SOCIAL INFLUENCE

MUHAMMAD ZEESHAN ILTAF

INTRODUCTION

• Do individuals or groups make more risky (or worse) decisions?

• Both individuals and groups bear responsibility for creating the
environments in which both of these crises were likely (some would say
inevitably) to occur.
• Whether individuals act differently when in a group compared to when
they act alone.
• Individuals are affected by processes that occur in groups, then understanding group life
is critical to gaining insight
 COST OF BEING A PART OF A GROUP

• If it is a cohesive group—one where there are strong bonds among the

members—it could be difficult to even get admitted.
• what if, after getting in a group, we discover that there are group norms
that we don’t like?
• When a person is new to a group, one’s status is likely to be low, which
would make it difficult to change the group’s norms.
CONT..

• As a newcomer, one’s performance in the group may be judged by more established

members, resulting in some evaluation anxiety.
• Some conflict is likely within almost any group, and managing such difficult interactions
might be quite effortful.
 WHY DO WE JOIN GROUPS

• We have to rely on other people for collective knowledge and information

sharing, and perhaps being connected to groups is essential to our survival
as a species.
• Brewer and Caporael (2006) argue that interdependence among group
members is the primary strategy for survival among humans, with the
group providing a critical buffer between the individual and the physical
habitat. Such social coordination could be therefore central to our survival.
• Schachter (1959) concluded that the arousal of any strong emotion in humans tends to
create the need to compare this reaction with others.
• This suggests that the complex emotional lives of humans may, in fact, be one of the
causes of the human need for group affiliation.
• It is under the most threatening or uncertain conditions that we seem to need our groups
most.
 WHAT IS A GROUP

• A group involves people who perceive themselves to be part of a coherent

unit that they perceive as different from another group .
• TYPES OF GROUPS
• In common-bond groups, which tend to involve face-to-face
interaction among members, the individuals in the group are bonded to
each other
• Examples of these kinds of groups include the players on a sports
team, friendship groups, and work teams.
• Common-identity groups the members are linked via the category as
a whole rather than to each other, with face-to-face interaction often
being entirely absent .
• Our national, linguistic, university, and gender groups, where we might
not even know personally all or even most of the other group members,
are good examples of groups that we might identify with strongly, but
not because of the bonds we have with specific other individual
members.
 GROUP ENTITATIVITY

• The extent to which they are perceived as coherent wholes.

• Entitativity can range from, at the low end, a mere collection of
individuals who happen to be in the same place at the same time and who
have little or no connection with one another, to at the high end, where
members of intimate groups such as families share a name, a history, and
an identity
CONT..

• Those groups that are rated as high in entitativity also tend to be groups that people rate
as relatively important to them.
GROUPS HIGH IN ENTITATIVITY TEND TO HAVE
THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS
• Members interact with one another often, although not necessarily in a
face-to-face setting (it could be over the Internet, for example);
• The group is important in some way to its members.
• Members share common goals.
• They are similar to one another in important ways.
• The higher groups are on these dimensions, the more they will be seen by
their members and nonmembers alike as forming coherent entities
GROUPS: THEIR KEY COMPONENTS

• STATUS: HIERARCHIES IN GROUPS

• When the President of any other nation enters the room, everyone
stands; and no one sits down until the President has taken a seat. Why?
Although the President is a citizen like the rest of us, he (or she)
occupies a special position within the group.
• Many groups have hierarchies like this, with members differing in status
—their rank within the group.
• People are often extremely sensitive to their status within a group because
it is linked to a wide range of desirable outcomes; everything from respect
and deference from other group members to material benefits such as
salary received.
• how, precisely, do people acquire high status?
• Physical attributes such as height may play some role—taller men and
women have a consistent edge, especially in the workplace (Judge &
Cable, 2004).
• Meta-analyses have revealed that taller people earn more in salary, are
perceived as having more skills, and are more likely to be nominated as
leader of groups relative to shorter people (Judge & Cable, 2004).
• Longevity or seniority in a group too can result in higher status—to the
extent that it is seen as reflective of wisdom or knowledge of ingroup ways
ROLES: DIFFERENTIATION OF FUNCTIONS
WITHIN GROUPS
• Did everyone in the group perform the same functions?
• Different people performed different tasks and were expected to
accomplish different things for the group.
• Sometimes roles are assigned; for instance, a group may select different
individuals to serve as its leader, treasurer, or secretary.
• In other cases, individuals gradually acquire certain roles without being
formally assigned to them.
• while roles are not automatic determinants of behavior, when they are internalized they
can affect how we see ourselves, who we identify with, and our actions .
 NORMS: THE RULES OF THE GAME

