Social Influence Conformity Compliance Obedience Power Bases Group
Social Influence: Conformity, Compliance, Obedience, Power Bases, Group Processes A. Kent Van Cleave, Jr. , Ph. D.
Objectives: Understand conformity • Understand the research on conformity. • Understand why / when people conform. • Understand the unconscious influences on you towards conformity.
Objectives: Understand compliance • Understand the research on compliance. • Understand the difference between power and influence. • Understand the six bases of social power and which are effective in leadership and management.
Objectives: Understand compliance • Understand the unconscious influences on you towards compliance • Understand / be able to resist the techniques used to influence you to comply.
Objectives: Understand obedience to authority • Understand the research on obedience. • Critique the research on obedience. • Understand why we obey. • Understand the unconscious influences on you towards obedience • Understand / be able to resist the techniques used to induce obedience.
Conformity …a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of others.
Conformity Change attitudes or behavior in order to adhere to existing social norms.
Conformity Why do we conform? • We conform because we want to be right. • We conform because we want to be liked. • We are motivated by a need for information, a desire to be accurate… • …and so we can feel like we belong to groups that are important to us.
Conformity Why do we conform? • Conformity has different meanings and motives depending on what culture we are in. • In collectivist cultures, values emphasis is on connection to the larger group and conformity is more central. • In individualistic cultures, values emphasis is on doing your own thing, and we are ambivalent about conformity.
Conformity Two sources: • Normative influence • Informational social influence
Conformity Norm: • a principle of right action (an unwritten rule) • binding upon the members of a group and • serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior Source: adapted from www. webster. com
Conformity Normative influence: • pressure that reflects group norms • which are expectations regarding appropriate behavior held by those belonging to groups; • related to a desire to belong to the group
Conformity Normative influence: • Special case: norm of social responsibility. We conform or comply in response to a perceived social need. • Legitimate use: We hold doors open for old and frail (perceived as helpless). • Less legitimate: Panhandlers ask us for money. If we perceive them as helpless, we may comply.
Conformity Two sources: • Normative influence • Informational social influence
Conformity Informational social influence • use of other people’s behavior to inform our own behavior • motivated by a need for information, a desire to be accurate
Conformity Sherif’s Conformity Study • Three individuals in a dark room shown a stationary point of light. • Light appears to move (autokinetic effect) • Participants’ estimates of movement converged • Demonstrated emergence of a group norm.
Conformity Sherif’s Conformity Study: Informational influence …stimulus is ambiguous and the task is unfamiliar 8 6 4 2 0 Upper and lower response bounds day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4
Conformity Asch’s Study: The stimuli • Subjects were shown a line, followed by a group of three lines, and were asked to pick the one that matched the original (standard) standard comparisons 1 2 3
Conformity Asch’s Study: • Several confederates and one study participant, seated at table • Lines matching tasks like previous slide • High percentages of participants made conforming choices that were wrong. • Did this to conform to the group and fit in. Babson. edu
Conformity Asch’s Study: • normative influence • stimulus is unambiguous and task is familiar • simulated established norm. standard comparisons 1 2 3
Conformity Factors Affecting Conformity: • group size • group unanimity • commitment to the group • status of leader or group • similarity of members • situational ambiguity • Individuality • descriptive vs. injunctive norms
Conformity Factors Affecting Nonconformity: • your culture • need to maintain individuality • need for control • felt rejection by group • stage of moral reasoning we are in (Kohlberg)
Compliance – yielding to direct, explicit appeals meant to produce certain behavior or agreement with a particular point of view Obedience – compliance with the influence attempt of those perceived to be legitimate authorities
Compliance Conformity—no direct request is made; influence is social only. Compliance – usually voluntary, in response to direct request; depends on compliant attitude. Obedience – response to legitimate authority. May be coerced; attitude is irrelevant.
Power Bases One determinant of whether we will obey is the power of requesting person. Two major sources of power: • Position power • Personal Power Source: French & Raven, 1959
Power Bases Position Power • Legitimate • Reward • Coercive Personal Power • Expert • Referent • Information Literacy
Power Bases Position Power • Legitimate • Reward • Coercive
Power Bases Position Power • Legitimate—power derived from a position • Reward—power from ability to reward – Extrinsic – Intrinsic • Coercive—Power derived from ability to punish • Coercive and Reward power are on a continuum.
Power Bases Personal Power • Expert power—based on what you know • Referent power—based on mutual trust and respect, as well as followers’ understandings that leader has their best interests at heart in what s/he does. • To which I add Information power and Information literacy.
Power Bases • Information power—the persuasive content of a message (see unit on persuasion); • Information literacy—knowing how to access information, sharing it with others.
Power Bases Really important issue: • Which of the person vs. position power bases is effective today?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Intrinsic Extrinsic
Compliance vs. Empowerment • Getting people beyond minimum requirements requires use of expert and referent power, and appealing to people’s growth and accomplishment needs. • Getting beyond basic requirements requires an intrinsic focus. • To accomplish this, the supervisor must empower and grow people.
