Social Psychology And Social Influence

General Topic: The research and experiments done in this study were about the “role of individual differences in the general desire for control in conformity situations”. The results from all of the three experiments were interpreted as a model for the motivational part of the desire-for-control construct (Desire for control is a need to have dominance over social situations to minimize the extent of power others have.)

The acts of conforming and obeying shape us significantly, whether we are conscious of it or not. They do so in ways that psychologists Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram attempt to explain through their research. Asch touches base on the topic of conformity and discusses the ways in which group behaviors and social norms can influence the decisions an individual makes. On the other hand, Milgram’s focus is on obedience, and he studied it by measuring average, everyday people and their willingness to obey authority figures, even if it involves actions that go against their personal beliefs and morals. They have provided evidence through experiments, and with this information, it becomes easier to understand the world of politics, and how these

In the intro of “Obedience to Authority,” Milgram aptly points out that “some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living”(Milgram 1). This is a universal human truth. Authority is something that humanity, from the beginning of time, has consistently relied upon. Milgram argues that “obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose” and that it is the “dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority” (Milgram 1). I argue that obedience is as instinctual as the flight or fight mechanism of the brain.

There is a fundamental human need to belong to social groups especially if people were to live and work together, it is likely that they need to agree on common beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours in order to get along and fit-in. Thus, we learnt to conform to rules of other people, the more people see others behaving in a particular way or making particular decisions, the more likely people will feel obliged to follow the suit. This is called conformity and can be defined in different ways, Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2014) stated it is the changing of one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), social influence should be distinguished into two types, the informational social influence and normative social influence. The occurrence of social influence has implied to many real life events, which has drawn many researchers to attention. This has lead many researchers to design distinct experiments to try and understand the cause of the conformity, whether conformity is situation dependent, and whether we are able to resist social influences.

This study will focus on the impact social influences have on participants when asked to listen to songs played backwards containing subliminal messages and whether being told that a particular song contains secret messages will impact their responses. This study will take into consideration past studies conducted by researchers Thorne (1984) and Vokey (1985) whom support that the role of suggestion can influence peoples perceptions of secret messages in rock and roll recordings. We the experimenters will be expanding on the music genres, but try to contain a minimum of one rock and roll song. Taking this into our focus will be observing how social influence will impact participant’s capability to write down more

It seems that the people we surround ourselves with have a significant affect on our own behavior. Asch's study concluded that on average participants answered basic questions 37% of the time wrong with confederates, but only answered 1% of the time wrong when they were left alone. The extend of conformity indicated by the study suggests that if we surround ourselves with positive people and disregard negative people, then that can dramatically improve our lives. Normative and informational social influences can push us to either be more or less successful in

From early childhood to adulthood, the urge to submit to social pressure is a reality that shapes everyone on a daily basis. The desire to meet societal expectations is a factor that greatly impacts decision making from fashion sense, to choosing friends, and to making the right choices in the work force. Many times, this desire for acceptance repudiates one’s beliefs and innate senses. In “Opinions and Social Pressure” by Solomon Asch, and “Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram, the two psychologists conduct a series of experiments to observe how the influence of social pressure leads to conformity and obedience to authority. Both experiments demonstrate the adverse effects of social pressure, for conformity involves a sacrifice of self-interests, while blind obedience to authority results in the harm of others. According to the results of the experiments, social pressure is a force that can cause people to act outside of their personal convictions and moral conscience.

The following essay will be about understanding what is meant by and distinguishing the differences between the terms conformity and obedience. It will show the evaluation of two key psychological studies which seek to explain why people do and do not conform, also with explanations of minority influence. Whilst seeking to understand the reasons why people obey authority, it will show an evaluation of Milgram’s study of obedience, discussing the ethical issues raised from the research and

Human behavior demonstrates that people will conform to others as well as obey others with authority. As shown in the book, “Ordinary Men”, and in the Milgram experiment, these factors will greatly affect what people will do. When one sees others doing something that they might be against, it is still highly probable that they will follow the trend due to conformity. Likewise, if an authoritative figure orders one to do something that they are against, they will still obey due to obedience. During the Holocaust, many people were affected by these two factors, including the employees at the German railway network. Though their jobs ranged from desk workers to engineers to department specialists, all of them knew about what they were doing. Consequently,

