Social Influence: Changing Attitudes and Behavior Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience Persuasion by Communication Persuasion by our Own

Own Action

Social Influence It is a process whereby attitudes and behavior are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people. Types of Social Influence Compliance Superficial, public and transitory change in behavior and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure As compliance does not reflect internal change, it usually persists only while behavior is under surveillance. Conformity It is not based on power but rather on the subjective validity of social norms; that is, the feeling of confidence and certainty that the beliefs and actions described by the norm are correct, appropriate, valid and socially desirable. In conformity, there is an internal change of behavior. And surveillance is not necessary Reference Group Group that is psychologically significant for ones behavior and attitudes Positive Reference Group A source of conformity which will be socially validated if that group also happens to be ones membership group Negative Reference Group It is also ones membership group has enormous coercive power to produce compliance

Membership Group Group to which one belongs by some objective external criterion For example, I am an employee in a company, I dont agree with the other employees behavior towards the company; I value the companys norms and values as well. My membership group is the employees, and it is also my negative reference group, then the company is my positive reference group.

Power and Influence Power Capacity or ability to influence 6 Bases of Power According to French and Raven (1959) 1. Reward Power The ability to give or promise rewards for compliance 2. Coercive Power The ability to give or threaten punishment for non-compliance 3. Informational Power The targets belief that the influencer has more information than oneself 4. Expert Power The targets belief that the influencer has generally greater expertise and knowledge than oneself 5. Legitimate Power The targets belief that the influencer is authorized by a recognized power structure to command and make decisions 6. Reference Power Identification with, attraction to or respect for the source of influence Obedience to Authority Milgrams Obedience Studies This is an experiment conducted by Milgram (1963, 1974) during the 1960s. Participants recruited from the community by advertisement, reported to a laboratory at Yale University to participate in a study of the effect of punishment on human learning. Milgram addresses one of the humanities great failings the tendency for people to obey orders without first thinking (1) what they are being asked to do and (2) the consequences of their obedience for other living beings. Factors Influencing Obedience Immediacy social proximity of the victim to the participant Proximity/Immediacy of the authority figure obedience was reduced to 20.5 percent when the experimenter was absent from the room and relayed directions by telephone. Legitimacy of the authority figure For example, bushman (1984, 1988) had confederates dressed in a uniform, neat attire, or a shabby outfit stand next to someone fumbling for change for a parking meter. The confederate stopped passers-by and ordered them to give the person change for the meter. Over 70% obeyed the uniformed confederate (giving because they had been told to as the reason) and about 50% obeyed the non-uniformed confederate (generally giving altruism as the reason)

Conformity The Formation and Influence of Norms Sherifs Studies of Norm Formation Sherif used Autokinetic Effect then asked groups of men to determine how much the point of light had moved; the responses of the men changed markedly; But the point of light never moved Sherif argues that people use the behavior of others to establish the range of possible behavior: we can call this the frame of reference, or relevant social comparative context. He discovered that they used their own estimates as a frame or reference; participants use others estimates as the frame of reference. Yielding to Group Pressure Asch Conformity Experiment Participants in Asch conformity studies had simply to say which one of the three comparison lines was the same length as the standard line. Only 1 participant doesnt know the correct answer. The others were asked to give a wrong answer After the experiment, Asch asked his participants why they conformed. They all reported initially experiencing uncertainty and self-doubt as a consequence of the disagreement between themselves and the group, which gradually evolved into self-consciousness, fear of disapproval, and feelings of anxiety and even loneliness. These subjective accounts suggest that one reason why people conform, even when the stimulus is completely unambiguous, may be to avoid censure, ridicule, and social disapproval. This is real fear. Who conforms? Individual and group characteristics Those who conform tend to have low self-esteem, a high need for social support or social approval, a need for self-control, low IQ, high anxiety, feelings of self-blame and insecurity in the group, feelings of inferiority, feelings of relatively low status in the group, and a generally authoritarian personality. Conformity as a function of sex of participant and sex-stereo typicality of task; When a task is male-stereotypical, more women conform, when task is female-stereotypical, more men conform. Cultural Norms; The higher levels of conformity in collectivist or interdependent cultures is because conformity is viewed favorably as a kind of social glue (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Although conformity is lower in individualist Western societies, it is still remarkably high; even when conformity has negative ovetones, people find it difficult to resist conforming to group norms.

