Informational Social Influence
Informational social influence refers to the phenomenon where individuals look to others for guidance on how to behave in ambiguous or unfamiliar situations. This influence occurs when people conform to the actions or opinions of others because they believe that others have more accurate knowledge and are making the right choices. It often leads to the adoption of beliefs or behaviors based on the desire to be correct.
4 Key excerpts on "Informational Social Influence"
eBook - ePubPrinciples of Social Psychology
Third Edition
- Kelly G. Shaver(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Groups can exert Informational Social Influence over their members through processes of social comparison, and can exert normative social influence in order to obtain conformity from members. The readiness of an individual to accept social influence is often determined by that person's uncertainty about a correct response or by his or her expectation of personal gain through compliance. Because the social influence process is an interchange between individuals, it is often possible for a consistent minority to alter the position of the majority. Of all the topics of interest to scientific social psychology, social influence perhaps best matches intuitive conceptions of what the subject matter of the discipline ought to be. We may not be attuned to the accuracy or error of our social perceptions, we may not be conscious of all the factors shaping our social attitudes and self-concept, and we may not reflect upon the degree to which our own actions might help or harm other people. Yet we are usually aware of attempts by others to influence our actions, and of our own attempts to change the behavior of other people. From an intuitive point of view, this process of mutual influence is the real stuff of social behavior: we plead, bargain, and threaten in order to have our views prevail; we resist those who attempt to change our behavior; and the society passes laws to keep this mutual influence within acceptable bounds. Social influence, like competition and aggression, may be a positive phenomenon or a negative one, depending on the circumstances of influence and on the value system of the person making the judgment. Suppose, for example, that a new high technology manufacturing plant is planned for vacant land near a park. Representatives of labor and business will seek approval of the local governing body, whereas residents who fear that the park will be destroyed will argue against such approval...
eBook - ePub- Stephanie Cacioppo, John T. Cacioppo(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
...Normative conformity reflects either the abandonment of personal preferences or behaviors to match alternatives exhibited by a majority of others, or copying the behavior of the majority with a higher probability than the proportional bias that was observed. Informational influence, on the other hand, reflects an updating of preferences or behavior based on information highlighted by the behavior of others in the group. Evolutionary analyses and comparative studies have tended to emphasize normative conformity, although evidence for informational conformity in animals first appeared more than four decades ago, 17 and psychologists Nicolas Claidi è re and Andrew Whiten have provided an integrative review of research on normative and informational conformity in animals. 15 In an illustrative study of conformity to local norms in vervet monkeys, groups of monkeys in the wild were provided with a tray of corn dyed blue and an adjacent tray of corn dyed pink. The corn in one of the two trays was made distasteful for several months so that the monkeys in the group developed a strong preference for the other tray of corn (see figure 8.1). Afterward, the two trays of corn were provided without the distasteful additive. Observations confirmed that na ï ve infants conformed to their mothers’ food preference despite both trays of food now being comparably palatable. Social influence was not limited to infants, either. Fifteen male vervet monkeys immigrated into the group during the study. Even when these monkeys had developed a preference for the other colored corn in their prior group, they too conformed by eating the colored corn eaten by others in their new group. 1–3 This result suggests their behavior represented a case of normative rather than informational conformity...
eBook - ePubSocial Psychology
The Basics
- Daniel Frings(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Social influence Theme overview How would you behave if told to do something you fundamentally disagreed with? How do revolutionary movements overturn the opinions of the society they exist in? When you see an advert promoting a new product, how good are you at separating the facts from the marketing spiel? Do others invigorate you to work harder, or do you just blend in and slack off? All of these phenomena can broadly be understood as instances where social influence comes into play. In many ways, the study of social influence encompasses all of social psychology. Recall that the impact of the ‘actual, imagined or implied’ presence of others is part of how we define the field. In essence, when someone’s actions (or something which signifies such actions) changes how someone else thinks, feels or behaves, you can argue social influence has taken place. As such, our discussion of social influence encompasses almost every page of this book. However, we can also narrow the discussion by looking at how people change the intended behaviour of others (which we discuss in Chapter 6, ‘Conformity and obedience’) and how we are both recipients of, and targets for, people’s attempts to change our opinions on a given issue (explored in Chapter 7, ‘Persuasion’). Across these two chapters we will explore how, why and when we conform to others’ demands, the effects of groups on our performance, how society deals with people who won’t conform to the prevailing view and how such minorities can cause major social shifts...
eBook - ePub- Kevin Wren(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2 Conformity Introduction Mustafer Sherif and Informational Social Influences Solomon Asch and normative social influences Informational and normative influences Richard Crutchfield Conformity/non-conformity and physiology Factors that may influence the degree of conformity Evaluation of conformity experiments Explaining the conformity effect Summary Introduction Throughout our daily lives we conform, i.e. we behave in response to the perceived pressure of others. We queue, wait at bus stops and conform to road signs. In other situations our conformity is subtler. When in a group we often ‘go with the flow’ while at the same time having some private reservations about what we are doing. In such face-to-face contact with a group we are under pressure to conform to the beliefs, actions and attitudes of the ‘greater’ group. In this respect our behaviour can be governed by a number of social influences of which obedience and conformity to group influences are examples. We need to be careful here not to confuse behaviour changed as a result of conformity and behaviour changed as a result of obedience. Although definitions differ slightly from psychologist to psychologist the following differences can be observed: • In conformity situations behaviour changes as a result of group pressure, despite there being no explicit requirement on the part of individual participants to change. In this respect behaviour within the group becomes more homogenous. • In obedience situations behaviour changes as a result of the explicit instructions of an authority figure, i.e. the experimenter. In this respect behaviour arises out of the fact that social structure is differentiated, i.e. the experimenter begins with a higher status. (after Evans, 1980) In this chapter we are going to examine material that deals with behaviour altered as a result of manipulating group pressure, i.e...
