Social Influence
- Influence stems in part from social norms, rules for expected and acceptable behavior.
But sometimes social pressure moves people in dreadful directions, such as individuals
being isolated with those of negative influence
Conformity: Complying with Social Pressures
- More likely to conform with those we identify with, the chameleon effect
- Conformity: adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with some group standard
- Chartrand and colleagues demonstrated chameleon effect with college students
- Automatic mimicry helps people to empathize and feel what others feel; The
more we mimic, the greater our empathy, and the more people tend to like us.
Empathetic mimicking fosters fondness
- Soloman Asch and others found that people are most likely to adjust their behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard when they feel incompetent or insecure, their
group has at least three people, everyone else agrees, they admire the group’s status
and attractiveness, they have not already committed to another response, they know
they are being observed, or their culture encourages respect for social standards
- Student answers are more diverse when anonymously answering than when
raising their hands
- Reasons people may conform
- Normative social influence: to gain approval or avoid disapproval;
- Informational social influence: resulting from one's willingness to accept others’
opinions as new information about reality
- Suggestibility and mimicry sometimes lead to tragedy
- Copycat violence threats after Colorado’s Columbine High School shootings
RP-1: Despite her mother’s pleas to use a more ergonomic backpack, Antonia insists on trying to
carry all of her books to high school in an oversized purse the way her fashionable friends all seem
to do. Antonia is affected by what type of social influence?
A: Normative Social Influence
Obedience
- Majority of research done to explain WWII, why people would agree to commit specific
actions
- People can be anonymous in a group and more likely to do something they
wouldn’t
- Milgram's experiment ⅔ of decent American people would be willing to deliver
nearly fatal electric shocks if asked to by an authority figure, or if responsibility is
placed elsewhere. “Effects of punishment on learning”
- People obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming
another person; strong social influences can make ordinary people
conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior
- In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people’s compliance with
lesser evils
1
- Influence stems in part from social norms, rules for expected and acceptable behavior.
But sometimes social pressure moves people in dreadful directions, such as individuals
being isolated with those of negative influence
Conformity: Complying with Social Pressures
- More likely to conform with those we identify with, the chameleon effect
- Conformity: adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with some group standard
- Chartrand and colleagues demonstrated chameleon effect with college students
- Automatic mimicry helps people to empathize and feel what others feel; The
more we mimic, the greater our empathy, and the more people tend to like us.
Empathetic mimicking fosters fondness
- Soloman Asch and others found that people are most likely to adjust their behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard when they feel incompetent or insecure, their
group has at least three people, everyone else agrees, they admire the group’s status
and attractiveness, they have not already committed to another response, they know
they are being observed, or their culture encourages respect for social standards
- Student answers are more diverse when anonymously answering than when
raising their hands
- Reasons people may conform
- Normative social influence: to gain approval or avoid disapproval;
- Informational social influence: resulting from one's willingness to accept others’
opinions as new information about reality
- Suggestibility and mimicry sometimes lead to tragedy
- Copycat violence threats after Colorado’s Columbine High School shootings
RP-1: Despite her mother’s pleas to use a more ergonomic backpack, Antonia insists on trying to
carry all of her books to high school in an oversized purse the way her fashionable friends all seem
to do. Antonia is affected by what type of social influence?
A: Normative Social Influence
Obedience
- Majority of research done to explain WWII, why people would agree to commit specific
actions
- People can be anonymous in a group and more likely to do something they
wouldn’t
- Milgram's experiment ⅔ of decent American people would be willing to deliver
nearly fatal electric shocks if asked to by an authority figure, or if responsibility is
placed elsewhere. “Effects of punishment on learning”
- People obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming
another person; strong social influences can make ordinary people
conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior
- In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people’s compliance with
lesser evils
1
