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Topic 5 - Social Influence - Coggle Diagram
Topic 5 - Social Influence
Key terms
Conformity: A change in behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure. Has three types:
Compliance: Publicly conforming but privately disagreeing
Identification: Adopting views privately/publicly to be part of a group. Often temporary and disappear when the group isn't there.
Internalisation: Fully publicly and privately agreeing with a group, regardless of if they are present or not.
Informational social influence: Complying because you don't know how to behave (e.g: what side to stand on when using escalators)
Normative social influence: Complying just to fit in with a group.
Locus of control: An internal one is where a person believes they are in control of their behaviour, whereas an external one makes a person believe other factors control it.
Obedience: Following an order given by an authority figure (someone in a position of power)
Factors affecting social influence
Conformity
Individual
Locus of control - An external one is more likely to lead to conformity
Age: Younger people are more likely to conform
Situational
Size of group: Asch's study found conformity was 3% with one person, 13% with two and 32% with 3. Larger groups did not significantly increase conformity.
Unanimity: If the whole group agrees on something, it creates pressure to conform.
Task difficulty: When Asch made the lines closer in length to each other, conformity rose. This may be because the participants were uncertain and looked to others for confirmation.
The bystander effect
Personal
Empathy - If you have a high level of empathy or can empathise with the victim, you are more likely to help to avoid feeling guilty
Similarity - being physically similar to a victim (e.g: age, gender) increases empathy and chances of helping
Mood - people in good moods are more likely to help than people in bad moods
Competence - if you don't feel skilled enough to help, you are less likely to
Situational
Diffusion of responsibility - If there are lots of people around you, you may be less likely to help because you think others will, making you feel less responsible
Pluralistic ignorance - if nobody else is helping, you may assume it is not an emergency and not help either
Attention - we are less likely to notice things in a group than when we are on our own.
Obedience
Milgram's mental state theory: Obedience depends on a person's mental state, which links to locus of control
Agentic state - external locus of control, will obey
Autonomous sate - internal locus of control, won't obey
Latana's social impact theory: Believes there are three factors which must all be high to cause obedience
Perceived strength/power of authority
Immediacy - how close you are to the authority/how recent the order is
Number of authority figures
French and Raven's social power theory: Similar to social impact theory, but has 5 factors
Legitimacy of authority
Ability for them to deliver rewards
Expertise of authority
Do we like the authority as a leader
How easily the authority can persuade us
Preventing blind obedience (obeying without considering consequences/thought)
Proximity to authority (Milgram also found greater proximity to learner decreased obedience)
Social support - if you are on your own, you are more likely to obey than if you were in a group
Questioning authority's legitimacy
Independent thinking (thinking for yourself)
Crowd behaviour
Studies
Piliavin et al (1969)
Aim: Investigate helping behaviour in a natural environment and understand which conditions make a person more likely to help (type/race of victim)
Method - Field experiment on the New York Subway with covert, naturalistic, non-participant observations
Sample: A total of 4450 men and women. 55% were white and 45% black
Procedure
4 researchers involved - a "victim" and "helper" (both male) and two female confederates who recorded data
The victim was either "drunk" (clothes smelled of alcohol/carried a bottle) or "ill" (carried a cane) and white or black
All 4 researchers would board the train at the same time, then the "victim" would pretend to collapse
Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973)