Social Psychology: Social

Thinking and Social Influence

• Prescribed reading: Chapter 16
Coon, D. & Mitterer, L.O. (2010). Introduction
to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and
Behavior. New York: Thomson Wadsworth.
(12th edition)

Lecture slides available:

http//learning.ukzn.ac.za
 Topics to be covered
1) Roles
2) Groups
3) Attributions
4) Attitudes
5) Persuasion
6) Cognitive Dissonance
7) Social Influence
8) Conformity
9) Compliance
10) Obedience
11) Coercion
 What is social psychology?
• Social Psychology: Scientific study of how
individuals behave, think, and feel in social
situations; how people act in the presence
(actual or implied) of others
• Culture: Ongoing pattern of life that is passed
from one generation to another
 Social Roles
• Social Role: Patterns of behavior expected of
people in various social positions (e.g.
daughter, mother, teacher, President
- Ascribed Role: Assigned to a person or not
under personal control: man, sister, King
- Achieved Role: Attained voluntarily by special
effort: Teacher, mayor, President
• Role Conflict: When two or more roles make
conflicting demands on behavior
 Zimbardo and Social Roles
• The Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo showed
that social settings influence our behaviour.
• The roles that people play can shape their behaviour
and attitudes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sYtX2sEaeFE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=uTdttd7XTfQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=fQnOkmvigi0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zimbardo.pdf
 Groups
• Group Structure: Network of roles,
communication, pathways, and power in a
group
• Group Cohesiveness: Degree of attraction
among group members or their commitment
to remaining in the group
– Cohesive groups work better together
 Groups
• In-Group: Group with which an individual
identifies
• Out-Group: Group with which an individual
doesn’t identify
• Status: Level of social power and importance
• Norm: Accepted, but usually unspoken,
standard of appropriate behavior
 Groups: norms
• A convergence of attitudes, beliefs and
behaviours tends to take place in many groups.
• The autokinetic effect (apparent movement of a
stationary pinpoint of light displayed in a
darkened room) is an example of social influence
and shows how one person’s behaviour is
changed by the actions of others.
• Norms are often based on our perceptions of
what others think and do.
 Attribution
• Attribution: Making inferences about the causes
of one’s own behavior and others’ behavior
• People perceive behaviour as being caused
• Attribution Theory: deals with how the social
perceiver uses information to arrive at causal
explanations for events
• Why do we make attributions?
• “The causes of events always interest us more
than the events themselves” – Cicero
• “Happy is he who has been able to perceive the
causes of things” - Virgil
 Why do we make attributions?
• Sense of cognitive control
• To predict the future
• To respond appropriately
 Making Attributions
How do we form integrated (deeper) social
impressions based on observed behaviour?
Causes of behaviour are seen as inside (internal) or
outside (external) a person
- external causes – lie outside a person (such as the
weather)
- internal causes – lie within the person (such as
needs and personality traits)
• Consistency: Person’s behavior changes very little in
many different circumstances
• Distinctiveness: Noticing that a behavior only occurs
under certain circumstances
 Making attributions
• To deduce causes, we typically take into account
the behaviour of the actor, the object the
person’s action is directed toward, and the
setting in which the action occurs.
• Actor: Person of interest
• Object: Aim, motive, or target of an action
• Setting: Social and/or physical environment in
which action occurs
• Situational Demands: Pressures to behave in
certain ways in particular settings and social
situations
 Making attributions
• Discounting: Downgrading internal causes as a
way of explaining an individual’s behavior when a
person’s actions seem to have strong external
causes
- Self-handicapping: Arranging to perform under
conditions that usually impair performance, so as
to have an excuse for a poor showing
• Consensus: Degree to which people respond
alike. In attribution, implies that responses are
externally caused
 Attribution mistakes
• Fundamental Attribution Error: Tendency to
attribute behavior of others to internal causes
(personality, likes, and so on). We believe this
even if they really have external causes, because
we generally assume that people choose to act
the way they do.
• Actor-Observer Bias: Tendency to attribute
behavior of others to internal causes, while
attributing the behavior of ourselves to external
causes (situations and circumstances)
 Attributions
• Attribution theory summarises how we think
about ourselves and others, including the
errors we tend to make when doing so.
 Attitudes
• Attitude: a learned tendency to respond to people, objects or
institutions in positive or negative ways.
• Attitudes summarise your evaluation of objects for example
liking chocolate ice cream, being against abortion or endorsing
the values of a particular political party.
• The ‘misdirected letter technique’ shows how actions are
closely linked to attitudes.
• Expressed through beliefs, emotions and actions.
- The belief component: what you believe about a particular
object or person.
- The emotional component: your feelings toward the object.
- The action component: your actions toward various people,
objects or institutions.
• Attitudes orient us to the social world and in doing so they
prepare us to act in certain ways.
 Forming attitudes
How do people acquire attitudes?
• Attitudes are acquired in several basic ways:
1) Direct contact (personal experience) with the attitudinal
object
- chance conditioning – learning that takes place by chance or
coincidence
2) Interaction with others eg discussion with people holding a
particular attitude
3) Group membership – in most groups, pressures to conform
affect our attitudes just as they do our behaviour
4) Child rearing – the effects of parental values, beliefs and
practices
5) Mass media (all media that reaches large audiences) eg
newspapers, TV, Internet, magazines etc
 Attitudes and Behaviour
Why are some attitudes acted on, whereas
others are not?
• The immediate consequences of our actions weigh
heavily on the choices we make.
• Our expectations of how others will evaluate our
actions are also important.
• Long-standing habits have a powerful effect on our
behaviour.
• Situational factors also contribute to our choice of
behaviour.
 Attitudes and Behaviour
• There are often large differences between
attitudes and behaviour, particularly between
privately held attitudes and public behaviour.
• However, barriers to action typically fall when a
person holds an attitude with conviction (if you
have conviction about an issue it evokes strong
feelings, you think about it and discuss it often
and are knowledgeable about it).
• Attitudes held with passionate conviction often
lead to major changes in personal behaviour.
 Attitude Measurement
• Attitudes can be measured in several ways:
• Open-ended interview – people are asked to freely
express their attitudes toward a particular issue.
• Social distance scale – people are asked to say how
willing they are to admit members of a group to
various levels of social closeness
• Attitude scales – people respond to statements on a 5
point scale, ranking them from “strongly agree” to
“strongly disagree”
HOWEVER, people may not answer according to their
true attitudes but in a way that they feel is socially
acceptable.
 Attitude Change
• Although attitudes are fairly stable, they do
change.
• Some attitude change can be understood in
terms of reference groups (any group that an
individual uses as a standard for social
comparison).
• Newcomb’s study of students at Bennington
College
 Persuasion
• Any deliberate attempt to change attitudes or
beliefs through information and arguments.
• The success or failure of persuasion can be
understood if we consider the communicator,
the message and the audience.
Communicator Message Audience
Likeable & similar to Appeals to emotions Well informed – both sides
audience of argument presented
Nothing to gain Provides a clear course of Poorly informed – only 1
action side of argument presented
Clear-cut conclusions
Uses facts and stats
Repeated frequently
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Contradicting or clashing thoughts cause
discomfort.
• We have a need for consistency in out
thoughts, perceptions and images of ourselves
• Inconsistency can motivate people to make
their thoughts and attitudes agree with their
actions.
 The Seekers and Cognitive Dissonance
Theory

