10. Social influence and its forms. Conformity. Kinds of conformity

What we say and the way we behave are influenced by other people. We want to be liked by other people and to fit into society. As a result, we often hide what we really think, and try to behave in ways that will meet with the approval of others. However, the work that has been carried out by social psychologists indicates there is more to social influence. Most of us are much more influenced by other people than we think we are. This is true across a very wide range of situations. Much social influence depends on what are known as group norms. Group norms consist of the rules and expectations about the behaviour of group members. Consider, for example, the norms of a tennis club.

SOCIAL -FACILITATION

If an individual actively interacts with other people, then his or her behaviour will often be influenced by them. Suppose, however, that other people are present, but they do not interact in any way with the individual. Would his or her behaviour be affected by their mere presence? Allport (1924) answered this question. Some participants could see others working at the same task, but they were told not to compete with them or to interact with them. The task performance of these participants was compare to that of other participants working alone. Those who could see others did better on various tasks, including multiplication and crossing out all the vowels in an article. Allport called this the co-action effect.

The effects of others on performance can also be studied in a slightly different way. The focus is on the performance оf participants performing a task in front of an audience, who are watching the participant rather than doing the same task as the participant. The presence of an audience improves performance. This is known as the audience effect, and it was shown by Travis. Participants learned to track a moving metal target, and were then tested alone and in the presence of a handful of spectators who watched quietly. Most of them performed better in front of the audience.

The co-action effect and the audience effect are both examples of what is known as social facilitation. So facilitation is defined as an improvement in an individual’s performance which is found when he or she is performing in the presence of others. When the situation is changed, however we often find social loafing rather than social facilitation. Social loafing is defined as the decrease in individual effort that is often found when people work in groups. For example, Latane et al asked their participants to cheer or to clap as loudly as they could. They did this on their own, or in groups of tw four, or six people. There was a large drop in the loudness individual cheering and clapping as the number of people the group increased.

What determines whether we find social facilitation or social loafing? Social loafing seems to be found mainly when the focus is on the performance of the group rather than on individual members of the group. Williams et al. (1981) asked groups participants to cheer as loudly as possible; some of them w told that their contribution to the cheering would be identifying whereas others were not told this. Those who thought their individual efforts were being measured did not show social loafing, whereas the other participants did.

Motivation and arousal

As you might imagine, task performance is not always improved by the mere presence of others or by an audience. For example, an actor who is overcome by stage fright and totally forgets his lines cannot be said to benefit from the presence of an audience! Zajonc (1966) tried to explain why the presence of others can either improve or worsen performance. According to him, the presence of others increases the participant's level of motivation and arousal. This high level of arousal increases the tendency to produce dominant or well-learned responses, and reduces the production of non-dominant or new responses.

It follows from Zajonc's theory that the presence of others should improve performance on simple tasks (e.g. crossing out vowels), but should make it worse on complex tasks. There is reasonable support for this prediction. Michaels et al. (1982) argued that pool is an easy task for good players but a difficult one for poor players. Having four people watch a game of pool increased the performance of the good players from 71 % good In shots 80%. In contrast, the audience reduced the performance of poor players from 36% good shots to only 25%. The presence of other people has effects over and above Itlrntilied by Zajonc. Other people can be a source of distraction. They can also cause anxiety and embarrassment in the person performing a task, especially if they are people in a position of authority.

^CONFORMITY

Conformity can be defined as yielding to group pressures, something that nearly all of us do at least some of the time. Suppose, for example, that you and some of your friends go to see a film. You didn't think the film was much good, but all of your friends thought it was brilliant. You might be tempted to conform by pretending to agree with their verdict on the film rather than being the odd one out. As we will see, conformity to group pressures occurs much more often than most people imagine.

Muzafer Sherif

The first major study of conformity was carried out by Muzafer Sherif in 1936, He made use of what is known a? the autokinetic effect. If we look at a stationary spot of light in a darkened room, very small movements of the eyes make the light seem to move. In his studies, Sherif first of all tested his participants one at a time. Each participant was to say how much the light seemed to move, and in what direction. Then he formed them into groups of three, and again asked each participant to indicate the amount and direction of movement of the light. Participants within a group tended to produce reports that were very close to each other. In ot words, they showed conformity, because their reports w affected by what the other members of the group had to say;

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Sherif’s approach?