Compliance vs. Empowerment • Compliance is doing something they want you to do whether you want to or not. • Followership, aided by empowerment, is doing it because you want to do it.
Compliance Techniques People use a variety of subtle manipulations to get others to do things for them. Here are some of those in action, with analysis:
Compliance Techniques From the movie, Good boy! • Can I have a cookie? • Can I have twenty cookies? From a current television commercial: • Can you take down a phone number? • Then call today to find out about our…
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques Foot in the Door • Make a small request… • Then make a bigger request. • Nice day, isn’t it? • Got any spare change?
Compliance Techniques • Could I borrow your new car tomorrow? • Could you drop me off at work on your way tomorrow? • Will you raise my allowance to $50 a week? • Well, how about $20?
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques Door in the Face • Make a really big request • Then make a smaller request. • If we have to try you, we will seek the death penalty. • If you plead guilty, we’ll let you off with twenty years.
Compliance Techniques • Can Susie go shopping with us? • Oh, yeah, she’s babysitting her little brother, so he has to come, too. • Will you take part in our around the clock prayer vigil? • Oh, your hour is from 3: 00 a. m. to 4: 00 a. m. tonight.
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques The Low-Ball • Ask someone to agree to something on the basis of incomplete information… • Then give them the details they might not have agreed to initially. • Ten CD’s for the price of one… • then you have to buy 8 more within two years at the regular price, plus (unreasonable) shipping and handling.
Compliance Techniques • Buy this set of storage bags for only $19. 99. • If you buy now, you get a second set free! • And if you order in the next five minutes, shipping is free.
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques That’s Not All • Offer a deal at an inflated price… • While the customer is mulling it over, offer more stuff to make the offer look more reasonable. • Very similar to door in the face. • But wait! There’s MORE!
Compliance Techniques …order in the next five minutes… • This is yet another technique • The advertisers call this a closer. • They want to make you think that they are offering you a better deal than they really are, • . . so they tell you it is for a very limited time. • This forces you to process the offer.
Compliance Techniques • Please try this hot dog and tell us how you like it. • How do you like them? • Wouldn’t you like to take some of these home? Sam’s Wholesale Club does this all the time…
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques The Not -So Free Sample • Give the potential customer something free… • Then induce guilt to influence him/her to buy the product. • Somewhat similar to foot in the door • Take this free! Lesser request. • Buy this please. Larger request.
Compliance Techniques • Panhandler: Could I please have some money for a drink? • Panhandler: Could you please give me 37 cents?
What technique is this?
Compliance Techniques The Pique • Ask for something slightly out of the ordinary instead of asking for something the usual way. • This disrupts the automatic refusal script, induces controlled processing, and increases likelihood of compliance.
Compliance vs. Empowerment In supervising and managing people, basic compliance is assured by the use of legitimate, reward and coercive power. • Compliance requires an extrinsic focus. • You get only what you pay for…
Milgram: Obedience to Authority Shortly after World War II, Milgram set out to understand why so many German men and women carried out orders to imprison, torture and exterminate Europe’s Jews and anyone with a disability.
Milgram: Obedience to Authority Why did they simply follow those orders? Milgram devised an experiment to try to find out. His first-hand report is at http: //home. swbell. net/revscat/perils. Of. Obedience. html
Milgram: Obedience to Authority Advertised for men to participate in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. The teacher (the subject) was to deliver shocks of varying severity if the learner (a confederate) made a mistake.
Milgram Study • Two participants come to the study together. • Study involves “the effects of punishment on learning. ” • Real participant is chosen to be “teacher” in a rigged lottery. • “Learner” is led to another room and strapped to a chair.
Milgram Study • Shock electrode is attached, learner protests that he has a heart condition, told that shock is “painful but not dangerous. ” • Teacher is seated before a “shock generator” with 30 switches. • Switches labeled with increasingly disagreeable verbal labels.
Milgram Study • The teacher gave the learner a word-association task. • Teacher was instructed to give a stronger shock with each mistake the learner made. • The learner soon began to make audible grunts when the “shock” was delivered.
Milgram Study • At 150 volts, the learner demanded to be freed. • As the shocks increased, the learner began to scream and complain that his heart was bothering him. • At 300 volts, the learner stopped responding, but teacher was ordered to keep giving stronger shocks.
Milgram Study • Milgram asked 40 psychiatrists from Yale-New Haven Hospital to predict how many teachers would continue to obey. • They predicted that more than 50% would stop before 150 volts, and fewer than 1% would go on to the end.
Milgram Study • OVER 60% OBEYED TO THE END. • In A Munich replication, 85% obeyed.
Milgram Study • Other studies have sought to understand the factors leading to this high rate of compliance/obedience.
Milgram… Symbolic Factors: • A prestigious university • A professor • Dressed in a lab coat • Impressive apparatus Subsequent research confirms these factors…
Milgram Study
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