• Cognitive Dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger,

arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which
believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood,
and what happened to its members – particularly the really
committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work
for the cult – when the flood did not happen.
• Embarassing dissappointment for the Seekers when nothing
happened.
• However, they became more convinced that they were right and
told newspapers and radio stations of their accomplishment.
Why did they become more convinced
in Mrs Keech’s messages?
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory explains that after
publicly commiting themselves to their beliefs,
they had a strong need to maintain consistency.
• Convincing others was a way of adding proof that
they were correct.
• The dissonance of the thought of being so stupid
was so great that instead they revised their
beliefs to meet with obvious facts: that the aliens
had, through their concern for the cult, saved the
world instead.
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Cognitive dissonance also underlies attempts to
convince ourselves that we’ve done the right
thing.
• Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) cognitive
dissonance experiment. Being paid only $1 is not
sufficient incentive for lying and so those who
were paid $1 experienced dissonance.
• The amount of justification for acting contrary to
your attitudes and beliefs affects how much
dissonance you feel.
 Strategies for Reducing Cognitive
Dissonance
1) Change your attitude
2) Add consonant thoughts
3) Change the importance of the dissonant
thoughts
4) Reduce the amount of perceived choice
5) Change your behaviour
 Social Influence
• Social influence: changes in a person’s behaviour
induced by the presence or actions of others.
• When people interact, they almost always affect
one another’s behaviour.

