PSY 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Social Proof, Normative Social Influence, Social Influence
29 Apr 2018
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Chapter 14 Notes
-Social Psychology:
●The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
○The power of the situation
○The power of the person
○The importance of cognition
-How is social psychology different from other areas?
●Focuses on the interpersonal (rather than the societal or the individual) level of analysis
●Focuses on “normal” populations; the reaction of the “average individual” to the given
situation
●It is empirical: you can get real answers
-Social Influence and Conformity:
●Social influence:
○How an individual’s behavior is influenced by other people and groups
○3 types
●Conformity: changing one’s behavior to be consistent with group norms
●Compliance: changing one’s behavior in response to a direct request
●Obedience: changing one’s behavior in response to an order from an authority figure (you
have no choice but to obey)
-Causes of Conformity:
●Why do we conform? Two reasons:
○Informational social influence
○Normative social influence
-Informational Social Influence:
●Informational social influence occurs when we conform because we see other people as a
source of information. It reflects a “desire to be right.”
●How does informational social influence work?
○Believe others can interpret an ambiguous situation better than us
○Believe others can help us choose an appropriate course of action
-Summary of Sherif Experiment, 1936:
●Autokinetic effect
●Participants asked to make individual evaluations during the first session
●A few days later, the participants were put into groups of three and asked to call out
estimates of light movement
●Results:
○Informational conformity
○Over numerous trials, the group converged to a common estimate
○Ambiguous situation….people look to others for answer
-When will people conform to informational social influence?
●When the situation is ambiguous
○Most crucial variable
●When the situation is a crisis
○Limited time to act, others intensify their own panic
●When other people are experts
○People are most likely to look to experts, but experts are not always reliable
-Normative Social Influence:
●Social norms are implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors,
values, and beliefs of its members
●Norms exert greatest influence when:
○Conditions are uncertain
○Source is similar
○Concerned about relationship with source
●The most salient norm will influence behavior
●How will people react in a situation where the stimuli is unambiguous? (you know what
the right answer is...will you conform to a group that is saying the wrong answer?)
●Asch (1951, 1956)
○Line judgment task: six confederates and one participant asked to make
judgments about which line was closer to standard
○Answer was obvious
○76% of participants conformed with “wrong” answer at least once
○On average, participants conformed to the “wrong” answer ⅓ of the time
○Interviews with participants indicate that they knew the right answer, but didn’t
want to look foolish
○How do we know this isn’t informational social conformity? When patients were
able to respond privately, they didn’t conform
-Why do we conform?
●We conform to be right and to be liked
●Informational influence: behavior of others provides information
○The more ambiguous the task, the more likely people are to conform (like the
Sherif study)
○Leads to private acceptance
●Normative influence: desire for social approval
○Asch studies
○Leads to public compliance
-Normative Social Influence in our Lives
●Social influence and women’s body image
○In most societies, a heavy body is considered most beautiful...why?
○Silverstein et al. (1986): women appearing in Ladies’ Home Journal and Vogue
from 1901 to 1981: bust-to-waist ratio (see graph)
●Social influence and men’s body image
○When looking at pictures of other men, men chose an ideal body that had on
average 28 more pounds of muscle than their own
-Now I’m never going to conform…
●But when an individual tries to resist pressure from normative social influence, group
members try to convince the deviant to conform (ignoring, punishment). If member
remains deviant→ social rejection
●Idiosyncratic credits
-The Power of Obedience:
●Crimes of obedience: Nazis, A Few Good Men
●Milgram experiment (1963, 1974)
○Teacher and learner
○Shock machine (15-450V)
○Participant told to administer a shock to a person when the person is supposed to
recite a certain word and says the wrong one
○Shocks increased, recording of screams...did people stop or keep going?
○⅔ of people were willing to administer a potentially fatal shock when told to do so
by the man in the white coat
●Results suggest it is the authority’s orders that were crucial (and not other factors such as
participant aggressiveness)
-Why do we obey authority figures?
●We have a motivation to choose correctly, or to do what’s “right”
●Authorities are perceived to be experts
○Doing what they say provides a short-cut to choosing correctly
-Attitudes:
●Attitudes: the categorization of a stimulus along an evaluative dimension based on 3
components:
○Affective: emotions and affect toward object (positive or negative)
○Behavioral: how you act towards object
○Cognitive: thoughts you have about object (facts, knowledge, beliefs)
-Attitudes and Behavior:
●Do attitudes affect behavior?
●Attitudes are often poor predictors of actions
●Changing people’s attitudes typically fails to produce much change in their behavior
●LaPiere study (1934):
○92% said they wouldn’t accept Chinese guests
○All but 1 of the hotels let them stay there
Document Summary
The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. Focuses on the interpersonal (rather than the societal or the individual) level of analysis. Focuses on normal populations; the reaction of the average individual to the given situation. It is empirical: you can get real answers. How an individual"s behavior is influenced by other people and groups. Conformity: changing one"s behavior to be consistent with group norms. Compliance: changing one"s behavior in response to a direct request. Obedience: changing one"s behavior in response to an order from an authority figure (you have no choice but to obey) Informational social influence occurs when we conform because we see other people as a source of information. Believe others can interpret an ambiguous situation better than us. Believe others can help us choose an appropriate course of action. Participants asked to make individual evaluations during the first session.
