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Lecture 13: Social Influence, Moscovici’s dual-process model: 2 kinds of…
Lecture 13: Social Influence
Compliance
What is compliance?
Superficial and public change in behaviour and
expressed attitudes. this is in response to:
i. group pressure (see later section on majority influence)
ii. some form of coercion (not direct order/obedience)
iii.a direct request
a) some might be honest
b) some might have hidden agenda
Aim to make us do things we are reluctant to do
Temporary change in behavior; behavior persists only when under surveillance
Can be demonstrated experimentally (Asch's line study for compliance to majority)
Seen frequently in everyday life: acquiescence to requests from others
Why do people comply?
Perceived power of the
source of influence
(person influencing) is critical in achieving compliance (related to lecture 19 leadership)
(French & Raven, 1959)
ii. Coercive power
ability to punish
iii. Legitimate power
has
recognized authority
to command/make decisions (like the government)
iv. Expert power
Has appropriate and more knowledge
v. Referent power
Identification (relating to) and respect for source of influence
vi. Informational power
Potential to exploit information (Having control over information that others need or want)
i. Reward power
Ability to give rewards
Tactics that render us vulnerable to comply to direct requests
Ingratiation (recap lecture 6 Jones & Pittman’s self-
presentation strategy)
makes it harder for one to refuse
the request since we are presenting ourselves as such
Use of the widespread norm of reciprocity (recap lecture 4 prosocial behaviour)
there is a greater burden to reciprocate when given a soup sample or free drink, for example, so that we end up buying it. in a study by Shen et. al.,2011, the Chinese took less soup samples amd free drinks because they were more burdened to reciprocate than a Canadian (individualistic vs collectivistic)
Tactics adopted by people attempting to exert hidden influence
i. Foot-in-the door
involves making small request with which people typically comply, and
then
making a more demanding request to which people are more likely to agree if they have already granted a small request
think: love scammers
ii. Door-in-the-face
large request (typically refused) followed by smaller request – much more likely to agree to second request following first request than if second request asked on its own
Majority influence
Classic
studies
of majority influence that used the opinion of groups to produce effects on individual participants
Compliance to Majority (Asch's line study)
participants judging the length of lines after their lengths had been stated aloud by experimental confederates.
nature of the stimulus was unambiguous
Results:
Participants went along with the group 35% of the time - explicit public compliance within a group without changes in private beliefs
the pressure exerted on the participants was explicit and high
Conformity to Majority (Sherif's autokinetic study)
Sherif used the autokinetic effect – this is where a small spot of light (projected onto a screen) in a dark room will appear to move, even though it is still (i.e. it is a visual illusion). It was discovered that when participants were individually tested their estimates on how far the light moved varied considerably (e.g. from 20cm to 80cm).
The participants were then tested in groups of three. Sherif manipulated the composition of the group by putting together two people whose estimate of the light movement when alone was very similar, and one person whose estimate was very different. Each person in the group had to say aloud how far they thought the light had moved.
Sherif found that over numerous estimates (trials) of the movement of light, the group converged to a common estimate. The person whose estimate of movement was greatly different to the other two in the group conformed to the view of the other two.
Even after the experiment, the conformity endured: Enduring and internalised change in attitudes and behaviour persists in the absence of surveillance - implicit conformity of private belief with a group norm
Difference between compliance and conformity highlighted here
opposed to Asch's line study: the nature of the stimulus was ambiguous (i.e., illusory movement of stationary light), thus it is easier to accept information from other people
Opposed to Asch's study: the
influence / pressure
exerted on group members was
low
, as other members of the group were not in any way better able to make a decision
What is majority influence?
individuals or minorities in a group change their behaviour or beliefs so that they become more similar to the majority
When are people more likely to change their opinions in majority
situations?
There are individual differences, but the situation is more important than personality
i. Size of majority
Size of majority: Compliance increases as group size goes up but with diminishing returns, so each additional member contributes less pressure than the one before
ii. Unanimity
Having just one supporter reduces compliance from 35% to 5.5% - appears to break unanimity of group thereby legitimising possibility of other responses
iii. Privacy
When naïve participant wrote down judgment privately, compliance dropped to 12.5%
Why do people change their opinions in majority situations?
