Social Psychology

Fourteenth Edition, Global Edition

Chapter 8
Social Influence: Changing
Others’ Behavior

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Learning Objectives
•
8.1 Describe the factors that influence conformity
•
8.2 Describe the six basic principles of compliance and how they function
•
8.3 Analyze the role of authority in inducing obedience

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Introduction: Social Influence: Changing
Others’ Behavior

Social influence refers to the efforts by

people to change the attitudes, beliefs, or
behaviors of other people

The aspects of social influence include:

Symbolic social Obedience
Conformity Compliance influence (where our (where people are
(pressure to act in (making a direct behavior can be
line with social request of influenced by another basically ordered
norms) another person) person who is not even to perform a
with us at the time)
certain behavior)
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 Conformity: How Groups—and Norms—
Influence Our Behavior
• Conformity involves pressure to fit in or to adhere to certain unwritten rules
regarding behavior.
• The rules that tell us how we are expected to act in different situations are
known as social norms.
 Social norms can be explicit (e.g., handicapped parking signs) or
implicit (e.g., showing up “fashionably late” to a party).
 Whichever type of social norm is in use, it is a powerful influence
and most people adhere to them (e.g., standing for a country’s
national anthem).
 Although it may seem that conformity violates our freedom, we need
to conform in many situations to maintain social order.

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 Conformity: How Groups—and Norms—
Influence Our Behavior
• Social Pressure: The Irresistible Force?
– Solomon Asch
 This points to the difference between public
conformity (agreeing with others around us;
doing what they do) and private acceptance
(truly feeling or thinking the way other people
do). We may engage in public conformity, but
may not actually change our personal opinions
(Maas & Clark, 1984).

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 Factors Affecting Conformity

• Cohesiveness is the extent to which we are

Cohesiveness attracted to a particular social group and want to
and belong to it.
• Cohesiveness high, power to conform will also
conformity be high

• Bigger group size – higher social pressure

Conformity • Conformity rises as there are more members of
a group, but after about three people, it either
and group levels off or is reduced (early research)
size • more recent research indicates that with eight or
more people, conformity increases.

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 Why we often choose to “Go Along”

Normative social influence

• refers to social influences stemming from our need to

be liked and accepted by others. We make changes in
our behavior to conform to others’ expectations.

Informational social influence

• refers to a type of social influence rooted in our need

to have correct perceptions of the social world.
• Usually in situations where we are feeling uncertain.
• In cases where we have more confidence in our own
opinions and behaviors, the influence is much less
powerful.

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 Downside of Conformity
– Gender norms are norms that indicate how women and men are expected to
behave.
– Conforming to such norms can produce negative effects such as the case
with the famous Stanford prison study where students were assigned to play
the role of prisoners or guards.
 The purpose of the study was to determine whether participants would
come to behave like real guards and real prisoners— would they
conform to the norms established for their respective roles.
 The prisoners were rebellious at first, but then become passive and
depressed.
 Guards grew increasing brutal and sadistic
  Key point of the study—it is the situations in which people find
themselves, not their personal traits, that largely determine behavior.

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 Conformity: Minority Influence

• Minority Influence: Does the Majority Always Rule?

1. In some cases, a minority opinion can overtake the majority
and be accepted.
2. The people in the minority group must have consistency in
their opposition to the majority as well as display that they
can be flexible in their opinions.
3. If the opinion of the minority mirrors contemporary social
trends, they are more likely to have an impact on the
majority.

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 Compliance
• Compliance is defined as asking people directly to go along with a request.

• Cialdini (1994) identified six underlying principles of compliance:

1. Friendship/Liking: we are more likely to comply if a friend or someone we like makes
a request as opposed to a stranger or someone we do not like.
2. Commitment/Consistency: if we have made a commitment to a position or action, we
tend to comply with requests for actions that are consistent with the position or action
as opposed to requests that are inconsistent.
3. Scarcity: we tend to comply with a request if it involves outcomes or objects that are
relatively scarce.
4. Reciprocity: we are more likely to comply if the request comes from someone who has
done a favor for us in the past.
5. Social Validation: we are more likely to comply if we believe that similar others are
behaving in the same way.
6. Authority: we are more likely to comply if the request comes from an authority figure
(it can be someone with real authority or someone who “appears” to have authority).

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 Tactics for Compliance

• Tactics Based on Friendship or Liking

– Increasing compliance through liking - ingratiation
– Incidental similarity

• Tactics Based on Commitment or Consistency

– Foot-in-the-door technique
– Lowball procedure

• Tactics Based on Reciprocity

– Door-in-the-face technique
– That’s-not-all technique

• Tactics Based on Scarcity

– Deadline technique
– Playing hard to get

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 Symbolic Social Influence

• Symbolic social influence is a type of social influence where

mental representations of others are influencing our behavior.
• In other words, another person need not be present (and
deliberately trying to change our behavior) for them to have an
impact on us.
– How we think important others would react to our behavior
can influence us. For example, we may drive cautiously
because we hear a parent’s voice in our minds telling us to
do so.
– Our relationships with important others, our goals for our
relationships, and the goals others want for us can all exert a
powerful effect on our behavior.
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Obedience to Authority: Would You Harm
Someone If Ordered to Do So?
• Obedience in the Laboratory
– Stanley Milgram

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Obedience to Authority: Why It Often Occurs

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 Obedience to Authority
Resisting the Effects of Destructive Obedience
• Reminded that they will be held responsible for their actions -
less likely to obey
• Reminded that once reached a certain point, blind obedience is
no longer appropriate. The use of disobedient models can help,
because these individuals refuse to give in to the authority
figure’s demands to obey.
• Question the motives of the authority figure - better able to resist
obedience.
• Knowing the findings of obedience research - resist the harmful
effects of unquestioned obedience.

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