Transcript Ch. 7: Social Influence

Chapter 7
Greenberg et al.
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Learning from Others
The Social Construction of Reality
Conformity
Minority Influence
Compliance
Obedience
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Social learning
Social priming
Social contagion
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Monkey see – monkey do
Consequences to the model
◦ Bobo-Doll experiments (Bandura)
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People semi- or unconsciously imitate others’
non-verbal behaviors
◦ Chameleon effect
◦ Also shift toward the attitudes of those we like
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Harmful “copycat” behaviors
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It is almost impossible to do anything without
sending a message.
Ideas, norms and values
Focus theory of normative conduct (Cialdini,
2003)
◦ Injunctive norms – beliefs about generally
culturally-approved behaviors
◦ Descriptive norms – beliefs about what people
generally do, e.g., littering
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Gustav Le Bon (1896)
Crowd behaviors – panic, looting, violence,
singing, etc.
Mass psychogenic illness
Yawning, laughing, etc.
Is obesity contagious?
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We are socialized as children into a cultural
worldview.
We learn beliefs, attitudes, values, and
behaviors.
It happens without thought and becomes part
of our identity.
We internalize this into a profound form of
social influence.
From this, we learn scripts for how to behave
in social roles and situations.
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Activation of scripts from the cultural
worldview (e.g., being quiet in a library)
Role stereotypes – how a person should act in
a certain role or roles
Underpins how we regard historical events,
sense of right and wrong, etc.
◦ Example: Zimbardo prison experiment
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Definition:
◦ A change in one’s behavior due to the real or
imagined influence of other people
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Doing what someone else wants you to
do –
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Whether
Whether
Whether
Whether
or
or
or
or
not
not
not
not
you want to
they are present
they told you to
they are a real person/group
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Do you “Press 1 now” when the voice on the
other end of the phone tells you to?
Do you stop at stop signs?
Do you hold for “important messages?”
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Both obedience and conformity are generally
good things.
We teach our children to be obedient and to
conform.
Failure to conform creates social strife and
violence.
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Americans are generally cultural nonconformists and consider conformity an
implied threat to freedom.
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Don’t be a people pleaser.
Don’t be a crowd follower.
Think for yourself.
Stand up for what you believe.
Over my dead body
A hill on which to die
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Often, when you are refusing to conform to
one group, you are conforming to another.
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It helps the flow of life.
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We stand in line.
We wait our turn.
It helps things to stay organized.
It maintains fairness.
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Informational social influence – Do I really
know what to do?
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Social referencing
Bystander intervention
How to spell something
How to address someone
Which fork to use
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Sherif and the autokinetic effect
◦ People reached a common estimate of the apparent
motion of a dot of light (public compliance)
◦ People kept the same estimate, even when later
doing the task alone (private acceptance)
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Baron, Vandello & Brunsman (1996)
◦ Task – picking a perpetrator from a lineup
◦ Only saw slides for ½ second
◦ On some trials confederates were used
◦ Half of the participants were told the results
would be used to select accurate eyewitnesses
(and received $20.00) (High importance)
◦ High importance of the task led to greater
conformity (51vs. 35%)
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Crisis – War of the Worlds – 1938
Gustav Le Bon (1895) contagion
Mass psychogenic illness
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Key Variables
◦ Ambiguity – no way to know
◦ Crisis – no time to think
◦ Experts – someone knows what to do
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Baron, Vandello & Brunsman (1996)
◦ This again involves picking the perpetrator from
a lineup. However, here the task is made easy.
Participants viewed each slide for 5 seconds and
were shown each pair twice. Importance
manipulations were done as in the other study.
◦ In this study, however, high importance caused
the participants to conform less – not more.
◦ Why?
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Is based on the need to be accepted.
Social norms are implicit rules for acceptable
behavior.
Deviant group members are:
◦ Ridiculed
◦ Punished
◦ Rejected
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Japan
◦ A whole class or school will sometimes turn against
one student
◦ They will harass and bully the person.
◦ This may lead to the person committing suicide.
