Social influence revision notes

1)Types of conformity:
Compliance is when an individual accepts social influence in order to gain a favorable reaction
from those around him or her. For example becoming christian because the girl you like you
said only dates guys who are christian. This is not adopted for its content but rather for the
positive outcome
Conformity is a type of social influence that exposes an individual to a majority position.
Because of this the opposite view and behaviors may be adopted.
Identification is a form of social influence where an individual adopts attitude or behaviors of
an individual in order to be associated with them. Basically you dude,that is why you dress so
god damn hipster.
Informational social influence is a type of social influence whereby you get information about
reality by looking at others. For example what is acceptable to wear at school.
Internalization is when an individual accepts social influence because its behaviors and views
are consistent with my own value system.
Normative social influence is when an individual conforms with the majority in order to avoid
disapproval.
Evaluation
There are difficulties distinguishing between compliance and internalization. The relationship
between compliance and internalization is complicated and how we measure public
compliance compared to private acceptance. For example a person who disagrees may show
compliance and pretends to act or say things eg being religious. Where as in private they are
not and they do not internalize those norms.
Furthermore, social studies have shown that informational social influence can be the basis of
negative phototypesetter example in a study in 1996 people were given negative views of
Afro American leading to majority adopting these views.

1)Variables affecting conformity:

(KEY STUDY ASCH)
Participants compared line lengths. The was 12 critical trails and conformity lvl was
33%.Participant agreed to incorrect answers 1/3 of the time.1/4 of the participants never
conformed. To prove that possible answers were ambiguous Asch carried same study again
with confederates giving wrong answers which led to 1% giving wrong answers. Later he
interviewed the participants who continued to trust their own perception but they gave wrong
answers in the study. Therefore this was compliance.
Variables that affect conformity include the size of the group,the difficulty of the task,and
unanimity of the majority. The larger the group size the more likely the participants are to
conform. This is because they wish to avoid disapproval. Nevertheless in the unanimity of the
majority is mixed the participant is less likely to conform. Lastly the more difficult the task the
higher the conformity of participants is.
Evaluation:Asch's research may also be refereed to as the child of its time. This is because the
research was done in 1956 when conformity was quite high. This differs quite allot from today.
Also on the other hand 2/3 of people in Ass's study did not conform. Ash's study states to
show that people over conform nevertheless it just showed reason why they would rather
than showing evidence of the majority conforming as 2/3 still did not conform.
Conformity as social roles
Key study: The Stanford prison experiment.
24 people with stable psychiatric state were sellected. The study was carried out in a
basement of a university.12people were asigned as prisoners and 12 were asigned as
guards.Guards were given uniforms and sunglasses and prisoners were given numbers rather
than being allowed to keep their actual names.In conclution it was a simulation of a real
prison.The guards seemed to forget it was just them acting.They grew more and more violent
and tyracinnical.Thereore they conformed to their roles.The guards behavior was not
acceptable as they woke up prisoners and mde them clean toilet in the midle of the night.Also
they volountered to work extra hours without pay.Some guards started having breakdowns
and started crying because of the way the were treated.Therefore the experiment was stoped
after 6 days.
Evaluation
Conformaty roles are not automatic because of the social roles of the
guards.Nethertheless,Zimbardo believed because of social roles participants drifte in to
sadistic behaviour and that is was automatic.Where as in reality it was the choice of the
participant guards.This can be suggested by BBC prison study and few participants from
SPE.This is because some guards were generaly nice to the other participants and even did
small favours.
Also one of the most obvious problems with SPE was the ethical issues.Participants were
subject of spcychological harm which led to them breaking down and crying in some
cases.This is something which should be prevented in all studies unless the reasearch
importance outweights the harm done.Nethertheless in this case it is not so.Because of
ethical issues and the participants vial behaviour the study had to be stopped.

Zimbardo states that we learned from his study that people conform to tyranical behaviour in
certain situations without any actual orders.This suggest that people are relatively tyranical
and that people ofte conform and complie.