Situational Factors in Conformity Group Size and Group Unanimity Campbell and Fairey (1989) suggest that group size may have a different effect depending on the type of judgment being made and the motivation of the individual. With matters of taste, where there is no objectively correct answer, and where one is concerned to fit it, then group size will have a relatively linear effect; the larger the majority, the more you will be swayed. When there is a correct response and one is concerned to be correct, then the views of one or two others will usually be sufficient: the views of additional others will be largely redundant. Normative and Informational Influence Informational Influence is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Informational influence comes into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because there is social disagreement Effective informational influence causes true cognitive change Normative Influence is an influence to conform with the positive expectation of where to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval Effective normative influence creates surface compliance rather than true cognitive change Normative influence comes into play when the group is perceived to have the power and ability to mediate rewards and punishment contingent on ones behavior. An important precondition is that one is under surveillance by the group.

Dual-process dependency model of Social Influence People are influenced by others because they are dependent on them either for information that removes ambiguity and thus establishes subjective validity, or for reasons of social approval and acceptance. Referent Informational Influence An influence to conform with a self-referent group norm that defines oneself as a group member It operates via the process of self-categorization, which self-categorization theorists believe is responsible for group belongingness and group behavior.

Minority Influence and Social Change Minority Influence Social Influence processes whereby numerical or power minorities change the attitudes of the majority. An active minority being visible: Active minorities can gain influence by attracting attention to their views; being consistent and unanimous: active minorities can counteract their lack of members by acting as one and being firm in their views. Critique of Conformity Research Conformity Bias Tendency for social psychology to treat group influence as a one way process in which individuals or minorities always conform to majorities Three Influence Modalities (Moscovici, 1976, 1985a) 1. Conformity majority influence in which the majority persuades the minority or deviates to adopt the majority viewpoint. 2. Normalization mutual compromise leading to convergence 3. Innovation a minority creates and accentuates conflict in order to persuade the majority to adopt the minority viewpoint. Influence of Behavioral Style It disrupts the majority norm and thus produces uncertainty and doubt It draws attention to itself as an entity It conveys the existence of an alternative coherent point of view It demonstrates certainty in and unshakeable commitment to, its point of view It shows that the only solution to the conflict that has arisen is espousal of the minority viewpoint.

Behavioral Style factors 1. Investment minorities are more effective if they are seen to have made significant personal or material sacrifices for their cause 2. Autonomy minorities are more effective if seen to be acting out of principle rather than from ulterior motives 3. Rigidity/flexibility a minority that is too rigid risks being rejected as dogmatic, while one that is too flexible risks being rejected as inconsistent. There is a fine line to tread; a minority must be absolutely consistent with regard to its position but should accept a relatively open-minded and reasonable negotiating style

Conversion effect When minority influence brings about a sudden and dramatic internal and private change in the attitudes of a majority Attribution and Minority Influence Attribution Process of assigning a cause to ones own or others behavior Social Impact and Minority Influence Social Impact The degree of effect that other people have on ones attitudes and behavior usually as a consequence of such factors as group size, and temporal and physical immediacy. Although minorities are often both less powerful and less numerous, they can be less powerful but more numerous. Persuasion and Attitude Change Attitude Change Any significant modification of an individuals attitude. In the persuasion process, this can involve several variables: the communicator, the communication, the medium used and the characteristics of the audience, attitude change can also occur by including a person to perform an act that runs counter to an existing attitude. Cognitive dissonance State of psychological tension, produced by holding two simultaneous and opposing cognitions that motivates the individual to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions. Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behavior and try to reduce tension from inconsistency between these elements Persuasive Communication Message intended to change an attitude and related behavior of an audience. Who says what to whom and with what effect? 1. The communicator, or the sources (who) the point of origin of a persuasive communication 2. The communication, or message (what) communication from a source directed to an audience 3. The audience (to whom) intended target of persuasive communication

The Communicator
Source credibility The communicator variable affects the acceptability of persuasive messages. Attractiveness popular and likable spokesperson are persuasive and are therefore instrumental in enhancing consumer demand for a product

The Message
Effects of Repetition Finding by Arkes et.al (1991), that simple repetition of a statement makes it appear more true. Repeated exposure to an object clearly increases familiarity with that object. Repetition of a name can make that name seem famous (Jacob et.al) Does Fear Work? The amount of attitude change increases as a function of fear up to a medium level of arousal. At high levels of fear, however, there is a fall off in attitude change. This could be due to lack of attention to the stimulus, or to the disruptive effects of intense emotion, or both Facts versus Feeling A common method of evaluative advertising is to capitalize on the transfer of affect, which itself is based on associative learning.

The medium of the message

When the message was easy to comprehend, Chaiken and Eagly found that a videotape presentation brought about most opinion change. When the message was difficult, however, opinion change was greatest when the material was written Framing the message In the review of how to promote health related behavior, Rothman and Salovey (1997) found that message framing has an important role. If the behavior relates to detecting an illness, such as breast self-examination, the message should be framed in terms of preventing loss; but if the behavior leads to a positive outcome, such as taking regular exercise, the message should be framed in terms of gain.

