Social Influence 3

Locus of control

Internal and external.

Obedience research

Zimbardo showed that gradual commitment can help create social change. Once a small institution is obeyed, it's harder to resist another one. People drift into a new kind of behaviour.

Evaluation

+ Allen and Levine found conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch type study. This occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had bad vision. Resistance enables someone to be free of group pressure. - challenge with LOC explanation

Evaluation

+ Gamson found higher levels of resistance than Milgram, possibly because Gamsons participants were in groups. 88% rebelled showing peer support is linked to greater resistance. - challenge with LOC explanation.

Resistance to social influence

The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority.

Social support

The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to the same. These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible.

External LOC

Things happen to them without their own control, show less resistance to authority.

Evaluation

+ Nolan investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption. A decrease in energy use was found when people were told other residents were doing it too. - Nemeth said the effects of minority influence are indirect and delayed. Effects are fragile and limited. - explanations of how social influence leads to social change draws heavily upon studies like Milgram (lab, artificial, low EV etc).

Evaluation of Moscovici

+ lab, high control over EV, establishes cause and effect - low EV, artificial setting, can't generalise to real life - lab, DC, guessed they were confederates - p's deceived, goes against BPS ethical guidelines , ruins the reputation of psychology

Limited role of LOC

- The role of loc in resisting social influence may be exaggerated. - LOC may only come into play in novel situations. - It has very little influence over our behaviour in familiar situations where our previous experiences will be more important.

Results of Moscovici

1st condition - p's conformed in 8.4% of the trails. 32% of p's conformed to minority at least once. 2nd condition - p's conformed 1.3% of trials. Concluded when members of minority are constant, they can influence the majority on some occasions.

Minority Influence

A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. This leads to internalisation in which private attitudes are changed as well as public.

A study to demonstrate minority influence and consistency: Moscovici

Aimed to see if a consistent minority could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a colour perception task. Group of 6 viewed a set of coloured slides which varied in intensity, had to state of it was blue or green. 1st condition - 2 confederates consistently said it was green on 2/3 of the trails. 2nd - inconsistently.

Research support

Asch found that one other confederate agreeing with the participant reduced conformity from 33% to 5.5%. This person acts as a model.

Conformity research

Asch highlighted the importance of dissent in one of his variations where one confederate gave the correct answer the whole way through.it broke the power of the majority and encouraged others to dissent. Shows dissent has the potential to lead to social change.

Consistency

Being consistent is hard for a majority to ignore and they are more likely to pay attention to you.

4. The Augmentation Principle

Being prepared to sacrifice yourself.

1. Drawing attention

By proving social proof of the problem.

Minorities can influence social change is server always:

Consistency, commitment and flexibility.

5. The snow ball effect

Continue to display your messages to gradually grab attention of others.

Commitment

Dedication, making personal sacrifices, not acting out of self interest.

The six step process of minority influence

Did Carrie do a sloppy shot?

2. Consistency

Displaying messages of intent.

Research support

In one of Milgrams variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient participant.

Research support for consistency

Wood et al carried out a meta analysis of 100 similar studies and found minority's who were consistent as the most influential. This suggests consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

3. Deeper processing

Helping others to think about your message.

Real life and conformity processes

Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity by appealing to normative social influence. They produce info about what others are doing eg "bin it, others do". Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing.

Research support

Holland repeated Milgrams baseline study and measured whether p's were internals or externals. 37% of internals didn't continue to 450v, 23% of externals didn't. Internals show higher resistance to authority.

Social support: obedience

Social support can help people resist obedience. The pressure to obey is reduced if another person also disobeys.

Flexibility

More effective if the compromise and are reasonable.

Social change

Occurs when whole societies (not just individuals) adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things.

6. Social Cryptomnesia

People have no memory of the events that let to change but they know change has happened.

Internal LOC

People with a high internal loc control the things that happen to them, are more self confident, achievement orientated, higher intelligence, less need for social approval, greater resistance to social influence, beast decisions on their own beliefs and resist pressure from others.

Resistance to social influence

People with an internal LOC are more likely to resist pressures to conform and obey than people with an external LOC.

Social support: conformity

Social support can help people resist conformity. If there are others present who aren't conforming, the pressure to conform is reduced. The person conforming doesn't have to give the right answer, it's simply the fact that someone else isn't following the majority. This enables a person to follow their own conscience.