Social Influence
The change in a person's behaviour, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that occurs as a result of interacting with another person in society is referred to as social influence. As a result of the way the changed person perceives themselves in relation to the influencer, it can happen intentionally or unintentionally.
Conformity
• Conformity is a type of social influence that involves a change in behaviour, belief, or thinking in order to conform to normative standards or to align with those of others. It is the most widespread and common form of social influence.
• The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours to group norms is known as conformity.
• Norms are unspoken rules that a group of people follow to guide their interactions with others.
• Conformity is a tendency that occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and it can be caused by subtle unconscious influences or overt social pressure.
• When an individual is alone or in the company of others, conformity can occur. Even when they are alone, people tend to follow social norms when eating or watching television.
• Conformity can take the form of a public appearance of conformity (compliance), or it can take the form of a complete conformity that affects an individual both publicly and privately (conversion).
• It's possible that what appears to be incongruence is actually congruence.
• When an individual's behaviour, belief, or thinking is already aligned with that of others and there is no change, this is referred to as congruence.
• Convergence is a type of social response that does not involve conformity with the majority of the group. This type of social response occurs when a group member agrees with the group's decision from the start and thus does not need to change their mind.
• Because conformity is a group phenomenon, factors like group size, unanimity, cohesion, status, prior commitment, and public opinion play a role in determining an individual's level of conformity.
FACTORS THAT IMPACT COMPLIANCE ARE AS UNDER:
1. Group importance: The more important a group is to an individual, the more likely he or she is to obey social pressure.
2. Immediacy: Individuals who are close to the group are more likely to comply with group pressures. When the group is close to the individual and made up of people the individual cares about, the pressure to comply is strongest.
3. Number: As the number of people in a group grows, so does compliance.
4. Similarity: An individual's perception of shared characteristics makes them more likely to comply with a re-quest, especially if the shared feature is perceived as unplanned and rare.
5. Peer pressure: It occurs when a person is persuaded to do something they may not want to do (such as smoking) but believe is "necessary" in order to maintain a positive relationship with others, such as their friends. Conformity as a result of peer pressure is usually the result of group identification or the compliance of some members to appease others.
• Conformity is frequently motivated by a desire for security within a group—usually a group of people of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. This is commonly referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterised by deception, forced consent, and adherence to group values and ethics while ignoring realistic assessment of alternative courses of action.
• The risk of social rejection comes with a refusal to conform. (When an individual is intentionally excluded from a social relationship or social interaction for social rather than practical reasons, this is known as social rejection.)
Obedience
• It differs from compliance in that it follows an order from someone who is widely regarded as an authority figure. There is some flexibility in compliance. There is no choice in obedience.
• Obeisance, in its most basic form, is a social influence in which a person obeys explicit instructions given by an authority figure. Obedience has had a powerful impact throughout human history.
• The presence of an authority figure is deduced to be the most obvious feature of obedience.
MILGRAM STATED THAT THERE ARE VARIOUS FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE EXTENT OF OBEDIENCE.
1. For starters, it was discovered that prestige and obedience are mutually beneficial. When the experiment was moved to a less prestigious location than the original, the level of obedience dropped.
2. Second, surveillance was found to have an impact on obedience levels. Buffers that prevent the participant from participating.
The level of obedience rises as people become more aware of the consequences of their actions. It has also been discovered that authority increases the level of obedience.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT OBEDIENCE:
Milgram and Zimbardo found that a variety of factors influence obedience in their experiments:
1. Proximity to the authority figure: Proximity refers to physical proximity; the closer the authority figure is to the subject, the more obedience is shown. The experimenter was in the same room as the participant in the Milgram experiment, which likely elicited a more obedient response.
2. Experimenter prestige: Both researchers have argued that the prestige of Yale and Stanford, respectively, may have influenced obedience in their studies.
3. Expertise: A subject who lacks the ability or expertise to make decisions, particularly in a crisis, will defer to the group and its hierarchical structure.
4. De-individuation: When people obey, they stop seeing themselves as individuals and start seeing themselves as instruments for carrying out others' desires. As a result, they stop seeing themselves as responsible for their actions.
While social norms generate conformity, obedience requires the presence of an authority figure. In contrast to obedience, compliance involves an explicit request that is less aggressive.
It can be concluded that, while the concepts of compliance and obedience are similar, conformity stands out due to its unique stimulus and outcome.
NON-CONFORMITY
Non-conformity processes such as independence and anti-conformity exist in situations where conformity (including compliance, conversion, and congruence) is not present.
Nonconformity can be classified into one of two types of responses.
1. To begin, a person who does not conform to the majority can demonstrate independence. Dissent, or independence, can be defined as a refusal to bend to group pressures. As a result, rather than swaying toward group standards, this individual stays true to his or her personal standards.
2. A nonconformist may also be exhibiting anti-conformity or counter-conformity, which involves holding beliefs that are diametrically opposed to those held by the group. Instead of being accurate in one's opinion, this type of nonconformity can be motivated by a desire to rebel against the status quo. As a result, social responses to conformity can be seen as ranging from conformity to anti-conformity.
Reactance
• When someone is under a lot of pressure to accept a certain point of view or attitude, they may react.
• Reaction can lead to the person adopting or strengthening an opposing viewpoint or attitude, as well as increasing resistance to persuasion.