• Groups powerfully affect the behavior of their members via norms-

implicit rules that inform people about what is expected of them.
• Feeling rules—expectations about the emotions that are appropriate to
express (Hochschild, 1983).
• For example, many employers demand that service providers (cashiers,
restaurant servers, and flight attendants) “always smile” at customers, no
matter how annoying or rude they may be!
GROUPS WITHIN A CULTURE, IS COLLECTIVISM
VERSUS INDIVIDUALISM
• In collectivist groups, the norm is to maintain harmony among group members, even if
doing so might entail some personal costs.
• In contrast, in individualistic groups, the norm is to value standing out from the group and
be different from others; individual variability is to be expected and disagreeing with the
group is often seen as courageous.
• Greater tolerance might be expected for those who deviate from group norms in
individualist groups than in collectivist groups.
 THE BENEFITS OF JOINING

• We often gain self-knowledge from belonging to various groups (Tajfel &

Turner,1986).
• Our membership in them tells us what kind of person we are—or perhaps,
would like to be—so group membership becomes central to our self-
concept.
• Once we belong, we can find it hard to imagine not belonging because it
makes our life meaningful by defining to some extent who we are.
• To be rejected by a group—even one we have recently joined—can be
among the most painful of experiences.
• Another obvious benefit of belonging to some groups is that they help us
reach our goals.
• One important goal is attaining prestige.
• When an individual is accepted into a certain type of group—a highly
selective school, an exclusive social club, a varsity sports team—self-
esteem can increase
• Research findings indicate that people like being in a group best when that group matches
their current goal orientation.
• Another important benefit of joining groups is that doing so often helps us to accomplish
goals we could not achieve alone.
THE COSTS OF GETTING ACCEPTED INTO A
GROUP
• Group membership often restricts personal freedom.
• Members of various groups are expected to behave in certain ways—and if
they don’t, the group may impose sanctions or even expel such violators
from membership.
• For instance, in the United States, it is considered inappropriate for
military officers to make public statements about politics. Even high-
ranking generals who do so
• may be strongly reprimanded
• Groups often make demands on members’ time, energy, and resources, and they must
meet these demands or surrender their membership.
• groups can adopt positions or policies of which some members disapprove.
• the dissenting members either must remain silent, speak out and run the risk of strong
sanctions, or withdraw.
 SOCIAL FACILITATION

• How does the presence of others affect our performance, and why does having an
audience matter?
SOCIAL FACILITATION
• He noted that the presence of others increases physiological arousal (our
bodies become more energized) and, as a result, any dominant response
will be facilitated.
• This means that we can focus better on something we know or have
practiced when we’re aroused.
• The presence of others will improve individuals’ performance when they
are highly skilled at the task in question (in this case their dominant
responses would tend to be correct), but will interfere with performance
when they are not highly skilled.
• However, other researchers thought that performance might sometimes be disrupted by
the presence of an audience because of apprehension about having their performance
evaluated.
• This is called evaluation apprehension.
 EFFECTS OF BEING IN A CROWD

• deindividuation
• A psychological state characterized by reduced self-awareness brought
on by external conditions, such as being an anonymous member of a
large crowd.
• Crowd Behavior during Cricket and football matches.
• The fact that when people are in a large crowd they tend “to lose their
individuality” and instead act as others do .
 CONFORMITY

