SOCIAL INFLUENCE:Attachment styles & Friendship, SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 31

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

A few topics relevant to previous chapter will be described first, and then Social Influence will be

discussed.

Childhood attachment styles and adult romantic relationships

· Until the mid 1980, all research on attachment styles focused on children and adolescents' social

relationships. The secure and insecure attachment styles were researched by Ainsworth and other

developmental psychologists.

· Hazan and Shaver, both social psychologists, were Interested in whether attachment styles might

affect adult romantic relationships

In 1987, Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver developed self-report measures of attachment styles

They inserted their attachment measures into a "love quiz", and asked newspaper readers about

their current romantic relationships.

Securely attached adults reported more positive relationships with their parents than those with

insecure attachment styles.

Cultural differences: Individualistic cultures placed great importance on love in marriage

compared to collectivistic countries like India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Philippines (Levine et al.,

1995)

Passion is the hot point of love

indicating intense feeling, arousal,

physical attraction, satisfying other

drives and needs

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

Intimacy is the warm point of love

INTIMACY

characterized by close, connected,

bonded feelings, helping, being happy

Liking

Companionate

Romantic

with,

respecting,

mutually

Love

understanding, sharing, and supporting

Consummate

Love

behavior.

Infatuation

Empty Love

Fatuous Love

Commitment is the cool point of love. It

PASSION

COMMITMENT

is deliberate choice about loving

someone, maintaining long term commitment and short time decisions about being in love.

Companionate love is characterized by self disclosure, closeness, and concern after living long

with each other. When our lives are intertwined with someone, feelings such as affection,

tenderness, sharing, and attachment become a hallmark of relationship.

Attachment styles & Friendship

As children grow up, they form emotional ties not only with family but they also form friendships with

their peers. Friendship is different from family relations, which are largely nonvoluntary. As compared

to those, relationships based on friendships are voluntary.

Two different levels of friendship

· Superficial friendships are formed and maintained because they are rewarding, and are based on

the principle of exchange

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Developed friendships in contrast are based not only on rewards but also on friends' mutual

concern for each other's welfare

Disclosure is the revealing of personal information about oneself to other people. One of the prime

avenues for creating developed friendships is through self-disclosure. People not availing this type

of communication will have dysfunctional relationships and loneliness (Stokes, 1987)

Social penetration theory (Altman and Taylor, 1973)

· The development of a relationship is associated with communication moving gradually from a

discussion of superficial topics to more intimate exchanges

Cultural differences: North Americans tend to disclose more about themselves in a wider variety

of social settings than people from collectivistic cultures (Chen, 1995)

Gender differences: In a meta analysis of 205 studies, Kathryn Dindia and Mike Allen (1992)

found that women self-disclose more than men

PART III: EVALUATING PERSONS AND RELATIONSHIPS

Close Relationships was the last chapter of section III, i.e., "Evaluating persons and relationships".

That section comprised on five following chapters: Attitudes, Attitude change, Prejudice and

Discrimination, Interpersonal Attraction, and Close Relationships. Apparently, these all topics seem

different; however they all are about the evaluation of other people.

PART IV: SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

The fourth section of syllabus on Social Psychology is concerned with different forms of social

interactions that people would have with each other. This section consists on five chapters namely,

Social Influence, Aggression, Prosocial Behavior, Group Behavior, and Interpersonal Power. In the

following, a brief description about each chapter is provided:

· Social influence is concerned with how one person's behavior influences another person's

behavior.

Aggression is the negative side of social interaction. Psychologists want to know how to overcome

aggression. They are also interested in knowing that why people assault, rape, and kill each other.

Prosocial Behavior: Social psychologists are interested to know that what makes people help each

other and what goes wrong when people fail to help victims in emergency situations

Group interaction: Psychologists are also interested to know that how individuals behave

differently when they are in groups, and also that whether groups perform better or worse than

individuals.

Interpersonal. Power: is the dark side of social interaction. Social psychologists desire to know that

why ordinary human beings sometime follow immoral orders to engage in torture, ethnic cleansing,

and genocide.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Chapter Summary

This chapter introduces conformity, compliance, and obedience as forms of social influence.