Mild Strong
----------------------------------------------------------
Mere Conformity Obedience Coercion
presence
 Social Influence
• Mere presence – changing behaviour just
because other people are nearby
• Conform – spontaneously change our
behaviour to bring it into agreement with
others who have no social power/authority
• Obey – changing behaviour in direct response
to the demand’s of an authority
• Coerced – changing behaviour because you
are forced to
 Social Power
• Social Power: the ability to control, alter or influence
the behaviour of another person.
• Five types:
1) Reward power – lies in the ability to reward a person
for complying with desired behaviour
2) Coercive power – is based on an ability to punish a
person for failure to comply
3) Legitimate power – comes from accepting a person as
an agent of an established social order
4) Referent power – is based on respect for or
identification with a person or group
5) Expert power – is based on recognition that another
person has knowledge necessary for achieving a goal.
 Changing behaviour through
mere presence
• Mere presence: the tendency for people to
change their behaviour just because of the
presence of other people.
• Social facilitation: the tendency of people to
perform better when in the presence of others
- This is related to a person’s level of confidence in
a specific skill
• Social Loafing: the tendency for people to work
less hard when part of a group than when they
are solely responsible for their work
 Personal Space
• Personal Space: area surrounding the body
that is defined as private and is subject to
personal control
• It extends ‘I’ or ‘me’ boundaries past the skin
to the immediate environment.
• Proxemics: the systematic study of the human
use of space, particularly in social settings.
 Personal Space
• Norms governing comfortable or acceptable distances vary
according to relationships, activities, cultures and geography.
• Hall (1966) identified 4 basic zones that apply to face-to-face
interactions in North America:
Intimate distance - most private space immediately surrounding
the body; 45 cm from the skin. Reserved for special people or
special circumstances
Personal distance - Maintained in interactions with friends. 45
cm to 1.2 m from body; arm’s length
Social distance - Impersonal interaction; 1.2 m to 3.5 m
Public distance - Formal interactions take place (like giving a
speech); 3.5 m or more
 Conformity
• Conformity: bringing one’s behaviour into
agreement with actions, norms or values of
others, in the absence of any direct pressure
• Comparing hairstyles, habits of speech, dress,
eating habits and social customs in two or
more cultures makes it clear that we all
conform to social norms.
• Although conformity often has negative
connotations, a degree of uniformity is
necessary if we are to interact comfortably as
it allows us to anticipate the actions of others.
 The Asch Experiment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw&feature=player_embedded
The Asch Experiment
• You must select (from a group of three) the line that
most closely matches the standard line. All lines are
shown to a group of six people (including you)
- Other five were accomplices and at times all would
select the wrong line
- In 33% of the trials, the
real subject conformed to
group pressure even when
the group’s answers were
obviously incorrect!
 Conformity
• People conform for two main reasons:
1) Because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence)
2) Because they believe the group is better informed than they are
(informational influence)
• Are some people more susceptible to group pressures than
others?
• People with high needs for structure or certainty, are anxious,
low in self-confidence or concerned with the approval of others
are more likely to conform
• People who live in cultures that emphasise group co-operation
are also more likely to conform.
• In addition to personal characteristics, certain situations tend to
encourage conformity.
 Group Factors in Conformity
• In most groups: rewarded with acceptance and
approval for conformity and threatened with
rejection or ridicule for nonconformity
• Group Sanctions: Rewards and punishments
administered by groups to enforce conformity
among members
• The more important group membership is to a
person, the more he or she will be influenced by
other group members.
• Majority of three produced the most conformity
• Unanimity is more important than the size of the
majority, 1 confederate can reduce conformity by
80%
• Conformity decreases when participants answer in
private
 Compliance
• Compliance: bending to requests of a someone who has
little/no authority or other form of social power
• Foot-in-the-door effect: tendency for a person who has
first complied with a small request to be more likely later
to fulfil a larger request.
• Seeing yourself agree to a small request helps convince
you that you don’t mind doing what was asked. After
that, you are more likely to comply with a larger request.
• Example: Schwarzwald, Bizman, and Raz (1983) study, a
solicitor first asks a person to sign a petition. Then, a few
weeks later, the solicitor asks the person to make a
donation
 Compliance
• The door-in-the-face effect: tendency for a person who has
refused a major request to subsequently be more likely to
comply with a minor request
• This strategy works because a person who abandons a large
request appears to have given up something. In response,
many people feel that they must repay this person by giving
in to the smaller request.
• However, it’s effect is limited to situations in which the size of
the initial request is extremely large.
• Eg: “Can I stay the night at my boyfriend’s house?”[Response
is “no”] followed by “Can I go to his house for one hour
instead?”
 Compliance
• Lowball technique: a strategy in which
commitment is gained first to reasonable or
desirable terms, which are then made less
reasonable or desirable
• An explanation for the lowball effect is provided
by cognitive dissonance theory. If a person is
already enjoying the prospect of an excellent deal
and the future benefits of the item or idea then
backing out would create cognitive dissonance,
which is prevented by playing down the negative
effects of the ‘extra’ costs.
 Gaining Compliance
• There are three basic ways to get people to voluntarily
comply with a request:
1) Start with a small request and then make a bigger
request
2) Make a major request that you know the person will
turn down and then make a smaller request
3) Make a request and get the person to agree to it, then
change the requirements for fulfilling the request
Knowing these strategies allows you to protect yourself
from being manipulated by people using them.
 Passive Compliance