• During an exam, another student’s cell phone begins to ring loudly. What
does this person do?
• You are driving on a street when you see and hear an ambulance
approaching you from behind. What do you do?
• When norms are clearly defined , greater conformity by most people can
be expected compared to contexts like this where norms are less clear
about what action is the “correct” one.
• The fact that we can predict others’ behavior (and our own) with considerable confidence
in many other situations illustrates the powerful and general effects of pressures toward
conformity—toward doing what we are expected to do in a given situation.
• Conformity, in other words, refers to pressures to behave in ways consistent with rules
indicating how we should or ought to behave.
• COHESIVENESS AND CONFORMITY: BEING INFLUENCED BY THOSE WE
LIKE
• One factor that strongly influences our tendency to conform—to go along with whatever
norms are operating in a given situation—is cohesiveness—the extent to which we are
attracted to a particular social group and want to belong to it (e.g., Turner, 1991).
• The more we value being a member of a group and want to be accepted by
the other members, the more we want to avoid doing anything that will
separate us from them.
• CONFORMITY AND GROUP SIZE:
• Conformity increases with group size, but only up to about three or four
members; beyond that point, it appears to level off or even decrease.
• The larger the group—the greater the number of people who behave in
some specific way—the greater our tendency to conform and “do as they
do.
• NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE: THE DESIRE TO BE LIKED:
• How can we get others to like us?
• One of the most successful of these is to appear to be as similar to others
as possible.
• From our earliest days, we learn that agreeing with the people around us,
and behaving as they do, causes them to like us.
THE DOWNSIDE OF CONFORMITY

• ZIMBARDO’S PRISON EXPERIMENT

• Zimbardo’s sample consisted of 21 male university students who
volunteered in response to a newspaper advert
• Zimbardo found that both the prisoners and guards quickly identified with
their social roles.
• Within days the prisoners rebelled, but this was quickly crushed by the
guards, who then grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners.
• The guards dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and
forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands.
• The prisoners became increasingly submissive, identifying further with
their subordinate role.
• Five of the prisoners were released from the experiment early, because of
their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, for example,
crying and extreme anxiety.
• Although the experiment was set to run for two weeks, it was terminated
after just six days.
 COMPLIANCE: THE
UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES
• Friendship/liking: In general, we are more willing to comply with requests
from friends or from people we like than with requests from strangers or
people we don’t like.
• Commitment/consistency: Once we have committed ourselves to a position
or action, we are more willing to comply with requests for behaviors that
are consistent with this position or action than with requests that are
inconsistent with it.
• Scarcity: In general, we value, and try to secure, outcomes or objects that
are scarce or decreasing in availability.
• Reciprocity: We are generally more willing to comply with a request from
someone who has previously provided a favor or concession to us than to
someone who has not. In other words, we feel obligated to pay people
back in some way for what they have done for us.
• Social validation: We are generally more willing to comply with a request
for some action if this action is consistent with what we believe people
similar to ourselves are doing (or thinking). We want to be correct, and one
way to do so is to act and think like others.
• Authority: In general, we are more willing to comply with requests from
someone who holds legitimate authority—or simply appears to do so.
 OBEDIENCE

• A form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more
others to perform some action(s).
 LEADERSHIP

• What is Leadership?
• Leadership is the art of guiding a team or organization through effective
decision-making, setting a vision, motivating members, and achieving
collective goals with charisma and integrity.
ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS OF EXCELLENT
LEADERS
• Understand the way to offer support. Supportive leaders are accessible to
their staff, transparent about their choices, team players, and adept
communicators of plans and tactics.
• Have empathy and demonstrate it
• Keep the lines of communication open
• Being capable of taking decisions
• Effective planning
• Collaborate.
THE TRANSACTIONAL THEORY OR
MANAGEMENT THEORY
• During Industrial Revolution, this transactional theory was developed to
boost company productivity.
• It is a leadership approach that emphasizes the value of hierarchy for
enhancing organizational effectiveness
• Target immediate objectives.
• Favor standardized processes and regulations
• Discourage original thought
• Encourage performance
 THEORY OF TRANSFORMATION

• This leadership theory contends that effective leaders inspire workers to go above and
beyond what they are capable of.
• Leaders develop a vision for their team members and motivate them to realize it.
• Leaders Who Practice Transformational Leadership:
• Self-manage
• Set an example
• Give interaction a high priority
• Be proactive in your work
• Promote the development of employees
• Receptive to fresh concepts
• Take chances and make difficult choices
 THE TRAIT THEORY

• The great man theory is expanded upon by the trait theory of leadership, which is
predicated on the idea that effective leaders have particular personality qualities and
features of behavior.
• The main characteristics of a successful leader are:
• Emotional equilibrium
• Acknowledging one's duty
• Competence
• Recognising obstacles
• Thinking with action
• Motivational abilities
• Talents in communication
• Tenacity and flexibility
• Making decisions with assurance