1. Social Influence

2. Social Influence
The greatest contribution of social psychology is its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and actions and the way they are molded by social influence.
NON SEQUITER © 2000 Wiley. Dist. by Universal
Press Syndicate Reprinted with Permission

3. Mimicry & Copycats Humans are natural mimics
Yawns, laughs, look up….eventually others will follow (Chimps, too)
Columbine High School Shootings, 1999
Every state, except Vermont, experienced copycat violence
Cluster suicides

4. Conformity & Obedience
Behavior is contagious, modeled by one followed by another. We follow behavior of others to conform.
Other behaviors may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority.
Conformity Obedience

5. The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

6. Conformity
Are these people asserting individuality or identifying with others of the same microculture?

7. Conformity
Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
How did you feel the first time someone asked you to smoke? Drink?

8. Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
One is made to feel incompetent
The group is at least three people
The group is unanimous
One admires the group’s status
One had made no prior commitment
The person is observed

9. Group Pressure & Conformity
Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity, adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard.

10. Group Pressure & Conformity
An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
Solomon Asch conducted experiments to see how this worked.
William Vandivert/ Scientific American

11. Reasons for Conforming
Normative Social Influence
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment
Informational Social Influence
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

12. Informative Social Influence
Baron and colleagues (1996) made students do an eyewitness identification task. If the task was easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity was low in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec. exposure) task.

13. Informational Conformity
Sample task: After seeing slides 1 & 2, participants judged which person in slide 2 was the same as the person in slide 1

14. Violating a Social Norm
Select a behavior that is outside your comfort zone or outside the code of behavior
“perform” this violation
Take note of your own reaction leading up to and during the “performance”, as well as those of observers, and report back to class

15. Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
Obedience
People comply to social pressures. How would they respond to outright command?
Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience.
Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
Stanley Milgram
( )

16. Milgram’s Experiments
Obedience
Milgram’s Experiments

17. Milgram’s Obedience Study

18. Results of Milgram’s Experiment
Men between complied fully 63% of the time—right up to the last switch
Later women were involved in the experiment…the results were similar to men
Real world correlations
Nazi Holocaust
Exceptions  those that did not bow to authority
Anne Frank protectors
Danes rescuing their Jews by sending them to Sweden

19. Individual Resistance
A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion.
AP/ Wide World Photos
An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.

20. What did we learn from Asch & Milgram?
Ordinary people can do shocking things.