Social Psychology Chapter 8

Which of the following was not one of the instruction prods used by the experimenter in the Milgram studies? A) "The experiment requires that you continue." B) "It is absolutely essential that you continue." C) "If you do not continue, you will not be paid for your participation." D) "Please continue."

"If you do not continue, you will not be paid for your participation."

Radio station broadcasted H. G. Wells's play 'War of the Worlds'

- It was about the invasion of Earth by hostile Martians, it sounded so realistic that listeners became scared and alerted the police. -Why were people convinced this was a real news report? -ANSWER 1: The play mimicked existing radio news shows very well, and many listeners missed the beginning of the broadcast (when it was identified as a play) because they had been listening to a popular show on another station. -ANSWER 2: Informational social influence;. People were listening with friends and family, as the scenario became scarier, they naturally turned to each other, out of uncertainty, to see whether they should believe what they heard.

Propaganda

- Social influence can also be used to pursue illegal, immoral, and unconscionable aims. -A deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist -Is most successful when it taps into an audience's preexisting beliefs. -EX: Nazis

Minority Influence

-A minority of group members influences the behavior or beliefs of the majority -The key is consistency: People with minority views must express the same view over time, and different members of the minority must agree with one another. -If a person in the minority wavers between two different viewpoints or if two individuals express different minority views, the majority will dismiss them as people who have peculiar and groundless opinions. -Exert their influence on the group via informational social influence. -The minority can introduce new and unexpected information to the group and cause the group to examine the issues more carefully. -Careful examination may cause the majority to realize that the minority view has merit, leading the group to adopt all or part of the minority's view. -Often obtain public compliance because of normative social influence, whereas when minorities are persuasive, it is more likely to be through private acceptance because of informational social influence

When the situation is ambiguous

-Ambiguity; The most crucial variable for determining how much people use each other as a source of information is -When you are unsure of the correct response, the appropriate behavior, or the right idea, you will be most open to influence from others. -The more uncertain you are, the more you will rely on others -EX: The American soldiers who urinated on the corpses of Taliban fighters and abused Iraqis captives were in an ambiguous situation for all the people involved- ideal circumstances for informational social influence to take hold. Most of the soldiers were young and inexperienced. When they saw other soldiers shooting at the villagers or humiliating prisoners, many of them thought this was what they were supposed to do, and they joined in.

Norms

-Are not always salient to us -To promote socially beneficial behavior, something in the situation needs to draw our attention to the relevant norm.

The Asch Line-Judgment Studies: Conformity and Social Approval

-Asch conducted a series studies on the power of normative social influence. -He devised the studies assuming that there are limits to how much people will conform, and then when a situation is wholly ambiguous, people will act rational, objective problem solvers.

Self-justification and Hazing

-Can help explain why people sometimes go along with an increasingly humiliating and dangerous sequence of hazing activities when trying to join an organization. -New members might tell themselves that since they just went along with one embarrassing or degrading act, how can they now say no to the next request? -And in this manner, their loyalty to the group is reinforced.

Obedience

-Changing behavior in response to direct request from an authority figure that gives an order that we feel pressure to follow. -One of the strongest forms of social influence valued in every society -We are socialized to obey authority figures; social norms of obedience are internalized -Can have extremely serious and tragic consequences

Descriptive norms

-Concern our perceptions of the way people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others -Motivate behavior by informing people about what is effective or adaptive behavior.

Private Acceptance

-Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right

Public Compliance

-Conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what the other people are doing or saying -EX: Someone privately believed that the light was moving 10 inches but announced that it had moved 3 inches, the group consensus, in an effort to avoid standing out from the crowd or looking foolish.

When the Situation Is a Crisis

-Crisis often occurs simultaneously with ambiguity; we usually do not have time to stop and think about exactly which course of action we should take; we need to act immediately. -If we panic and are uncertain what to do, it is only natural for us to see how other people are responding and to do likewise. -Unfortunately, the people we imitate may also panic and not be behaving rationally.

Injunctive norms

-Have to do with what we think other people approved or disapproved of -Motivate behavior by promising rewards (or punishments) for normative (or nonnormative) behavior.