PLUS

He proved the existence of group pressures to conform.

MINUS

1. He used a very artificial situation.

2. There was no correct answer in his situation; it would have been much more impressive show that people ignore what they know to be the right answer.

Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch (1951) improved on the work of Sherif. He set up a situation in which about seven people all sat looking at a display. They were given the task of saying out loud which out of three lines was the same length as a given stimulus line. All but one of the participants were "stooges" (they had been told by the experimenter to give the same wrong answer on some trials). The one real participant was the last (or the last but one) to offer his or her opinion on each trial.

What do you think the real participants did when faced with this conflict between what the other members of the group said and what they knew to be the right answer? On average, one-third of the participants conformed all the time, and about three­ quarters of them conformed at least once. Thus, only about one-quarter totally refused to conform.

When does conformity break down? Asch found that his results were quite different when just one of the stooges gave the right answer, rather than the wrong answer being given by the majority. In those conditions, conformity occurred only about 5% of the time. It is likely that the comforting feeling of not being isolated made it easier for the participants to avoid conforming.

Cultural factors

One of the possible Imitations of Asch's work is that it was carried out in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is often assumed that Americans are more conformist than other people, and it may be that people were more willing to conform in the days before it became fashionable to "do your own thing". Thus, it is possible that the levels of conformity obtained by Asch reflected the particular culture prevailing in the United States at that time.

Perrin and Spencer (1981) carried out two more studies on cultural factors in conformity. In one study, the participants were young men on probation, and the stooges primed to give the wrong answers were probation officers. The level of conformity in this study was about the same as in the Asch studies. In the filer study, the participants and the stooges were both young unemployed men with Afro-Caribbean backgrounds. Once again, conformity levels were comparable to those reported by Asch.

Over the years, the Asch task has been used in several different countries. The findings varied somewhat from country to country. However, reasonable levels of conformity have been found in the great majority of countries. In other words, conformity is found in nearly every culture that has so far been assessed.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Asch approach?

PLUS

He found surprisingly large conformity effects in an umambiguous situation in which it might be thought there would be little or no conformity.

MINUS

It was not clear why participants conformed: some said that they believe that the group was right, or that they thought the experimenter wanted them conform; however, it is likely that social approval was the main reason.

Asch only looked at conformity in a trivial situation, in which the participants' deeply held beliefs were not called into question.

Moscovicrs social influence theory

Moscovici (1980) argued that Asch had put too muc' emphasis on the notion that the majority in a group have a larg influence on the minority. He argued that it is also possible f: the minority to influence the majority. He drew a distinctie between compliance and conversion. Compliance is involve when a majority influences a minority, and is based on the pow: of the majority. Conversion is how a minority can influence majority. It involves convincing the majority that the minority' views are correct. For conversion to occur, it is very importai for the minority to argue consistently for its point of view.

In one study, Moscovici and Fancheux (1972) tried to show that a minority of two could influence the other members of a group. The members of the group were shown an object coloured blue. When the minority argued consistently that the colour was actually green, they were able to persuade the rest of the group that it was green rather than blue.

Kinds of conformity

Kelman (1958) argued that there are three mai n reasons why someone behaves in a conforming way: compliance; identification; and internalisation. Compliance involves conforming with the majority in spite of not really agreeing with themj^jpeople comply in order to gain social approval or to avoid being rejected by the rest of the group. As the conformity is only superficial,'Compliance stops when there are гщ group pressures to conform.

Identification occurs when someone conforms to the demands of a given role in society. The«eonformity generally i^iends over several different aspects of behaviour. For example, stewards and stewardesses on planes try to be cheerful, polite, and helpful to &e passenger^ at all times regardless of how they may actually be feeling. They behave jn this way because they are conforming to what is expected of them. ,■_;

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Internalisation occurs when someone conforms because they are really in agreement with the views of those who are seeking to influence them. For example, the parents of a small girl may believe that it is very important for her to spend a lot of time with other children. If friends ®f theirsSstart sending their daughters to the Brqufflies, they will probably conform to the suggestion that they might also send tteir daughter. Conformity based on internalisation is like pushing on an open door, in the sense that the individual is being persuaded to do something he or she really wants to do. As a result, conformity behaviour based on internalization continues even when there is no external pressure to conform.