1. Some More Social Influence Tidbits
Scott Allison
Psycho Department
4/13/2019

2. Power of Authority You know the Milgram study of course
But do you know of the equally interesting Kassin & Kiechel (1996) study?
Participants were told they were in a study of typing speed and reflexes
Participants arrived in groups of two: One was a real participant, the other was a confederate
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3. Kassin & Kiechel study (continued)
All participants warned NOT TO HIT THE ALT KEY. Doing so would crash the computer.
Two minutes into the task, the computer crashed
The distressed experimenter accused the participant of hitting the ALT key
All participants denied hitting the key
The experimenter then asked the confederate, “Did you see anything?”
The confederate reported seeing the participant hit the ALT key
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4. Kassin & Kiechel study (continued)
The experimenter demanded that the participant sign a confession:
“I HIT THE ALT KEY AND CAUSED THE COMPUTER TO CRASH. DATA WERE LOST.”
What percentage of participants agreed to sign this confession?
70% willingly signed
Even more interesting: Later, when participants privately described the incident to another confederate, 30% of them came to see themselves as guilty!
4/13/2019

5. Social Impact Theory Latane (1981)
Three basic principles of the theory
(1) The Principle of Social Forces
Influence = f (SIN)
Strength (e.g., age, status, power)
Immediacy (e.g., psychological closeness)
Number
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6. Social Impact Theory (2) The Psychosocial Law
The influence the first few people is largest, but each additional person’s influence becomes smaller
(3) The Principle of Division of Impact
The influence of one person on several others is a negative power function of SIN
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7. Phenomena Explained by Social Impact Theory
Conformity and imitation
Asch’s conformity study
Milgram et al.’s craning & gawking study
Embarrassment and social anxiety
Embarrassment follows psychosocial law
Older audiences and male audiences cause more embarrassment
News events
Events are judged as more newsworthy if they involve more people, are located nearby, and involve high status individuals
Social loafing
Studies of effort; tipping; clapping
4/13/2019

8. Moral Courage: Fighting Social Influence to Do the Right Thing
The movie “Twelve Angry Men”
The movie “Pay it Forward”
4/13/2019

9. Moral Courage: Fighting Social Influence to Do the Right Thing
Get out a piece of scratch paper
Right down two things
(1) An example of moral courage you’ve witnessed
(2) A situation today where we desperately need moral courage
4/13/2019