual behaviours

• In turn, if participants in a study commit the act of attitudinal fallacy, this produces poorer research

→ Social Desirability

• Social desirability is when someone adopts a people pleasing attitude to save their own dignity but doesn’t follow through with the equivalent / promised behaviour

→ Combination of Both:

• Lead to social issues

• Lead to financial issues

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PREJUDICE DONE

Prejudice definition

Prejudice is a prejudgement due to a usually negative feeling (affect) towards a based on their perceived group memberships. Prejudice is also an attitude and a social issue

ABC structure of prejudice

• Affect = emotions / dislike / how your emotions towards other are not nice

• Behaviour = discriminate against in action / how your actions are not nice

• Cognition = stereotypical thinking / how your thinking is not nice

Stereotyping:

→ An over generalised opinion (often incorrect cognition) about a particular group of people, that can produce prejudiced feelings which can lead to discriminatory actions.

Discrimination:

→ Positive or negative treatment of others (behaviour), that is influenced by strong feels of prejudice to lead towards that discrimination.

Reasons for prejudice

People may have prejudiced attitude due to unintentional biases, such as gender, disability, religious, appearance, socioeconomic, education, favouritism, conformity (fitting in with the group).

Unintentional biases may also include:

→ Confirmation bias

• The tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports the person’s earlier beliefs or values

→ Attribution bias

• How people assess behaviour, so when good things happen, it is attributed to only that person’s behaviour, however, when bad things happen, it is blamed on external factors

→ Fundamental Attribution error

• Occurs when other people’s bad behaviour is attributed to only their poor character rather than taking situational factors into account

A prejudiced attitude can come about due to exposure (direct or indirect experience) and learning to have one (association, reinforcement, modelling):

→ Exposure:

• Direct Experience

  → If you have experienced prejudice yourself firsthand, that can affect / influence your own unintentional biases

• Indirect Experience

  → If you saw your peers / parents / friends be prejudiced towards something, that can influence your own unintentional biases to rise and be affected

→ Learning

• Association (Classical Conditioning)

  → Gender bias can occur by repeated association linking males and low value as shown in this comic

• Reinforcement (Operant Conditioning)

  → If young people are rewarded by attention from other peers when they bully, the behaviour is reinforced and increased

• Modelling

  → Children can learn by copying their parents so prejudice can be learnt from them

The effects of prejudice:

Social stigma:

→ Occurs when someone is viewed in a negative way because of a distinguishing characteristic or personal trait that’s thought to be, or actually is, a disadvantage (a negative stereotype)

• Effects of Social Stigma

  → Feelings of shame, hopelessness, isolate and depression

  → Experiencing insults & prejudice due to stereotyping

  → Fewer opportunities for employment / social interaction

  → Lack of respect, bullying, violence or harassment

  → Self-doubt - unsure about achieving successfully in life

Internalisation of others’ evaluations:

→ When individuals are stigmatised, it can lead to them believing such ideas internally. This can result in a self fulfilling prophecy.

• Self Fulfilling Prophecy:

  → A person's or a group's expectation for the behaviour of another person or group serves actually to bring about the expected behaviour.

• Effects of Internalisation of Other’s Evaluation:

  → For example, a person who is told repeatedly about personal lack of value may end up showing just that, lacking self-esteem, confidence and motivation to be productive in any area

Stereotype threat:

→ When a person is discriminated against due to stereotyping and prejudice (e.g, gender or race), there is a tendency to feel threatened by this stereotyping.

• Effects of Stereotype Threat:

  →Decreased performance due focusing on the threat rather than the task, or anxiety decreasing working memory.

  → Diminished confidence

  → Loss of interest in the relevant area of achievement

7 Strategies for reduction of prejudice

Gain public support and awareness for social norms that are anti-prejudice

Have authority figures model lack of prejudice

Provide equal legal status and economic opportunities

Increase the frequency of contact with members of other social groups as well as their cultures

Create cognitive dissonance to initiate resolution of the dissonance

→ Example: I hate potatoes so I do not eat potatoes. To create that dissonance, you should change the behaviour and eat the potatoes but still not like them to resolve prejudice

Encourage teamwork between the groups to achieve shared goals

Use education to make people aware of the inconsistencies in their own beliefs

Non explicit forms of prejudice:

Reluctance to Help:

→ Reluctance to help other groups achieve equal access or improve their position in society by passively or actively not providing assistance

• Example: Poor accessible access for physically disabled employees in a workplace

Tokenism:

→ Deliberately giving trivial assistance to a minority group to be seen as inclusive or avoid accusation of prejudice and discrimination

• Employing one woman in a predominantly male organisation

Reverse Discrimination of a Minority Group:

→ Creating prejudice in favour of a minority group

• Example: Deliberately favouring a minority group with an employment policy to ensure equality and inclusion - for example 50% of SA police recruits must be available for females.