Autokinetic Effect

-If you stare at a bright light in a uniformly dark environment (a star on a dark night), the light will appear to waver a bit back and forth. -This occurs because you have no stable visual reference point with which to anchor the position of the light.

When Other People Are Experts

-Typically, the more expertise or knowledge a person has, the more valuable he or she will be as a guide in an ambiguous situation -EX: If you're visiting a foreign city and come across an unfamiliar street sign, you will probably check out the reactions of the locals rather than those of your fellow tourists. -However, experts are not always reliable sources of information.

The Milgram Study

-Measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. -Normative pressures made it difficult for people in Milgram's studies to refuse to continue, the experimenter was authoritative and insistent and when people are in confusing circumstances and unsure what they should do, they use other people to help define the situation. -Increasing a series of requests allows the foot-in-the-door technique to operate -Stressed that the loss of a sense of personal responsibility for one's actions was a critical component explaining the results of the obedience studies.

High-Importance Condition

-Mirrors the concerns of many situations in everyday life—your judgments and decisions have consequences, and you're motivated to "get things right." -It makes you more susceptible to informational social influence -Informational social influence among eyewitnesses is not welcome in the courtroom

Normative Social Influence

-Occurs when the influence of others leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them -This type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily in private acceptance -You can resist it by your awareness and finding an ally. -Consequences of resisting are brining you "back into the fold" and negativity and rejection -Is most powerful when everyone in the group says or believes the same thing

Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures

-Participants from more collectivistic cultures showed higher rates of conformity on the line task than participants from more individualistic cultures. -In collectivistic cultures, conformity is seen as a valued trait, not as a somewhat negative one. Agreeing with others is viewed not as an act of submission or cowardice in collectivist cultures but as an act of tact and sensitivity -Because the emphasis is on the group and not the individual, people in collectivistic cultures value normative social influence because it promotes harmony and supportive relationships in the group

Informational Social Influence

-Relying on other people as a source of information to guide our behavior -We conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is correct and can help us choose an appropriate course of action, it can lead to private acceptance, in which people genuinely believe in what other people are doing or saying. -How important it is to be accurate at a task also affects informational social influence. -In many situations, judgments and decisions have consequences, and you're motivated to "get things right." -Research has found that this makes you more susceptible to informational social influence

Door-in-the-face Technique

-Social influence strategy in which first asking people for a large request that they will probably refuse makes them more likely to agree later to a second, smaller request -People are more likely to agree to the request you really care about when you first hit them up for a bigger favor that forces them to say no. -The first, bigger request makes the second "ask" seem less daunting by comparison and feelings of reciprocity, it seems like you (the requestor) have made some concessions here, coming down from your initially huge favor to a more much manageable later request.

Foot-in-the-door Technique and why it works

-Social influence strategy in which getting people to agree first to a small request makes them more likely to agree later to a second, larger request -Think about what happens when you get people to agree to any request, even a small one. They start to see themselves as agreeable people. They feel committed to a helpful course of action. To say no to a follow-up request, even if it comes from a different person, could trigger uncomfortable feelings of inconsistency or dissonance

How do we know how to act?

-Sometimes we simply ask directly about the appropriate way to act. -Many times, we watch others, observing their behavior to help us achieve a better definition of the situation

American culture

-Stresses the importance of not conforming. -Picture themselves as a nation of individualists who think for themselves, stand up for the underdog, and go against the tide to fight for what they think is right.

Social Norms

-The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members -We conform so that we will be liked and accepted by other people

When the Group Is Important

-The strength of the group (how important the group is to us) makes a difference. -Normative pressures are much stronger when they come from people whose friendship, love, and respect we cherish because there is a large cost to losing this love and respect. -One consequence is that it can be dangerous to have policy decisions made by highly cohesive groups because they care more about pleasing each other and avoiding conflict than arriving at the best, most logical decision. -The very act of conforming normatively to important groups most of the time can earn you the right to deviate occasionally without serious consequences.

Idiosyncrasy Credits

-The tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms; if enough credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, deviate from the group without retribution -Like putting money in the bank to save for future use. -It's as if your past conformity allows you, at some point in the future, to make withdrawals from the group without getting into too much trouble.

Why did the American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and mass school suicides conform?

