Social Influence

Unless otherwise stated, answer in complete sentences, and be sure to use correct English, spelling, and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should be four (4) double-spaced pages; refer to the “Format Requirementsʺ page for specific format requirements.

Part A

Objective: Recognize characteristics of informational social influence.

After checking into a hotel, Emma suddenly hears pounding on her door. A man in a uniform is standing there telling her there’s smoke on a lower floor and the electricity is possibly going to shut off. She should prop her door open and evacuate as quickly as possible. Later, Emma returns to find that her laptop and jewelry have been stolen. She has fallen victim to informational social influence.

Based on your understanding of informational social influence, outline and explain the four (4) factors and conditions that encouraged Emma to conform.

Part B

Objective: Describe the need to be accepted in the context of normative social influence.

1. Based on Schachter’s “Johnny Rocco” study, describe three (3) stages involved in persuading “rebels” to conform to group norms.

2. Describe an instance in your life when you were persuaded to adopt or reject group norms.

ANSWER

Social Influence

Part A: Informational Social Influence.

Informational social influence describes a condition where an individual makes decisions grounded on someone else’s information. Individuals accept that the information offered is trustworthy, thus changing their behavior, belief, or thinking for that reason (McDonald and Crandall, 2015). This first of the paper will focus on recognizing the characteristics of informational social influence, while the second part will describe the need to be accepted in normative social influence.

In some situations, people tend to be uncertain about what is the right thing to do. Therefore, at times people rely on others’ behavior to understand what is going on in the situation and what they ought to do about a situation. Emma was quite encouraged to conform in the informational social influence since; he saw the other person as a source of information that would guide her behavior and believed other’s interpretation about an ambiguous situation as more correct. She believed in what other people are doing as of right and thought of other people as experts. Therefore, the main factors that encouraged Emma to conform were ambiguity, uncertainty, proximity, and blind obedience.

Informational social influence happens when one conforms since they see other individuals as a source of information.  Emma was told that there was smoke on the lower floor, and she believed that the most appropriate thing to do is to follow what she was told since she saw the person as a source of information to guide her actions in such a situation. Therefore, she obeyed when the man told her to leave her door open and vacate immediately.

Ambiguity entails having more than one interpretation of something since one is not sure of what is correct. Often, in situations where one is unsure of the proper thing to do, we often look upon others to feel more knowledgeable and more informed and rely on their guide. Emma believed the man when he said that there was smoke and that she needs to vacate immediately. She indeed never saw the smoke, but she believed what she was told for her safety. Therefore, since the state was ambiguous to her since he could not see the smoke, she thought that the action that the man suggested was the best for her. She lacked any other appropriate action to choose and therefore believed that the man had the most appropriate action for the situation.

Uncertainty entails a lack of knowledge or confidence in what to do in a particular situation. Under conditions of uncertainty, people tend to grab any information to guide them on how to behave. Therefore, people tend to believe what people are saying or doing is right. Additionally, an individual may ground their actions or views on others’ opinions if they find them as believable and credible. They conform to the opinions and views in an attempt to achieve the correct conclusion. Considerably, when Emma was told by the man that there was smoke on the lower floor, she believed that what the man was saying was right.

Blind obedience entails blindly conforming to an individual’s instructions that look like an authority figure without conforming to who the individual is. Blind obedience is evident in Emma’s situation since she obeys without reasoning the outcome since she had been ordered. Blind obedience mostly happens in emergencies but may be harmful in cases of fake alerts. Emma agreed since the man seemed to be an expert and had an idea of what is happening. Since the man was wearing a uniform, this greatly persuaded Emma that the man was an expert. She believed that the person was not anyone else like herself since he had the uniform.

Proximity entails the closeness or nearness of the person giving the orders. Proximity has a relative influence since a closer person’s social power is greater than that of the distant sender. Closeness is a situational variable that affects obedience. When a person gives an order at afar distance, there is a likelihood that people will delay when they give orders when close. For that reason, Emma obeyed the man’s orders since he was at the door when giving the orders. Perhaps, if the orders were given in the form of an announcement or a call, she would have taken time to think about the orders.

Part B: Three (3) Stages Involved in Persuading “Rebels” to Conform to Group Norms.

Normative social influence entails an individual’s conformity to be liked and belong to a group (Schöbel, Rieskamp, and Huber, 2016). This happens since group conformity is rewarding and greatly avoids social rejection. Ideally, groups have specific expectations about how the group members should behave to belong to the group. Therefore, one has to fulfill other people’s expectations to gain acceptance. In most cases, normative social influence has served to build on social cohesion that helps the group members work together towards a collective goal and reduce the possibility of group members being individualistic.

The three-stage of persuading rebels that Schachter focused on were communication, punishment, and exclusion. Schachter experimented how group members tend to react to deviants in a group. The study involved nine group members that discussed the criminal history of Johnny and suggested that the treatment would range from very lenient to very hard (Wesselmann et al., 2014). Initially, the group first decided to persuade the defiant to conform to the social norms. They gathered information and talked to the deviant to shift opinions towards an average position in the group. Group communication is effective since it can change the group opinion or deviant opinion to match, tolerate the issue or reject the deviant.

The persuasion failed, and the group decided to punish the member by rejecting him. Ideally, punishment is important in maintaining social norms during social dilemmas where there is a conflict between collective and individual interests. Therefore, in this case, punishment was employed to lead to a socially costly reinforcement. The participants were requested to nominate a group member that needs to be eliminated. The defiant ranked the highest. However, rejection did not create any positive results. Therefore, the group decided to exclude the disagreeing participant by assigning unexciting work for the defiant to feel less important and failing to involve the defiant in meetings.

Conforming to Group Norms

Conformity entails involving a change in behavior or belief to fit into a group and successfully go along with those around. Conformity has remained a social mechanism within the society, having both negative and positive effects on individuals. For instance, healthy eating behavior is viewed as a habit or belief of consuming daily food linked to a person’s a to implement healthy living. The existence of healthy eating patterns can be a result of peer conformity. Eating habits and selection of foods are some of the things that can be highly affected by social norms (Sharps and Robinson, 2017). Therefore, peers have a strong influence on an individual’s social life. I became a vegetarian by getting influenced by my peers who believed that becoming a vegan was helpful to their health. They persuaded me that eating meat is inhumane and unhealthy. They advised me on the health benefits especially comparing the life span of a vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Although I dislike vegetables as I find them more bitter for me, I suddenly found myself saying it’s a great idea. I realized that I did conform to match my behaviors and attitudes to theirs.

In some cases, the desire for a person to conform and fit in a social group can affect their ability to make safe and moral decisions. For instance, a person can decide to drink and drive since their friends do or because one of the friends has assured them that they can safely do it. Therefore, a person’s desire to gain recognition and desire through conformity has both positive and negative effects on their lives.

References

McDonald, R. I., & Crandall, C. S. (2015). Social norms and social influence. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 147-151.

Schöbel, M., Rieskamp, J., & Huber, R. (2016). Social influences in sequential decision making. PloS one, 11(1), e0146536.

Sharps, M., & Robinson, E. (2017). Perceived eating norms and children’s eating behavior: An informational social influence account. Appetite, 113, 41-50.

Wesselmann, E. D., Williams, K. D., Pryor, J. B., Eichler, F. A., Gill, D. M., & Hogue, J. D. (2014). Revisiting Schachter’s research on rejection, deviance, and communication (1951). Social Psychology, 45(3), 164.