UNIT 3 Social Influence

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

What does Conformity mean?

• Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

What conditions strengthen Conformity?

• One is made to feel incompetent
• The group is at least 3 people 
• The group is unanimous
• One admires the group's status
• One had made no prior commitment to the other groups or friends
• The person is observed

Reasons why people Conform

• Normative social influence

- Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or to avoid disappointment.

• Informational Social Influence

- Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept other's opinions about reality.

What does Milgram's experiment cover?

• Obedience

What does Social Facilitation mean?

• Improved performance of task in the presence of others
• Occurs with simple or well learned tasks
• Not without task that are difficult or not yet mastered.

What is Yerkes Dodson's Law?

• There is an optimal level of arousal for the best performance of any task

- Easy tasks = Relatively High

- Difficult task = Low arousal

- Other tasks = Moderate level

What is Social Loafing?

• The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when putting efforts towards a common goal than if they were individually accountable.
• Group Project

What is Deindividuation?

• The loss of self- awareness and self restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

What is Group Polarization?

• The concept that a group's attitude is one of extremes and rarely moderate.

An example of Group Polarization

• Black Panther, KKK'

What is Group Think?

• The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides common sense.

An example of Group Think

• Doing whatever the group does even though it goes against what you think.
• The power of an individual can be stronger than a group.

What is Self- Fulfilling Prophecy?

• Occurs when one person's belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.

An example of Self- Fulfilling Prophecy

• If you think someone finds you attractive they most likely will.