◦ Bikikomori are those who have withdrawn from
social interaction and spend all their time at home
◦ Being deprived of human contact is stressful,
traumatic, and psychologically painful.
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Not explained by informational social
influence
Most people conformed on roughly onethird of the trials
Seventy-six percent of participants
conformed at least once
Fear of being a lone dissenter is strong.
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Berns et al., 2005
Used fMRI to measure changes in brain
activity
Error rate was 13.8% when people were asked
to match figures alone
◦ When answering alone or conforming to group
wrong answers, brain activity showed in the
posterior areas associated with vision and
perception.
◦ When going against the group the amygdala
(negative emotions) and right caudate nucleus
(social behavior) lit up.
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Stage 1: target of most communication as
groups members try to bring you back in line.
Stage 2: teasing comments at first, turns
negative
Stage 3: the group withdraws and
communication with the deviant drops
sharply
Stage 4: rejection of the deviant
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Strength: How important to you is the group?
Immediacy: How close is the group in space
and time?
Group size: Number of people. Conformity
increases as the number goes from 1-5.
After that, it makes little difference.
Allies: Having an ally (another deviant)
encourages non-conformity.
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How minorities produce social change
Conversion theory (Moscovici, 1980)
◦ Minorities have a more distinctive position; catches
attention, leads to carefully elaborated thoughts
◦ Position more deeply processes because it is
minority
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Consistency & self-confidence
Flexible & open-minded behavioral style
Getting members of the majority to crossover to the majority opinion
Find points of similarity with the majority.
(Become part of the in-group.)
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Getting someone over whom you have no
authority to do what you want them to do
Techniques are useful in the marketplace for
sales and donations, and in other situations
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Self-perception & commitment
Reciprocity
Social proof – who else did this? conformity
Scarcity – must haves; freedom of choice?
Mindlessness
 I need to make some copies
 I need 37 cents
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Foot-in-the-door
Small commitment says:
◦ I am interested in this cause/behavior
◦ I am the kind of person who would do this
◦ Change in self-perception
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Low-ball offer
 Alters commitment
 When we agree publicly, we feel we have made a social
commitment
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“You scratch my back. . . . .”
Door-in-the-face
◦ Is the smaller request doing you a favor?
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A tendency to conform to what we believe
respected others think and do
Has to do with descriptive norms and also
social comparison
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We feel that we simply must have things that
are scarce (or may become unavailable).
Brehm’s reactance theory says that it may be
a reaction to restriction on our freedom of
choice.
◦ Limited time offers
◦ Only while supplies last
◦ Sale ends at midnight
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Not paying attention to what is happening
When a panhandler asked for 37 cents, 75%
of people complied
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Obedience is defined as an action engaged in
to fulfill a direct and explicit order or
command from another person.
Obedience is the default response in a
hierarchical society.
Some people have legitimate authority over
certain others.
At times, people may misuse their legitimate
authority.
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Stanley Milgram
◦ The Holocaust was a case of mass obedience
◦ Germany was an authoritarian society
◦ Milgram did a set of 18 demonstrations, technically
not experiments
◦ Used 40 ordinary men recruited from the New
Haven newspaper
◦ Each was paid $4.50
◦ They were told that it was an experiment about the
effects of punishment on learning.
◦ The electric generator had 30 switches, labeled
from 15 to 450 volts.
◦ The “teacher” was given a demonstration shock of
45 volts.
◦ Otherwise, the shock grid was disconnected.
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How many participants would go to 450
volts?
Answer:
26 of 40 or 65%
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Yale, experimenter present, learner in a separate
room – 65%
Test given in an unimpressive downtown office
building 45%
Learner in same room 40%
Teacher places learner’s hand on shock plate 30%
Experimenter phones in instructions 22%
Appears that another participant is in charge 18%
Presence of two defiant participants 10%
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Apparent legitimacy of the authority
Closeness to the learner
Presence of the experimenter
Effect of a defiant participant
Not having to deliver the shock (92%)
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We are conditioned to be obedient.
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We absolve ourselves of responsibility.
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Incremental processes (dissonance?)