-They didn't know what to do in a confusing or unusual situation. -The behavior of the people around them served as a cue as to how to respond, and they decided to act in a similar manner. -They did not wish to be ridiculed or punished for being different from everybody else. They chose to act the way the group expected so that they wouldn't be rejected or thought less of by group members.

Berns and colleagues: Unpleasantness of resisting normative social influence

-They used fMRI to examine the changes in brain activity of participants as they either normatively conformed to a group's judgment or maintained their independence and disagreed with the group. -When the participants conformed to the group's wrong answers, activation occurred in the same areas. -When participants chose to give the right answer and disagree with the group's unanimous wrong answer, the visual/perceptual areas of the brain were not activated. Instead the amygdala, an area associated with negative emotional states and modulating social behavior became more active.

When Informational Conformity Backfires

-Using other people as a source of information can backfire when they are wrong about what's going on. -During crises, when an individual is confronted with a frightening, potentially dangerous situation to which they are ill equipped to respond. -The person may have no idea of what is really happening or what they should do. -When one's personal safety is involved, the need for information is critical and the behavior of others is very informative.

When we subsequently act like everyone else

-We are conforming, but this doesn't mean we are spineless individuals lacking in self-reliance. -Instead, the influence of others leads us to conform because we see those people as a valuable source of information to guide our behavior.

Good example of Conformity to Social Norms: The Ice Bucket Challenge

-What "goes viral" is that we are most likely to share that leads to emotional arousal -Watching people dump icy water on themselves produces a variety of emotions (surprise and amusement) providing precisely the type of video we are most likely to share. -Provided people with an opportunity to post visible evidence of themselves as they were "doing good." -One of the most critical aspects was that it required people to identify specific friends by name, calling them out individually and placing pressure on them to respond.

Example of Informational Social Influence going Awry: 2016 U.S. presidential election

-Witnessed a record-breaking number of "fake news" stories that spread like wildfire, from baseless claims about Hillary Clinton and violent criminal behavior to allegations that Democrats sought to impose Islamic Law in Florida to claims that the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump -None of these stories were remotely true, but that didn't stop people from posting and sharing them

When will people conform to informational social influence?

1) Ambiguous 2) A Crisis 3) When Other People Are Experts

Burger: First Milgram-style Obedience Study

1) He reduced the psychological distress experienced by participants by stopping the study after 150 volts 2) Participants were prescreened by a clinical psychologist, and those who were identified as even slightly likely to have a negative reaction to the experience were excluded from the study. 3) He explicitly and repeatedly told his participants that they could leave the study at any time, as could the learner. -Burger found no significant difference in obedience rates between his participants and Milgram's. -Scientific inquiry has two sometimes competing aims: to discover new knowledge and to do no harm.

A culture's Social Norms have 2 Types.

1) Injunctive 2) Descriptive -Injunctive norms are more powerful than descriptive norms in producing desirable behavior because injunctive norms tap into normative conformity; we conform (refraining from littering) because someone's behavior reminds us that our society disapproves of littering. We will look like selfish slobs if we litter, and we will feel embarrassed if other people see us litter.

Compliance Tactics: Reason Based

1) Norm of reciprocity 2) Thats not all technique "WAIT! Theres more" 3) Door-in-the-foot technique 4) Foot-in-the-door technique

Bases of Social Power

1) Reward: Tangible (money) and intangible rewards (approval) 2) Coercive: Tangible (physical force) and intangible rewards (rejection) 3) Expert (asymmetry in knowledge or skill) 4) Information (specific info) 5) Referent (Identification with admired person) 6) Legitmate (Social norms)

Milgram Study: Unethical

1) The study involved deception. 2) There was not fully informed consent on the part of participants. 3) Their role as teacher caused them psychological distress during the course of the study. 4) It was not made clear to participants that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time 5) The participants experienced inflicted insight. When the study ended, some of them had learned unpleasant things about themselves that they had not agreed to beforehand 6) Misrepresented his debriefing methods in his published papers and that many research participants actually left the study unaware that the learner had been a confederate and the shocks had been fake

Using Norms to change behavior:

1) Those performing the undesirable behavior at an above-average level (whom you want to convince to decrease the behavior) 2) Those already performing the undesirable behavior at a below-average level (who you want to continue doing what they're doing rather than to boomerang by increasing the undesirable behavior).

