SESSION 4

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

I. What is social influence ?

Social influence: process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by real or implied presence of
other people

Norms: attitudinal and behavioural uniformities that define group membership and differentiate between
groups

Social influence relies on these 3 aspects:

- Compliance: superficial, public and transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in
response to requests, coercion or group pressure. Only when being watched
- Conformity: when we adhere/adjust our thoughts, feelings and behaviours to be consistent with
the standards of group/society. Internalized, no need to be watched
 Influence by 2 groups
o Reference group: psycho significant four our behaviour/attitudes
o Membership group: belong by some objective external criteria
- Obedience: behaviour change produced by commands of authority

II. Obedience to authority

A) Milgram’s obedience studies

Method: Experimenter urges the “teacher” (real participant) to administer shocks to the “learner” (fake
participant) that hurt. Experimenter suggests him to keep going and the teacher really thinks he is
administering shocks. 40 male participants, told that he was studying the ways of learning.

Results: 65% administered 650V shocks!

Explanations:

1) Extreme distress
2) Legitimacy of authority figure, allows people to abdicate personal responsibility
3) Novelty of situation and absence of alternative model of how to behave
4) Proximity of experimenter and distance of learner

Conclusion:

 We typically conform
 We don’t always help
 We may harm others when in group or if we are ordered to do so by authority figure

BUT: social influence can be challenged by presence of non-conformist

B) Ethical considerations in experiments

Milgram did not provide full informed consent to participants, not explicitly tell them that they could
withdraw at any time, didn’t honestly debrief participants at end of study
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SOCIAL INFLUENCE

III. Conformity

We want social approval and to express/validate our social identity as member of specific group

A) Asch’s conformity experiment

Experiment:

1) From Alone to group: Opinions converge, Group norm established when gathered
2) From group to Alone: Group norm stays even when alone, internalized norm

If only one confederate would not agree with unanimity, way less impact.

Conformity strengthened when:

- You feel incompetent or insecure

- The group has 3+ people (more people does not yield greater conformity)
- You admire the group’s status and attractiveness
- You made no prior commitment to any response
- Others in the group observe your behaviour
- The culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
- The group is unanimous

B) Informational and normative influence

Informational influence: resulting from person’s willingness to accept other’s opinion about reality (because
believe others are correct in their judgement)
 Private acceptance of individual (real cognitive change)
Accepting the cutlery and different attitudes in a restaurant
Normative influence: resulting from person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
 Public compliance/behaviour (no actual change)
Changing behaviour to belong in a group

Conformity at work: Dress code, behaviour, employee initiative…

IV. Minority influence and social change

Active minorities can influence majorities => Essential for society to advance (eg; Political leaders)

A) Conformity bias

Conformity bias: assumes that conformity is one-way process in which individuals conform with majority
only Moscovici et al. (1969)’s genetic model proved contrary by reversing Asch’s experiment: Minority
influences Majority if they are consistent

B) Dual process

MAJORITY INFLUENCE MINORITY INFLUENCE

Message automatically accepted as valid Needs to convince the majority that msg valid
Focus on source of message Focus on the message itself
Leads to compliance Leads to real acceptance/internalization
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SOCIAL INFLUENCE