Conformity is described as changing one's behavior to be consistent with group standards. The chapter

reviews the classic studies of Sherif and Asch. The meaning and incidence of conformity is contrasted

across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Informational influence and normative influence are

discussed as the two major motivators of conformity. The conditions under which people are likely to

conform or resist conforming (commitment to a group, cohesiveness, group size, unanimity, and

minority influence) are presented. The application of social psychological knowledge on conformity to

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

health campaigns is highlighted. Compliance is defined as responding to a request from another

individual or group. Research on the role of mood and compliance is presented. More specific

compliance techniques, such as foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, low-ball, "that's-not-all," and the

pique technique are compared. Obedience is defined as complying with the request of a legitimate

authority. The Eichmann defense is given as an example of extreme deference to authority and sets the

stage for a discussion of the effects and crimes of obedience. Milgram's experiments are presented, and

the factors that enhance or reduce obedience are discussed. Finally, the ethical considerations

surrounding obedience research are noted.

Introduction

· Social influence can be practiced by religious and political leaders, etc. This chapter will discuss

the social psychology of influence in its various forms.

Social influence is `the exercise of social power by a person or group to change the attitudes or

behavior of others in a particular direction'.

Examples: After the following two events, pressure and influence of entire Muslim community

forced those, who were responsible for these events, to apologize.

o Cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Denmark, November 2005

o Pope Benedict XVI's remarks for Prophet Mohammad in 2006;

Behavioral consequences of social influence

Conformity is `a yielding to perceived group pressure by copying the behavior and beliefs of others'.

It indicates to what degree you conform to others' social influence in dress, food and music

preferences, etc. We can be influenced by our family, friends, teachers, and authority figures.

Independence is a state different from conformity and it indicates that you are not controlled by others.

However, when you do not conform, may be you are acting independently or conforming to another

group.

Compliance: Publicly acting in accord with a direct request, e.g., standing and singing national anthem

in public ceremonies. Although privately we agree or disagree with the behavior we are engaging in,

we nevertheless indulge in that behavior to comply.

Obedience is `the performance of an action in response to a direct order". Obedience is taught from

childhood to respect and obey authority figures (e.g., by parents, police, and teachers), more so in

traditional Asian cultures. Actually, compliance implies loss of personal freedom which is valued very

much in individualistic cultures. People usually prefer to comply with a request rather than being

ordered.

Classic & contemporary conformity research

· Norm development (Muzafir Sherif, 1935)

· Solomon Asch's work on group pressure

· Stanley Schachter's work on how people react to nonconformists

Norm development (Muzafir Sherif, 1935)

Sherif was Turkish-born. His research was partly spurred by his disagreement with individualistic

cultures which maintain that a group is merely a collection of individuals and no new group qualities

arise when individuals form into a collective entity. He contended that a group was more than sum of

its individuals' nongroup thinking. He studied how social norms develop into a group. In the following,

his experiments are illustrated:

Phase 1:

· `Visual perception experiment'

· How far does the dot move?

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

100 judgments - but movement was an optical illusion - the `autokinetic effect'

Participants' judgments regressed towards a consistent range of light movement (although the

actual magnitude of estimated movement varied across participants)

Phase 2:

· Public announcement of estimates; "not free-for-all bickering of light movement experts"

· This lead to a convergence of all participants' responses away from initially disparate estimates to a

common standard

· This common group standard is known as a "social norm"

· Participants denied that other's judgments affected their own

· Uncertainty increased the rate at which convergence on the social norm develops

· In uncertain situations other's judgments are a valuable heuristic (or rule of thumb) that can help us

be as accurate as possible

The following graph illustrates these

results more clearly:

Norm Development (Sherif, 1935)

Participant 1

Participant 2

Reading

Participant 3

· Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology.

Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 9.

Other Readings

· Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology.

Orlando:

Harcourt

Brace

and

Company. Chapter 8.

· David G. Myers, D. G. (2002). Social

Psychology (7th ed.). New York:

McGraw-Hill.

Successive trials with other group members

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