Social Influence: Changing Attitudes and Behavior

 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

 Persuasion by Communication
 Persuasion by our 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 one’s behavior and attitudes

 Positive Reference Group

 A source of conformity which will be socially validated if that group also
happens to be one’s membership group
 Negative Reference Group
 It is also one’s 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 don’t agree with the other

employees’ behavior towards the company; I value the company’s 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 target’s belief that the influencer has more
information than oneself
4. Expert Power – The target’s belief that the influencer has generally greater
expertise and knowledge than oneself
5. Legitimate Power – The target’s 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
Milgram’s 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

Sherif’s 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
doesn’t 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 one’s 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 one’s own or others’ behavior

Social Impact and Minority Influence

Social Impact

The degree of effect that other people have on one’s 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 individual’s 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 individual’s 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 Cacioppo’s 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

Chaiken’s 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 set-up 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

self-evaluations (Steele, 1988)

Alternative views to Dissonance

Social Perception Theory - Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by
making self-attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own
behavior

When Attitude Change Fails: Resistance to persuasion

Reactance

Brehm’s 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

counter-argument, they can build up effective refutations to a later, stronger
argument

Social Influence

Concept of Social Influence

Social influence is the process by which individuals’ thoughts, feelings, or behaviors are altered
by the presence, actions, or expectations of others. Myers (2012) defines it as the impact of
social forces, ranging from subtle pressures to direct persuasion, shaping interactions. It
includes conformity, compliance, and obedience, driven by norms, roles, and group dynamics.
Baron and Byrne link social influence to social perception and attitudes (from your prior
questions), as it reflects how social contexts mold behavior.

Conformity
 Concept of Conformity: Conformity is the tendency to adjust one’s behavior, attitudes, or
beliefs to align with group norms or expectations, even without direct pressure. Myers (2012)
describes it as a social glue, promoting cohesion but potentially stifling individuality. It’s distinct
from obedience (following orders) and often operates unconsciously, as Baron and Byrne note.
 Factors Affecting Conformity:
1. Group Size: Larger groups (up to 3-5 members) increase conformity pressure (Asch’s
findings).
2. Unanimity: A unanimous group exerts stronger influence; a single dissenter reduces
conformity.
3. Cohesion: Stronger group bonds heighten conformity.
4. Status: Higher-status groups or individuals are more influential.
5. Culture: Collectivist cultures (e.g., Asian) foster conformity more than individualistic
ones, per Myers.
6. Ambiguity: Unclear situations (e.g., Sherif’s studies) increase reliance on group norms.
 Resistance to Conformity:

1. Individual Differences: High self-esteem, independence, or reactance (resistance to

control) reduce conformity.
2. Social Support: A single ally or dissenter empowers resistance, as Asch showed.
3. Awareness: Recognizing influence attempts fosters defiance, per Baron and Byrne.
4. hatCultural Values: Individualistic cultures encourage nonconformity.

 Asch’s Research on Conformity (1951):

1. Asch’s line judgment experiments demonstrated conformity to incorrect group

judgments. Participants judged line lengths but conformed to a unanimous (wrong)
group opinion about one-third of the time. Myers (2012) highlights that conformity
peaked with group unanimity and size but dropped with a dissenting ally, showing social
pressure’s power and limits.

 Sherif’s Research on Conformity (1935):

1. Sherif used the autokinetic effect (a stationary light appears to move in darkness) to
study norm formation. Participants’ estimates of light movement converged toward a
group norm over trials, showing conformity in ambiguous situations. Baron and Byrne
note this reflects informational influence (relying on others for clarity), unlike Asch’s
normative influence (social pressure).