Social Influence & Atrocity

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Conformity: Changes in perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms.
o Behavior-change can be the result of real or imagined group pressure

o Compliance: Conformity that involves publicly acting or going along with others, while privately disagreeing o Acceptance:

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Why do we conform?
o Normative influence: To be liked and accepted by other people
Factors : Often occurs when situation is not ambiguous

o Informational influence: To solve uncertainty and get information about what is the right thing to do
Factors that increase this type of influence: Crisis (need to act immediately with little information) When others are experts When being accurate is important

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Informational influence & acceptance Seeking information in an uncertain environment (Sherif, 1935) Participants brought into lab to judge the movement of a light There is lots of uncertainty (no right answer) Examined how group influence judgments
o On day 1 they make judgments alone o On days 2 - 4 they make judgments in group o On day 5 they make judgments alone again

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Seeking information in an uncertain environment (Sherif, 1935)
1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 A B C D

Alone (

In a Group ) Alone

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Seeking information in an uncertain environment (Sherif, 1935)
o Informational influence often happens during emergencies

We also conform to be liked (Asch, 1956)

o Participants walk into a room with seven other people for study about Visual perception, will be judging lengths of lines

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

We also conform to be liked (Asch, 1956) Predict the results? (%) Never conformed? Conformed at least once ?

Conformed the majority of the time (7-12 trials) ?

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Going along to get along Challenger Explosion & O-rings Groupthink: mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisals of alternatives Characteristics of Groupthink:
feeling of invulnerability tendency to ignore or discredit information Stress from external threats Self-censorship & isolation from outside influences Influential leader

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Going along to get along Ways to prevent group think? Encourage dissent Call on outside experts to give their opinions -

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Influence of Leaders Leadership & Social Roles (Zimbardo, 1989) Social Role: shared expectations about how a person who occupies a particular position is supposed to behave or act. Stated Purpose: To examine social roles Evidence is actually: Leadership + social roles Research:
Basement of Stanford University Guards given Khaki uniform, whistle, police nightstick Prisoners given prison uniforms.

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Leadership & Social Roles (Zimbardo, 1989) Research:
Study was supposed to last for two weeks, but ended after 6 days because of harsh treatment Results: Guards became abusive and prisoners became increasingly passive and withdrawn

Take home:

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Leadership & Obedience Obedience: Complying with a direct command from an authority figure

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Leadership & Obedience
Prior to the experiment, scientists thought only 1% would go to the end. Predict the results. What % do you think obeyed to the end?

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Leadership & Obedience But, would this happen today?-CLIP The power of the situation What happened when participant only heard the experimenters voice (no victim at all)?
What happened when the experiment was in an office building in Bridgeport (not at Yale)? What happened when the victim was in the same room?

I. Other people have a strong influence on you Leadership & Obedience

The power of the situation What happened when participant has to physically touch the learner to inflict the shock?

What happened when the experimenter was an ordinary person (no lab coat or affiliated with Yale)?

What happened when the two other people in room protested?

I. Other people have a strong influence on you

Leadership & Obedience Why did people obey? Why do people obey? Reasons for Obedience:
We are socialized to follow orders Informational social influence
Uncertainty often increases reliance on authorities

 Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group

II. In the name of identity and selfdefinition

II. In the name of identity and selfdefinition

Bystanders play a key role in enabling Genocide Internal Bystanders: Members of the population act as if everything is normal, ignoring the violence and often participate in discrimination against victims. External Bystanders:

 Doing wrong in the name of right via Identity Five steps to inhumanity via Identity (Reicher et al., 2008) 1. Create a cohesive in-group

II. In the name of identity and selfdefinition

Goebbels: What is the first commandment of every National Socialist?...Love Germany above all else.

2. Exclusionplace targets outside the in-group

Nazism presented as a project of cleansing The German group defined in an exclusive way that excluded Jews, gypsies, and others Begin to withdraw benefits of being a part of the cohesive group Importance of identity definition
Bulgaria: No Jews were deported to the death camps Declaration of Bulgarian leader at the time: Bulgarias Jewsspeak and think in Bulgarian.they sing Bulgarian songs and tell Bulgarian storiesour sufferings are their sufferings.

II. In the name of identity and selfdefinition

Doing wrong in the name of right via Identity Five steps to inhumanity via Identity (Reicher et al., 2008) 3. Threatother groups are a danger to us
Hitlers hate propaganda (on Jews): He is and remains the typical parasitewhere ever he appears, the host people dies out after a shorter or longer period Other groups, by their actions or their mere presence, endanger the social being of the cohesive group Within war and genocide, animal nicknames are often used to dehumanize victims
Rwanda Genocide between Hutus and Tutsi-CLIP

II. In the name of identity and selfdefinition

Doing wrong in the name of right via Identity Five steps to inhumanity via Identity (Reicher et al., 2008) 4. Virtuerepresent the in-group as uniquely good Again, Nazism presented as a moral project. Hitler: Germans were moral, pure, selfless, loyal, and inherently better than other groups. 5.

Ethics & Positive Social Influence

Milgram defense: Ethics & IRB
Participants should be treated with care & respect. Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews all research Researchers must tell participants before the experiment begins what they are getting into & allow them to decide.

Ethics & Positive Social Influence

Potential for positive social influence? Power of environment & health (Langer, 1979)
Participants: Men aged 75 and above Pre-measures: Physical and Mental health Week in 1959 resort Post-measure results:

Social roles & health (Langer, 1989)

Participants: Elderly men and women Independent variable: Air-force pilot role vs. No role Results: Better eyesight in the pilot condition