The Audience
Self Esteem Hovland and his colleagues had noted that a distracted audience is more easily persuaded than one that is paying full attention, provided that the message is simple; and that those who have low self-esteem are more susceptible than those who have high self-esteem. Women and Men Women are more persuasible than men (Cooper, 1979) Individual Differences Need for cognition, need for closure, need to evaluate, preference for consistency, Attitude importance In these studies, peope who scored high on these various needs were less likely to be persuaded than those who scored low. Age Relationship between Age and Susceptibility to Attitude Change (Visser and Krosnick (1998) 1. Increasing Persistence susceptibility to attitude change is high in early adulthood but decreases gradually across the life span; attitudes reflect the accumulation of relevant experiences 2. Impressionable years core attitudes, values, and beliefs are crystallized during a period of great plasticity in early adulthood 3. Life Stages high susceptibility during early adulthood and later life, but a lower susceptibility throughout middle adulthood 4. Lifelong openness individuals are to some extend susceptible to attitude change throughout their lives 5. Persistence most of an individuals fundamental orientations are established firmly during pre-adult socialization; susceptibility to attitude change thereafter is low. Other variables 1. Prior beliefs affects persuasibility a. Disconfirmation bias the tendency to notice, refute, and regard as weak, arguments that contradict our prior beliefs 2. Cognitive biases are important in both attitude formation and change a. Third Person Effect - Most people think that they are leas influenced that others by advertisements

Cognitive Responding: two dual-process models of persuasion Elaboration Likelihood Model Petty and Cacioppos model of attitude change: when people attend to a message carefully, they use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route. This model competes with the heuristic systematic model Heuristic-Systematic Model Chaikens model of attitude change; when people attend to a message carefully, they use systematic processing; otherwise they process information by using heuristics or mental shortcuts, this model competes with the elaboration likelihood model. Compliance: Interpersonal Influence Tactics for enhancing Compliance Ingratiation Strategic attempt to get someone to like you in order to obtain compliance with request Reciprocity principle The law of doing unto others as they do to you; it can refer to an attempt to gain compliance by first doing someone a favor, or to mutual aggression or mutual attraction. Multiple Requests Tactics for gaining compliance using a two-step procedure: the first request functions as a setup for the second real request. Foot-in-the-door tactic multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a smaller request that is bound to be accepted Door-in-the-face tactic multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a larger request that is bound to be refused Low ball tactic technique for inducing compliance in which a person who agrees to a request can feel committed even after finding that there is a hidden cost

Mindlessness The act of agreeing to a request without giving it a thought. A small request is likely to be agreed to, even if a spurious reason is provided

Attitudes-behavior discrepancy and cognitive dissonance Selective Exposure Hypothesis People tend to avoid potentially dissonant information Effort Justification A special case of cognitive dissonance; inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable effort to achieve a modest goal Induced Compliance A special case of cognitive dissonance; inconsistency is experienced when a person is persuaded to behave is a way that is contrary to an attitude Post Decision Conflict The dissonance associated with behaving in a counter-attitudinal way Free Choice Free choice dissonance reduction is likely to be a feature of wagers made on the outcome of sporting events, horse racing, gambling and so on. Reducing Dissonance indirectly Self-Affirmation - One might reduce any unpleasant feeling by playing up positive selfevaluations (Steele, 1988) Alternative views to Dissonance Social Perception Theory - Bems idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making selfattributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behavior When Attitude Change Fails: Resistance to persuasion Reactance Brehms theory that people try to protect their freedom to act, when they perceived that this freedom has been curtailed, they will act to regain it Forewarning Advance Knowledge that one is to be the target of the persuasion attempt, forewarning often produces resistance to persuasion. Inoculation A way of making people resistant to persuasion; by providing them with a diluted counterargument, they can build up effective refutations to a later, stronger argument

References: Myers, D.G. (2010). Social Psychology. McGraw Hill : New York. Baumeister, R.F. & Bushman, B.J.(2008). Social Psychology and Human Nature. Thomson Wadsworth :USA Michael A Hogg,Joel Cooper (2007). The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology: Concise Student Edition Robert B. Cialdini and Noah J. Goldstein (2004). Social Influence: Compliance and Conformity Hogg, Michael & Vaughan, Graham. Social Psychology. 2002

Social Influence: Changing Attitudes and Behavior Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience Persuasion by Communication Persuasion by our own Action

Prepared by: Maricar A. Ramota