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CHP 11 Social Influence

Psychology

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Chekka Lakshmi Sarmishta
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5 views13 pages

CHP 11 Social Influence

Psychology

Uploaded by

Chekka Lakshmi Sarmishta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Social Influence

Social Influence

• The term social influence refers to the ways


in which external factors alter behavior.
• The actions, reactions, and thoughts of an
individual are influenced by other people or
groups.
Social Influence
Several types of social influence are discussed
• Social Facilitation
• Deindividuation
• Bystander effect
• Conformity
• Social roles
• Obedience to authority
Social Facilitation
• The presence of other performers arouse the
"competitive instinct" which releases energy
not normally available.
• Social Inhibition: derailing effects of
performance in the presence of co actors and
audiences
• Norman Triplett (1898)→ co-action effect
• Social facilitation is an improvement in the
performance of well earned/easy tasks.
whereas social inhibition is worsening of
performance of poorly learned/difficult tasks
due to the presence of others.
Deindividuation

→When people lose their sense of individual


identity
• Anonymity
• Diffused responsibility
• Group size

The crowd is always


inferior to the isolated
individual
- Gustav LeBon
Bystander Effects

• Refers to the phenomenon in which the


greater the number of people present, the less
likely people are to help a person in distress.
• Defining the situation (pluralistic ignorance)
• Diffusion of responsibility.

Minimizing bystander effect:


• Role of helping model
• Role of information
Conformity

• Conformity is shaping one’s behavior or


attitudes to conform to that of others, e.g.,
group norms
• A famous study about conformity was
completed by Solomon Asch in the 1950’s
Conformity

• Informational social influence: in ambiguous


situations
• Normative social influence: wanting to fit in.

• Factors Affecting Conformity Pressures


a. Group Size
b. Group Unanimity(Majority/minority)
c. Culture
e. Difficulty of the Task
Obedience to Authority

• Change behavior in response to direct orders


from authority (most direct form)
• A study by Stanley Milgram specifically looked
at how cooperative people are willing to be
when responding to the request of an
authority.
Four important features of the situation
• Surveillance
• Buffers
• Presence of role models
• Emerging nature
Internalization
• Influence to change our private attitudes, not
just our public behaviors, and to obtain
changes that will be sustained even after they
are no longer on the scene.
• Social influence that persuades rather than
coerces.
• Self Justification: The pressure to be
consistent can be so strong that often people
will justify – or rationalize – past behavior by
forming or adjusting their private beliefs to
support it.
Social Roles

• Social Roles=patterns of behavior expected in


certain positions
• For example, there are social roles associated
with being a student, a teacher, a mother, a
son, a police officer, a doctor, a prison guard.
• How much do social roles govern our
behavior?
Compliance

• Change in behavior elicited by direct requests


• Foot in the door technique: first getting
someone to comply to smaller request.
• Door in the face technique: the real request
is prefaced with one that is so large that it is
rejected.
Group Interaction

• Institutional Norms
• Group decision making
• Group Polarization(Group Shift):
Members of a group move towards an
extreme or exaggerated position while
making decisions.
• Group Think: The desire for harmony or
conformity in the group results in an
incorrect or deviant decision-making
outcome.

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