1. Social Influence
Unit 2

2. Why do people conform?

3. How common is conformity?
Lift pic hyperlinked to lift candid camera

4. Social Influence DEFINITION ‘Social Influence is the process by which
our thoughts, feelings and behaviours
are influenced by other people.’

5. What factors affect this decision?
What would you do?
What factors affect this decision?

6. A teacher has asked a question of the class
A teacher has asked a question of the class. You know the answer, but no one else has put their hand up. Despite the fact that you know you are right do you give the answer or not?
Always a good starter to see example in action!
Fear of being wrong or fear of being laughed at?

7. You are driving down the motorway
You are driving down the motorway. The speed limit changes from 70 to 50 as you enter an area with road works. The cars around you do not seem to be slowing down at all. Do you keep the same speed as them or slow down?
Does it matter if there is a speed camera? Link to obedience

8. You arrive at you classroom late and the teacher has not yet turned up yet. She may be late or she may be absent today. Most of the class get up and leave, do you follow them?

9. You are walking down the street
You are walking down the street. A man is stumbling around in front of you, then collapses on the pavement. The street is crowded and nobody stops to help him. Do you do the same?
Link to bystander behaviour and how research sometimes shows we do things we think we wouldn’t.
How about if you were a doc/nurse? If you recognised him? If he looked like a homeless man?

10. You are a junior member of a company who has been invited to a meeting
You are a junior member of a company who has been invited to a meeting. A suggestion is made, which you think is stupid, but everyone else seems to agree and think it is a good idea. Do you point out their mistake or keep quiet?
What might the consequences of keeping quiet be? Link to whistleblowers

11. You live in Nazi Germany
You live in Nazi Germany. You are walking home with a group of friends when you come across a group of Germans beating up two Jewish men. They say that the Jewish men cheated them out of money, and you think that this is probably true. Do you walk away?
Highlight issues of historical and cultural significance – link to obedience and propaganda

12. Conformity (Majority Influence)
DEFINITION
‘Conformity is the tendency to change
what we do, think or say in response
to the influence of real or imagined
pressure from a majority group’.
What are the key parts of this definition? Give examples.
Behaviour includes things we think and say as well as what we do
Pressure can be imagined – eg peer pressure (unlike obedience)
Majority group – not in hierarchy, these are peers

13. Kelman (1958) There are different types of conformity: Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
Shallow Level
Don’t need to know about identification! Not on 2014 spec
Deep Level

14. Compliance Conforms publicly Disagrees privately Shallow
A person might laugh at the joke that others are laughing at while privately not finding it very funny

15. Identification Conforms publicly Conforms privately
a sense of group membership
temporary
A person might support a new football team every time they move to a new town

16. Internalisation Conform publicly Conform privately
Internalised and accepted the views
deepest
A person may become a vegetarian after sharing a flat with a group of vegetarians at university

17. Task
Are the following examples describing compliance or internalisation?
Doesn’t include identification as not on spec 2014
Alternatively, Q8 June 11

18. Deciding that smoking is wrong
internalisation

19. Laughing at a joke you don’t find funny
compliance

20. Becoming a vegetarian after sharing a flat with a vegetarian
internalisation

21. Cooking vegetarian food while living with a vegetarian flatmate
compliance

22. Why do people conform?
People want to be right Informational social influence
People want to be liked
Normative social influence
They look to other people to find the answer – assume others probably know something they don’t. Informational social influence. EG Looking to see what other people are doing in a lesson when you realise you haven’t heard an instruction. Also looking to see what people do
They want to fit in to the group and not be laughed at or a social outcast

23. Social Identity Theory
a person has not just one “personal self”,
A person has several social selves that correspond to group membership
we need to understand who we are and know our value in social contexts.

24. Social Identity Theory
So when an individual talks of himself as a male, Canadian, a student, member of a swimming team and a surfer, he refers to his social identities.
If the same person also said he played on the rugby team that won the last game, we will know that he can boost his self-esteem through both his personal achievement but also through affiliation with this successful team

25. Social Identity Theory
Social identity theory then is based on the cognitive process of social categorization.  
Social categorization is the process of classifying people into groups based on similar characteristics (shared characteristics), whether it be nationality, age, occupation, or some other trait.

26. Social Identity Theory
This categorization gives rise to in-groups (us) and out-groups (them).
Theory predicts, people are more likely to conform to the behaviour of people in their in-group.
What can happen, though, when we start categorizing people like this?