Conformity

A change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people due to informational and normative social influences

Which of the following is true, according to social impact theory? A) People conform more to others who are physically close than to others who are physically distant. B) People conform more if the others are important to them. C) People conform more to three or more people than to one or two people. D) All of the above are true.

All of the above are true.

Which of the following is a common ethical concern raised about the Milgram study? A )Participants were forced to learn unpleasant things about themselves without agreeing to that ahead of time. B) Participants had to receive a sample shock of 75 volts before the study began. C) Participants' compensation was low. D) Participants were never given the chance to serve in the role of learner.

Participants were forced to learn unpleasant things about themselves without agreeing to that ahead of time.

Which of the following had the least influence on participants' willingness to keep giving shocks in the Milgram studies? A) Participants' aggression B) Self-justification C) Informational social influence D) Loss of personal responsibility

Participants' aggression

Which of the following statements best captures the relationship between cultural beliefs and conformity? A) There is little variability in how people from different cultures think about conformity. B) Compared to many cultures, Americans tend to have relatively negative attitudes toward conformity. C) Compared to many cultures, Americans tend to have relatively positive attitudes toward conformity. D) Americans' beliefs about conformity have become more and more negative as the years go by.

Compared to many cultures, Americans tend to have relatively negative attitudes toward conformity.

Which of the following strategies of social influence creates a situation similar to that experienced by Milgram's study in that it relies on requests that increase in severity in incremental fashion? A) Descriptive norms B) Foot-in-the-door technique C) Contagion D) Door-in-the-face technique

Foot-in-the-door technique

Tom is a new student at his university. During the first week of classes, he notices a fellow student from one of his classes getting on a bus. Tom decides to follow the student and discovers that this bus takes him right to the building where his class meets. This best illustrates what kind of conformity? A) Public compliance B) Normative social influence C) Informational social influence D) Obedience to authority

Informational social influence

________ norms are most powerful for changing people's behaviors. A) Descriptive B) Injunctive C) Informational D) Normative

Injunctive

Which of the following provides an illustration of how the use of norms to change behavior can backfire and produce a "boomerang effect"? A) Jerry finds out that everyone in his building is conserving water by installing a low-flow shower head, so he decides that he doesn't need to worry about conserving, and he begins taking even longer showers than usual. B) Kramer finds out that he is using more electricity than most people in the neighborhood, so he cuts down on his usage by shutting off his computer, lights, and hot tub every time he leaves his apartment. C) George finds out that all of his neighbors are stealing cable television, so he decides that he will get an illegal cable hookup as well. D) Elaine notices that the new, attractive guy at the office brings a reusable cup instead of bottled water, so she goes out of her way to show off her reusable cup whenever he is in the vicinity in order to win his affection. 1 attempt used

Jerry finds out that everyone in his building is conserving water by installing a low-flow shower head, so he decides that he doesn't need to worry about conserving, and he begins taking even longer showers than usual.

Which of the following best describes an example of normative social influence? A) Samantha is supposed to bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party she is attending. She doesn't drink wine herself but figures she can just ask the store clerk for advice on what kind to buy B) Charlotte is flying on an airplane for the first time. She is worried when she hears the engine make a strange noise but feels better after she looks at the flight attendants and sees that they are not alarmed. C) Carrie is studying with a group of friends. When comparing answers on the practice test, she discovers that they all answered the question differently than she had. Instead of speaking up and telling them she thinks the answer is something else, she agrees with their answer because she figures they must be right D) Miranda is out to lunch with her boss and coworkers. Her boss tells a joke that makes fun of a certain ethnic group, and everyone else laughs. Miranda doesn't think the joke is funny but laughs anyway.

Miranda is out to lunch with her boss and coworkers. Her boss tells a joke that makes fun of a certain ethnic group, and everyone else laughs. Miranda doesn't think the joke is funny but laughs anyway.

Which of the following is the most direct and powerful example of social influence? A) Complying with a polite request made by a friend B) Conforming to a group norm C) Obedience to an order from an authority figure D) Emotion-based attitudes

Obedience to an order from an authority figure

A subtle version of social influence

Occurs when others indirectly indicate to us what is appropriate, and we come to sense that it is in our best interest to conform, or go along with them, such as decisions about what clothes, hairstyles, or slang terms are fashionable.