i. Informational influence
What is it
Accept information from others as evidence of reality
When it happens
When people are uncertain
Why it happens
They want to be right and validate reality
Outcome
Results in conformity (i.e., both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed); effects persist even when the group is not present
ii. Normative influence
What is it
Comply to others’
expectations
When it happens
When group perceived to have power to mediate rewards and punishment
Why it happens
Want to be liked, to avoid
social disapproval
Outcome
Creates public compliance;
effects require the
presence of the group or
the sense that the person
is under surveillance by the
group
Deutsch and Gerrard’s (1955) dual process dependency model of social influence: Operate separately in different kinds of social influences
iii. Referent influence (Hogg & Turner, 1987)
What is it
Conform to group norms
When it happens
When they belong to a group, identifies with the group, and internalise the group norms
Why it happens
Because they are group members, an important part of an individual’s identity is their group membership
Outcome
Once the group norms are internalised, presence of group is not required for influence to be exerted
combines informational and normative factors into one process
Minority Influence (Moscovici's Study)
What is minority influence?
Process whereby a new belief or attitude, originally held by the minority, become widespread and influential.
When are people more likely to give in to minority influence? – explained by Moscovici’s genetic model of minority influence
i. Consistency (across time)
i. Importance of consistency – if all minority members repeatedly (i.e., across time) give the same message, then
it demonstrates certainty/commitment to its point of view
shows only solution to cognitive conflict is adoption of minority view
disrupts the majority norm – produces uncertainty or conflict among the majority
ii. Consensus within minority
iii. making personal sacrifices (investment)
iv. acting out of principle (autonomy)
v. open-minded and reasonable (neither too rigid, nor too flexible)
Moscovici’s (1976) series of
blue/green slide experimental studies
Critical (real) participants are majority and confederates are
minority
Participants are asked to report the colour of the slides (all blue)
When minority responds to all slides as ‘green’, the majority is induced to give some responses as green – around 8%
Social influence and culture
Obedience
a. What is obedience?
Behavioural changes generated by the instructions, orders or commands of those seen to be in positions of AUTHORITY
b. When are people more / less likely to obey (factors affecting obedience)? [see Milgram experimen]
i. Immediacy (proximity of the confederate to the participant)
??? ask teacher
ii. Proximity of the authority figure to the participant
For the Milgram experiment, the experimenter giving orders and leaving yielded less obedience
iii. Group pressure - increases obedience
iv. Legitimacy of authority figure - increases obedience
c. Why do people obey?
i. Importance of power in generating obedience
ii. Socialised to obey authority
iii. Psychological barriers to disobedience
E.g., having made a commitment to take part in the study, or given a low-voltage shock, it is harder to disobey orders to give a stronger shock
iv. agentic shift
Perceiving the person giving the orders as having legitimate authority allows people to abdicate responsibility for their actions to the person giving orders
v. ‘binding factors’ that maintain the agentic shift
d. Real world examples of obedience
Mass killings/genocide, cult following
e. Obedience – other studies
i. Obedience in a job interview (Meeus & Raaijmaker, 1995)
Participants need to make a series of increasingly negative remarks about the performance of a job applicant
Results
: 90% of participants continued to obey until the end of the experiment
Pros:
greater mundane realism compared to Milgram’s study of obedience less ethically controversial task
ii. Replicating Milgram’s experiment (Burger, 2009) – refer to lecture 3
iii. Stanford prison study (Zimbardo et. al, 1999) – refer to lecture 3
Moscovici’s dual-process model: 2 kinds of social
influence
Majority influence
• elicits public compliance
• No effect when majority influence withdrawn
• Influence occurs via normative or nformational dependence
• majority view accepted passively
Minority influence
• elicits private changes in opinion (i.e., conversion of belief)
• Influence occurs via cognitive conflict/restructuring of ideas – more profound type of informational influence than in majority situations
• Minority influence involves active consideration of minority view
Experimental support for this
• Same procedure as Moscovici’s blue/green slide study
• Claim effect of minority influence on after-images
Moscovici and Personnaz (1980, 1986) showed minority influence shifted after-image from yellow (expected after blue slide) to purple (expected after green slide)
• Criticism of experiment
such effects are not always found - Martin’s (1998) results
suggests after-image shift occurs only if subjects pay close attention to slides
So findings may reflect methodological artefact rather than two distinct influence processes
Contrary views to Moscovici's dual process model (ongoing debate, btw)
contrary to the model, majority influence can make people think systematically about issues
Latane and Wolf (1981
) proposed that the same fundamental process operates in majority and minority procedures
the extent of influence in both majority and minority situations is predictable from a single index - the number of participants being influenced relative to the number doing the influencing