• Passive compliance:
passively bending to
unreasonable demands
or circumstances
 Obedience
• Obedience: conformity to the demands of an
authority.
• Obedience to authority is a form of
compliance and as such it has been studied in
the laboratories of social psychologists for
over 40 years.
 Milgram’s Obedience Studies
• Would you shock a man with a known heart
condition who is screaming and asking to be
released?
• Milgram studied this; the man with a heart
condition was an accomplice and the
“teacher” was a real volunteer. The goal was
to teach the learner word pairs.
• Before the experiment began Milgram gave a
lecture, describing the experiment in detail.
• After the lecture, psychologists predicted
that only 4% of the “teachers” would
progress beyond 300 volts.
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
• Today the field of psychology
would deem this study highly
unethical but, it revealed
some extremely important
findings.
• The “learner” screamed and
provided no further answers
once 300 volts (“Severe
Shock”) was reached
• 65% obeyed by going all the
way to 450 volts on the
“shock machine” even
though the learner eventually
could not answer any more
questions
 Results of Milgram’s Experiment
• Milgram suggested that when directions came
from an authority, people rationalise that they
are not responsible for their actions.
• The experimenter said that he took full
responsibility for the study
 Milgram’s Follow-up
• Even when run in a shabby building 48% obeyed.
• In later studies he tried to reduce obedience. He found that:
- distance between the ‘teacher’ and the ‘learner’ is
important
- distance from the authority also has an effect
(when the experimenter gave his instructions over the phone
only 22% obeyed).
• Group support can also greatly reduce destructive
obedience
• Milgram’s obedience study has been replicated in many
other countries, including South Africa.
 Coercion
• Coercion: being forced to change your beliefs or your
behaviour against your will
• Brainwashing: engineered or forced attitude change involving
a captive audience
• Captivity facilitates complete control over the environment
and allows a degree of psychological manipulation that would
be impossible in a normal setting
• Physical and psychological abuse loosen former values and
beliefs - unfreeze
• When abuse becomes unbearable the person changes and
abandon former beliefs. When they do they are rewarded
• From then on, a mixture of hope and fear and pressures to
conform serve to solidify (refreeze) new attitudes
• However, the effects of brainwashing are temporary and start
to erode if the person is removed from the coercive
environment
 Cults
• Cult: a group that professes great devotion to some
person and follows that person almost without
question.
• Cult members are typically victimized by their
leaders in various ways
• Recruitment: in recruiting new members cults use a
powerful blend of manipulation, isolation, deception,
fear and escalating commitment
• Cult members try to catch potential converts at a
time of need – especially when a sense of belonging
will be attractive to converts
 Conversion into a cult
1) It begins with intensive displays of affection and understanding
2) Isolation from non-cult members and drills, discipline and
rituals which wear down physical and emotional resistance,
discourage critical thinking and generate feelings of
commitment
- this will often involve foot-in-the-door techniques
3) Making a major commitment like signing over a bank account or
property to the group or moving in with the group
- making such major public commitments creates a powerful
cognitive dissonance effect
4) Once in the group, members are cut off from former reference
groups, value systems and social structures
5) Conversion is complete when people come to think of
themselves more as group members than as individuals
 Examples of Cults
People’s Temple; Aum Shinrikyo; Heaven’s
Gate; Manson Family; Branch Davidians;
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s Communities;
Order of the Solar Temple; Villa Baviera; Cargo
Cults; Raelians; Family Radio Network