Situational Variables affecting obedience

Key study Millgram
There was two confederates.The participants were told this is a study how punishment affects
learning.The participant thought they were giving punishements to wrong answers which
actualy was just a recording.The punishement was an ellectric shock which to most
participants was believed to hurt the other fake participant.The volts increases systematicly
one after the other from 15 volts to 450.Some participants that were reluctant to keep doing
so were told you must go on.After more powerfull shocks the recoding played silence as in the
other participant either fainted or died.65% procent of the participants gave the maximum
shock.12.5 participants stopped at 300 volts.
Situational factors in obedience:
Proximity:the lower the proximity the lower the obedience,in this study where the confederate
sitting in the room with the real participant the conformity was high. Where as with the
confederate outside the room giving orders the conformity level dropped by 21%.
The location of the study is another factor. Places such as universities lead to higher
conformity rates where as other less prestigious or serious places show lower conformity rates
as the participants take the study leas seriously.
The power of the uniform is another factor. A study was carried out with a woman dressed as
a beggar,business executive and was wearing a uniform. The participants stated the uniform
because it appeared as she had authority where as the other two outfits had less.
Evaluation:
Millgrams study is criticised for ethical issues. This is because the real participants were
deceived and lied to the participants. They had the right to withdraw but the the
Confederates made that harder for them to do so. Because of this the participants could not
make an informed decision of how to act.
The study may lack actual realism. This is because even one of the confederates noticed the
recording being not realistic. Therefore the researcher labeled some as doubters. Because of
this the study lacks validity.
Historical validity is low. People currently are just as obedient which are the results from
another study.

Agentic state and legitamacy of authority

The agentic state is when a person sees himself or herself as an agent for carrying out
another persons wishes.People tend to behave like this in situation where they are unclear
what to do or how to act.Legitamate authority is someone who a person perceives to have the
authority and knowlage to death with the situation.Legitamate authority requires cerain
factors for its affect to take place.For example in Millgrams study the participant was more
likely to act as an agent when the study was done in a university .Also another factor was the
uniform.The uniform signifies authority. This is suggest in Millgrams study where the
participant is less likely to not abbey the orders of a cofederate dreesesd as a scientist.
Authoritarian personality
Authoritarian personality is someone who believes that you must obey authority and has a
strict personality if conventional values.
F scale os the measurement for the authoritarian personality
Right wing authoriterianism is when you have a cluster of authority sunmition and and
authoritarian aggresion
Millgram carried out a follow up study with 40 people from the obedience study.20 obedient
people and 20 people who dissobeyed orders.He asked them a series of close ended
questions.He found that participants who were obediet were less close to there fathers during
childhood and described them negatively.Also he said that people that obeyed and
dissobeyed were in two diffret places on the f scale.Therefore dissobediant people shared
simmilarities with dissobedient people and obedient people shared simmilaraties with
obedient people.

Resistance to social influence

Externality ,induviduals that believe that their behavior and their expieriences is something
that is not in their control.They are the kind of people who look for scapegoats and blame
everything on everyone else.
Internality is when an induavidual believes that they are responsible for their own behaviour
and events that take place.People with high internal locus of control are active information
seekers and they are less likely to be affectedd by social influence.

Locus of control refers to the persons perception of control over their own behavior.This
ranges from high external to high internal.Most people are somewhere in bethween.
Social support makes people more likely ro resist social influence.

Minoraty Influence
Consistency
When people are exposed to minoraty influence firstly they view it as an error.Nethertheless,
if the minoraty adopts a persistant approach people reasees the situation considering the
issue more carefully.Because of this people are more likely to be influenced.
Commitment
Commitment in minoraties beliefs show courage certainty and confidence as they are going
againts a hostile majoraty.This persuades the majority to take their view point more seriously.
Flexability
Being able to neggotiate is more likely to bring around change as rigid arguments are less
likely to find common ground.This also helps as minoraties are tipiclly powerless.If the
minoraty refuses compromise they will be seen as domatic but if their too flexible they will
come ac
Minoraty influence is when the majority change their view point because of the persuasive
minoraty.

Social influence precess in social change

Social change is when the society adopts a new belief.The new belief becomes the norm
which is widely accepted.Some may nit change their oppinion making them the minority.
Social norms interventions is an attempt to correct missconseptions of normative
behaviour of peers in an attempt to change behaviour of a target poppulation.For
example how mutch is acceptable to drink.
Firstly attention must be drawn to the isue.for example suffragets used educational and
other tactics to show that women were denied of voting and equal rights to men.
Cognitive conflict is the second step.The minoraty creates conflict between the majority

group members.This does not move toward minoraty possition but it makes the majority
think about the issues more properly.In suffragete case
Consistency is something that is extreemply influential when bringing around social
change.The suffragetes were consitent in their views and held many protests.
The augmentation principle is when the minoraty view holders are willing to get hurt.This
makes them seem as being more commited.A femminist jumping under a horse.
The snow ball effect has a realatively small effect but it spreads and promotes the
issue.When it reaches tipping point it leads to wide scale social changes.For suffragetes it
was voting and equal rights.