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IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT / SOCIAL MEDIA DONE

Impression management definition

Impression management is a conscious attempt to control how others perceive that individual.

→ Self presentation is a subset of impression management.

4 Differences between face to face and online impression management

Self concept definition

The personal knowledge (cognition) that the individual has of themselves, including behavior, abilities, and unique characteristics.

3 parts of self concept (self image, ideal self and self esteem/worth) and their relationship with one another

Self concept consists of three parts:

→ Self-image: the person you see (perceive) yourself to be

→ Ideal self: the person you want to be 

→ Self Esteem: how much you like,  accept or value yourself (evaluation)

When there is a mismatch between self-image and ideal self, it can negatively impact self-esteem.

→ On social media, self concept is demonstrated by the person attempting to boost self image to ideal self by positive self presentation such as idealistic photos.

External validation of self esteem may/may not occur with social media images (likes/no likes)

→ External validation occurs on social media when ‘likes’ are received. This makes self-image and ideal self match more, increasing self esteem.

→ The opposite can happen as well when few ‘likes’ are received.

Reasons for greater engagement of high self monitors with social media

High self monitors fit in with a variety of people by changing their behaviour according to the surrounding social cues.

→ High self monitors have a larger mismatch between private attitudes and public behaviour than low self monitors so engage in social media more often to validate their self concept.

Impression management using verbal and non verbal communication:

Verbal Communication:

→ Through the manipulation of the content of words spoken

• Most attractive sounding

Non-Verbal Communication:

→ Physical Appearance

→ Eye Contact

→ Distance : Proximity

→ Facial Expression

→ Open / Closed Posture

→ Gestures

Impression management is improved by:

Primacy:

→ First impressions are remembered well.

Recency

→ Last pieces of information are remembered well.

Schemata: definition and awareness of using flexibility

→ A person’s clusters of ideas about particular concepts, which are mental frameworks to organise knowledge into groups.

• Using schemata helps the social media user to interpret information encountered. This can be useful as a mental shortcut.

• Inflexible schemata, however, can lead to maintenance of stereotyping and prejudice.

• Awareness of advantages/disadvantages of schemata can lead to better impression management on social media.

Distinctive language (warm not cold)

→ Central words such as ‘warm’ caused significantly more positive impression management  than the word ‘cold’, which shows that information that is distinctive assists in impression management.

8 Positive effects of social media on mental health

Prevents social isolation

Increases interpersonal relationships

Develops insight into social norms

Increased interaction on social media increases prosocial behaviour

Develops identity

Develops political and cultural views

Increases collaborative interaction

Active and not passive use of social media increases wellbeing

Negative effects of social media on mental health

Influence comparison of others inducing low self esteem

Chance of being cyberbullied

Could create an addiction to it due to the dopamine released every time one receives a ‘like’ or a ‘follow’

Blue light from screen interrupts melatonin production as the brain thinks it is daytime, causing difficulty for one to fall asleep

ETHICALITY OVERALL SOCIAL INFLUENCE DONE

Ethical issues with the use of social media

Voluntary Participation: Incentives given

Informed Consent: Underage access / parents unaware

Confidentiality: Data sharing, lack of privacy

Psychological Harm: Access to too-mature material

Ethical issues in research on social influence VICNERD including deception and use of fear

Psychological and Physical Harm:

→ Asking participants in social influence research to:

• experience suffocating, hot or cold, noisy, threatening environments

• answer difficult or embarrassing questions

could make them feel discomfort physically or mentally.

→ If information went public, it could cause mental discomfort for the person if their opinion does not fit social norms, which consequently, could lower one’s self esteem and wellbeing from others negative judgement.

Confidentiality:

→ Self report information on attitudes could be publicised, causing mental discomfort and breach of privacy

Informed Consent:

→ Behaviour counts to infer attitude must have informed consent first, from a parent if children are being observed.

• Children under the age of 16 are considered vulnerable as brain development has not progressed enough to make judgments about the possible psychological harm in having their attitude measured, especially attitudes that may indicate low wellbeing.

5 Ethical principles of persuasion (TARES)

Truthfulness (of the message)

Authenticity (of the persuader)

Respect (for the persuadee)

Equity (of the persuasive appeal)

Social Responsibility (for the common good)

Unethical persuasion techniques

Extracting False Confession:

→ Police Pressure

Indoctrination:

→ The process of teaching people to accept a biassed or one sided ideology uncritically

Thought Reform:

→ The systematic alteration of a person’s mode of thinking, especially a process of individual, political indoctrinatiom, often isolating the person from the full facts (i.e cults)