• Reactance is the adoption or expression of a viewpoint that differs from that which they are being pressured to accept, perhaps as a result of a perceived threat to their behavioural freedoms. This type of behaviour is known as anti-conformity. The result of social pressure is reactive behaviour.
• Psychological reactance occurs when one's perceived behavioural freedoms are threatened. When a person engages in a prohibited activity in order to deliberately taunt the authority that prohibits it, regardless of the utility or disutility that the activity confers, this is an example of such behaviour.
• The ability of an individual to choose when and how to conduct their behaviour, as well as their awareness of the relevant freedom—and their ability to deduce the behaviours required to satisfy that freedom—have an impact on the generation of reactance. If you assume that if you assume that if you assume that if you assume that
• When a person's behavioural liberty is threatened or limited, they become motivated. This arousal can be sparked by the threat of losing more freedoms, motivating them to re-establish the threatened freedom. Because this motivational state is the result of a perceived reduction in one's freedom of action, it is regarded as a counterforce and is referred to as "psychological reactance."
• The greater the magnitude of reactance, the more the individual will attempt to reclaim freedom that has been taken away or threatened by social pressure.
UNANIMITY AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE
When the perpetrating group is consistent and committed, social influence is at its most powerful. Even a single instance of dissent can significantly reduce an influence's strength.
STATUS AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE
• As a result of their perceived expertise, those regarded as experts may wield social power. This involves credibility, a social influence tool that is based on the concept of trust.
• People regard someone as credible for a variety of reasons, including perceived experience, attractiveness, knowledge, and so on.
• Furthermore, the pressure to keep one's reputation and avoid being labelled as an outcast may increase the tendency to agree with the group, a phenomenon known as groupthink.
CULTURE AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE
• The willingness to conform to a group appears to be influenced by culture.
• Conformity was found to be higher in Norway than in France, as we saw earlier.
• This has been attributed to Norway's long history of social responsibility, as opposed to France's cultural emphasis on individualism. Japan, like the United States, has a collectivist culture and, as a result, a higher proclivity to conform.
THE BOOMERANG EFFECT
The boomerang effect occurs when an attempt to persuade has unintended consequences, such as the adoption of an opposing viewpoint. It is also known as "the theory of psychological reactance," which states that attempts to limit a person's freedom frequently result in an "anti-conformity boomerang effect."
It is more likely in the following circumstances:
1. When a negative source is combined with a weak argument.
2. When the communicator's weak or ambiguous persuasion leads the recipient to believe the communicator is attempting to persuade them of something other than what the communicator intends.
3. When the persuasion provokes aggressive behaviour or unrelieved emotional arousal.
4. When their non-conformity to their own group causes them to feel guilty or socially punished.
5. When the communicator's position is too far removed from the recipient's position, a "contrast" effect is created, which enhances the recipients' original attitudes.
THEORIES ON SOCIAL INFLUENCE
1. Social impact theory
According to the study, there are three factors that increase people's willingness to respond to social influence. The strength of the source of impact, the immediacy of the event, and the number of sources exerting the impact are all factors that influence social impact.
A. Strength: The individual's reliance on the influencing group.
B. Immediacy: The influencing group's physical (and temporal) proximity to the individual at the time of the influence attempt.
C. Number: The group's total number of members.
2. DYNAMIC SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY
• This theory is considered an extension of the Social Impact Theory because it applies its basic principles to describe how members of the majority and minority groups influence one another, namely that social influence is determined by the strength, immediacy, and number of sources present.
• Consolidation, clustering, correlation, and continuing diversity are four basic patterns that groups that are spatially distributed and interact repeatedly use to organise and reorganise themselves.
a. Consolidation – as people interact with one another, their actions, attitudes, and opinions become more consistent over time. As a result, the majority of the group's opinions spread to the minority, which shrinks in size.
b. Clustering – people tend to interact with groups of people who share similar viewpoints. Clusters are common when members of a group communicate more frequently with those who are close by and less frequently with those who are farther away. Because of clustering, members of minority groups are often shielded from majority influence. As a result, subgroups can form that share similar ideas but hold different beliefs than the majority of the population.
c. Correlation – over time, individual group members' opinions on a variety of issues converge and correlate with one another; this is true even for issues that the group does not discuss.
d. Continued Diversity – a certain amount of diversity is possible.
If minority members of a group cluster together or communicate with majority members, they will resist majority influence. When the majority is large or minority members are physically separated from one another, however, diversity is reduced.
CIALDINI’S “WEAPONS OF INFLUENCE”
Robert Cialdini defines six "Weapons of Influence" in his work that can contribute to an individual's proclivity to be persuaded.
a. Reciprocity: When people are owed a favour, they are more likely to repay it.
b. Consistency and Commitment: People dislike being contradictory with themselves. They are averse to changing their minds without good reason once they have committed to an idea or behaviour.
c. Social Proof: People are more receptive to what they see others do. Seeing others helping the poor, for example, may influence them to do the same.
d. Authority: People are more likely to obey those in positions of authority.
e. Liking: People who like them are more easily swayed.
f. Scarcity: The perception of a scarcity of resources will drive demand. When opportunities are scarce, they appear to be more valuable.
Things that are difficult to obtain are regarded as superior to those that are simple to obtain. The Scarcity Principle can be used to persuade others. The prospect of losing something is a stronger motivator than the prospect of gaining something. Others (a customer, your boss, a lover) should be aware of what they will lose if they do not accept your offer.