Using Norms to Change Behavior: Beware the "Boomerang Effect"

One must be careful that descriptive norms do not create a boomerang effect, making an undesirable behavior more likely than it previously was.

Which of the following statements regarding Sherif's 1936 study of perceptions of the autokinetic effect is true? A) Participants conformed because they believed the other people's responses were accurate. B) Participants conformed because they were in a group with their friends, and they simply wanted to fit in with the group. C) Participants conformed publicly but not privately. D) Participants did conform, but the effects of this conformity were short lived as they reverted to their previous, individually given responses once they were no longer part of a group.

Participants conformed because they believed the other people's responses were accurate.

Which of the following conclusions is consistent with the predictions of social impact theory? A) Social influence increases in a linear fashion as a group grows in size; in other words, each new member added to a group adds the same amount of social influence as the previous member added. B) The more immediate a group is, the more social influence it tends to exert. C) Conformity is more likely among groups of strangers than within established groups that are important to us. D) Conformity is less prevalent in collectivist cultures than it is in individualistic cultures.

The more immediate a group is, the more social influence it tends to exert.

A powerful and useful source of knowledge available to us

The behavior of other people.

Which of the following statements best captures the relationship between informational social influence and eyewitness performance in legal proceedings? A) Informational social influence always makes eyewitnesses more accurate. B) Eyewitnesses are encouraged to use informational social influence in providing their testimony at trial. C) Because the stakes are so high in a criminal trial, eyewitnesses do not conform to informational social influence. D) The legal system often takes steps to prevent conformity to informational social influence among eyewitnesses.

The legal system often takes steps to prevent conformity to informational social influence among eyewitnesses.

Social Impact Theory

The likelihood that you will respond to normative social influence depends on 3 variables regarding the group in question: 1) Strength: How important to you is the group? The more important a group is to us, the more likely we will be to conform to its normative pressures, according to social impact theory. 2) Immediacy: How close is the group to you in space and time during the attempt to influence you? Conformity is also predicted to increase the closer group members are to us physically. 3) Number: How many people are in the group? As the size of the group increases, so does the normative pressure it exerts, but each additional person has less of an influencing effect. It does not take an extremely large group to create normative social influence, but the larger the group, the stronger the social pressure

Contagion

The rapid spread of emotions or behaviors through a crowd

Which of the following is a change that Burger (2009) made from the original Milgram study when he replicated the research several decades later? A) He paid participants for their involvement. B) He examined only female participants. C) The study was stopped once participants went past 150 volts. D) He told participants that the study was part of research on the effects of punishment on learning.

The study was stopped once participants went past 150 volts.

A 12-person jury is deliberating on a murder trial. Eleven members of the jury want to vote guilty and convict the defendant; only one juror wants to vote not guilty. The holdout juror, Henry, digs in and will not change his mind. According to research, what is the best prediction for how the rest of the group will react to Henry's deviance? A) They will eventually come to ignore him and try to punish him by being generally unpleasant toward him. B) They will try to use minority influence to change his mind. C) They will seek to change his opinion by using idiosyncrasy credits. D) They will come to appreciate his principled stand the longer he holds out in defiance of their position.

They will eventually come to ignore him and try to punish him by being generally unpleasant toward him.

Which of the following was a goal of Milgram's obedience research? A) To identify the abnormal personality characteristics associated with sadistic behavior B) To identify cultural differences in aggression C )To better understand the social forces that contribute to destructive and immoral behavior D) To justify and exonerate the behaviors linked to genocide and other inhuman acts

To better understand the social forces that contribute to destructive and immoral behavior

Which of the following is most true about informational social influence? A) When deciding whether to conform, people should ask themselves whether the other people know more about what is going on than they do. B) Often, people publicly conform but do not privately accept this kind of influence. C) People should always try to resist it. D) People are most likely to conform when others have the same level of expertise as they do.

When deciding whether to conform, people should ask themselves whether the other people know more about what is going on than they do.

Which of the following illustrates the role played by normative social influence in the obedience of Milgram's participants? A) Many participants showed signs of nervous laughter during the course of the study. B) The "learner" (actually a confederate) announced before the study began that he had a preexisting heart condition. C) Men and women exhibited similar levels of obedience in the research. D) When other "teachers" (actually confederates) refused to continue with the study, participants' obedience rates declined significantly.