Informational Influence and Normative Influence are both categorized under conformity in sociology. Informational is basically when we conform to others behavior because we believe it provides information about reality. It is often when we care about getting the right answer and trying to be rational. It also deals with the "Maybe they know something I don't know" phenomenon. An example, could be choosing to eat at a busier restaurant opposed to the empty one, or imitating the locals when outside your country. In contrast, Normative Influence is when we conform to others behavior because they expect us to. This is when we believe conforming may have positive consequences, such as approval or the enhancement of our reputation, or when we believe not conforming may have negative consequences, such as disapproval or punishment. An example of Normative Influence is laughing at a joke you don't get, or agreeing with an opinion you believe in others.

Due to this study, it reveals the power of social influence at a young age. Consequently, children who are generally exposed to a negligent role model can emerge as inadequate citizens. Conversely, youth who are raised by virtuous people are likely to also encourage respectable behavior. Moreover, not only does social influence alter a child’s actions, but it can also trigger an adult to unanimously agree with the majority to avoid presenting the unpopular opinion. This form of compliance is proven by Solomon Asch, a well known social psychologist. In his conformity experiment, Asch investigated how pressure from the majority can sway a person’s perception of what is correct; he asked 50 students to perform a “vision test” by determining which two lines were equal in length. Asch also made the correct answer obvious, however, only one individual was an actual participant, while everyone else unanimously agreed on the incorrect answer. The results of the study reveal how the majority opinion can adversely affect a person’s

Social influence occurs in various forms, from a person’s anger to others actions but one influence that stands out amongst these is an individual’s power over another. Research on social influence tries to understand why humans behave the way they do and they particularly look at focusing on the process of obedience. Obedience research captures some of the underlying social psychological processes that produce extreme violence towards others (Chapter 7, page 165). Stanley Milgram’s study of Obedience was trying to find reason behind the holocaust. It focused on explaining social processes and the pressures that contribute to an ordinary person surrendering to authority and behaving in a way that goes beyond and against their beliefs and values.

Activation of socially interested norms increases conformity. Conformity can also increase if members of the group conform to a behavior that is unique to the group. In the wetting where initial controls were absent and the social-welfare multiplier is 2, the conformity ratio is at its highest. These results confirm that conformity to descriptive norms is highest in settings expected to activate socially-interested personal norms. The experiment results provide evidence that, in social dilemmas, an initial presence of controls activates self-interested personal norms, while an initial absence of controls activates socially interested personal norms. Socially interested personal norms leads people to conform to others’ behaviors, especially those who scored high on the susceptibility questionnaire. From this, it can be concluded that control strength affects behaviors by altering personal norms. Another finding is that the presence of initial controls can weaken conformity to socially interested behavior. Because strong initial controls tend to increase cooperation, people will begin to trust others more, and this can be explained by the Fundamental Attribution Error - the tendency for individuals to attribute the behavior of others to their dispositions, rather than to external factors, such as incentives. The research also allows inferences to be drawn

This paper will review the research conducted in social influence, specifically majority and minority influence, why people conform and the factors that make them more likely to conform. Conformity is defined as “a form of social influence in which a person yields to group pressure in the absence of any explicit order or request from another person to comply, as in the Asch experiment” (Colman, or Dictionary of Psychology, 2009). Conformity encompasses majority and minority influence. Kelman (1958) proposed three types of conformity for influence of a majority; Compliance, internalisation and identification. Compliance refers to an individual changing their public opinion or behaviour even if they privately disagree. Internalisation is the changing of public and private opinions/behaviours. This may be because the other opinion is more valued, which may convince the individual, and lead to acceptance of the other point of view. Identification is when an individual may accept influence to develop a closer connection or relationship. It consists a little of both compliance and internalisation as the individual accepts influence as correct (internalisation), however the reason for this is to be accepted / obtain approval (compliance).

People can influence how another person acts, speaks, thinks, ect. When a person is influenced by another person, it is called social influence. Thus, there are multiple aspects of the term social influence.