Social Influence

Conformity 

• Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Asch's Study

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity 

Normative Social Influence 

• One is made to feel incompetent 
• The group is at least three people
• The group is unanimous 
• One admires the group's status 
• One had made no prior commitment
• The person is observed 

Reasons for Conforming 

• Influence resulting from a person'a desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment. 

 Informational Social Influence

• Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept other's opinions about reality. 

Group Influence on Behavior 

Social Facilitation 

• Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others.
• Occurs with simple or well learned tasks. 
• Not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered. 

Social Loafing 

• The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable. 

Deindividuation

• The loss of self-awareness and self- restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Group Polarization

• The concept that a group'a attitude is one of extremes and moderate. 

Groupthink

• the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides common sense. 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies 

• Occurs when one person's belief about others leads one to act induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.