When other "teachers" (actually confederates) refused to continue with the study, participants' obedience rates declined significantly.

Mirror Neurons

a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as the though the observer were itself acting

Brandon knows that society considers underage drinking to be wrong; he also knows, however, that on a Saturday night at his university, many of his friends will engage in this behavior. His belief that most of the public would disapprove of underage drinking is ___________, while his perception that many teenagers drink under certain circumstances is ____________. A) an injunctive norm; a descriptive norm B) a descriptive norm; an injunctive norm C) an injunctive norm; conformity D) a descriptive norm; conformity

an injunctive norm; a descriptive norm

The foot-in-the-door technique A) is an example of propaganda. B) capitalizes on people's desire for self-consistency. C) works only when the requests come from someone in a position of authority. D) works only when the second request comes from the same person as the first request.

capitalizes on people's desire for self-consistency.

The key to minority influence is A) consistency. B) creativity. C) normative social pressure. D) immediacy.

consistency.

Compared to informational social influence, normative social influence A) is a tendency about which most Americans hold positive attitudes. B) leads to more internalized, private attitude change. C) is more consistent across different cultures. D) has to less to do with being accurate and more to do with fitting in.

has to less to do with being accurate and more to do with fitting in.

A ______ norm involves perceptions of which behaviors society approves of; a ______ norm involves perceptions of how people actually behave. A) descriptive; injunctive B) injunctive; descriptive C) private; public D) public; private

injunctive; descriptive

American mythology and culture often emphasize the importance of A) following authority. B) not conforming. C) setting descriptive norms. D) normative social influence

not conforming.

Asch's line-judgment research indicated that A) participants demonstrated public conformity without private acceptance. B) conformity occurs only on a task that is of personal importance to the individual. C) conformity was greater when participants wrote down their responses rather than said them aloud. D) every single participant conformed at least one time.

participants demonstrated public conformity without private acceptance.

In Asch's line studies, participants who were alone when asked to report the length of the lines gave the correct answer 98% of the time. However, when they were with the confederates who sometimes gave an obviously wrong answer, 76% of participants gave the wrong answer at least once. This suggests that Asch's studies are an illustration of A) public compliance with private acceptance. B) informational influence. C) private compliance. D) public compliance without private acceptance.

public compliance without private acceptance.

The door-in-the-face technique A) relies at least in part on norms of reciprocity. B) illustrates the importance of people's desire to be accurate. C) is more likely to work during a time of crisis. D) is an example of informational social influence.

relies at least in part on norms of reciprocity.

Societal rules regarding acceptable behavior are known as A) contagion. B) convergence. C) social norms. D) minority influence.

social norms.

The more important it is to people to make an accurate decision, A) the more they will prefer public to private conformity. B) the more they seek to make that decision on their own, uninfluenced by what the people around them have to say. C) the more likely they are to conform to informational social influence. D) the less likely they are to conform to informational social influence.

the more likely they are to conform to informational social influence.

Informational social influence is most likely to occur when A) a situation is a crisis but also unambiguous. B) the other people around are not experts and the situation is not a crisis. C) the other people around are experts and the situation is ambiguous. D) a situation is unambiguous and not a crisis.

the other people around are experts and the situation is ambiguous.

Conformity always includes A) positive and moral behavior. B) the real or imagined influence of other people. C) an authority figure. D) negative and immoral behavior.

the real or imagined influence of other people.

Informational social influence occurs A) through public but not private conformity. B) only in a crisis. C) autokinetically. D) when we believe that other people's reactions can help us arrive at an accurate reading of a situation.

when we believe that other people's reactions can help us arrive at an accurate reading of a situation.

All of the following are examples of informational social influence except A) you've just started work at a new job, and a fire alarm goes off; you watch your coworkers to see what to do. B) when you get to college, you change the way you dress so that you "fit in" better—that is, so that people will like you more. C) you are running a race, but because you are unsure of the route, you wait to check which of two roads the other runners follow. D) you ask your adviser which classes you should take next semester.

when you get to college, you change the way you dress so that you "fit in" better—that is, so that people will like you more.