Throughout the years Julius was trotting the globe and winning medals, he never forgot about Uganda. He remembered the people back home with empty stomachs and no access to lifesaving medicine, living in constant fear of the LRA. Julius was raised in a family that had always reached out to neighbors in need. “You will get help from other people when you do good,” his parents used to say. Julius also felt blessed by all the support people outside the family had given him. “I feel I was so loved [by] others,” says Julius, referring to the mentors and coaches who had provided him with places to stay, clothes to wear, and family away from home.

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So when Julius encountered those 11 orphans lying under the bus, he didn’t think twice about coming to their rescue. His decision to bring them into his life probably had something to do with the positive interactions he had experienced with people in his past.

LO 4 Describe social influence and recognize the factors associated with persuasion.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE DEFINED Rarely a day goes by that we do not come into contact with other human beings. This contact may be up close and personal, in a family or a tight-knit work group. Other times it’s more superficial, like the “Hello, how are you?” type of exchange you might have with a cashier at the store. Sometimes the interaction is so superficial that you never see the person face to face, like the online banker who helps you figure out why you were charged that mysterious fee. All of these interactions impact you in ways you may not realize. Psychologists refer to this as social influence—how a person is affected by others as evidenced in behaviors, emotions, and cognition. We begin our discussion with a powerful, yet often unspoken, form of social influence: expectations.

EXPECTATIONS Think back to your days in elementary school. What kind of student were you—an overachiever, a kid who struggled, or perhaps the class clown? The answer to this question may depend somewhat on the way your teachers perceived you. In a classic study, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966, 1968) administered a nonverbal intelligence test to students in a San Francisco elementary school. Then all the teachers were provided with a list of students who were likely to “show surprising gains in intellectual competence” during the next year (Rosenthal, 2002a, p. 841). But the list was fake; the “intellectually competent” kids were just a group of kids selected at random (a good example of how deception is used in social psychology research). About 8 months later, the students were given a second intelligence test. Children whom the teachers expected to “show surprising gains” achieved greater increases in their test scores than their peers. Mind you, the only difference between these two groups was in teacher expectations and their resulting behaviors. The students who were expected to be superior actually became superior. Why do you think this happened?

Expectations can have a powerful impact on behaviors. Here, we have a case in which teachers’ expectations (based on false information) seemed to transform students’ aptitudes and facilitate substantial gains. Let’s consider the types of teacher behaviors that could explain this effect. The teachers may have inadvertently communicated expectations by demonstrating “warmer socioemotional” attitudes toward the “surprising gain” students; they may have provided them with more material and opportunities to respond to high expectations; and they may have given them more complex and personalized feedback (Rosenthal, 2002a, 2003). From the student’s perspective, teacher behaviors can create a desire to work hard, or they can result in a decline in interest and confidence (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2011).

Since this classic study was conducted approximately 50 years ago, researchers have studied expectations in a variety of classroom settings. Their results demonstrate that teacher expectations do not have the same effect or degree of impact on all students (Jussim & Harber, 2005). They appear to have greater influence on younger students (first and second graders) and children of lower socioeconomic status (Sorhagen, 2013).

Expectations are powerful, but they are just one form of social influence. Let’s return to the story of Julius and learn about more targeted types of influence.

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When Julius asked his father to shelter and feed the 11 orphans, he was using a form of social influence called persuasion. With persuasion, one intentionally tries to make other people change their attitudes and beliefs, which may (or may not) lead to changes in their behaviors. The person doing the persuading does not necessarily have control over those he seeks to persuade. Julius could not force his father to feel sympathy for the orphans. His father made a choice.

The important elements of persuasion were first described by Carl Hovland, a social psychologist who studied the morale of soldiers fighting in World War II. According to Hovland, three factors determine persuasive power: the source, the message, and the audience (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953).

THE SOURCE The credibility of the person or organization sending a message is critical, and credibility can be dependent on perceived expertise and trustworthiness (Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Suppose you are searching for information about the risks associated with vaccines—whom do you trust to furnish reliable information? In one study, German adults deemed vaccine information provided by government agencies to be more credible than that supplied by pharmaceutical companies (Betsch & Sachse, 2013). Of course, this assessment of government credibility depends on whether citizens consider the government trustworthy. Persuasive ability also hinges on the attractiveness of the source. More attractive people tend to be more persuasive (Bekk & Spörrle, 2010).

THE MESSAGE The content of the message also determines persuasive power. One important factor is the degree to which the message is logical and to the point (Chaiken & Eagly, 1976). Fear-inducing information can increase persuasion, but it can also backfire. Imagine someone uses this message to encourage teeth-flossing: “If you don’t floss daily, you can end up with infected gums, and that infection can spread to your eyes and create total blindness!” If the audience is overly frightened by a message (imagine small children being told to floss . . . or else!), the tension they feel may actually interfere with their ability to process the message (Janis & Feshbach, 1953). If fear is used for the purpose of persuasion, those being persuaded must be provided with information about how to cope with any negative outcomes (Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano, 1967). Being as “gruesome as possible” is not effective; a better approach is to provide clear information about the negative consequences of not being persuaded (de Hoog, Stroebe, & de Wit, 2007, p. 280).

THE AUDIENCE Finally, we turn to the characteristics of the audience. One important factor is age. For example, middle-age adults (40 to 60 years old) are unlikely to be persuaded to change their attitudes, whereas children are relatively susceptible (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Another key factor is emotional state; when people are happy and well fed, they are more likely to be persuaded (Aronson, 2012; Janis, Kaye, & Kirschner, 1965). Mental focus is also key: If your mind is somewhere else, you are less likely to be affected by message content (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL The elaboration likelihood model proposes that persuasion hinges on the way people think about an argument, and it can occur via one of two pathways. With the central route to persuasion, the focus is on the content of the message, and thinking critically about it. With the peripheral route, the focus is not on the content but on “extramessage factors” such as the credibility or attractiveness of the source (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Little critical thinking is involved, and the commitment to the outcome is low. How do we know which route the message will take? If the person receiving the message is knowledgeable and invested in its outcome, the central route to persuasion is used. If the person is distracted, lacks knowledge about the topic, or does not feel invested in the outcome, the peripheral route is typically taken (O’Keefe, 2008).

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Immediately following the tragic Newtown massacre of 2012, there was an upsurge in calls for tighter gun control in the United States. Someone with strong feelings about gun control (either for or against it) would likely take advantage of central processing when trying to develop a persuasive argument. Some politicians, for example, tried to persuade others by supplying data about the number of gun-related deaths worldwide: “The United States, which has, per capita, more firearms and particularly more handguns than . . . [22 other ‘populous, high-income’] countries, as well as the most permissive gun control laws, also has a disproportionate number of firearm deaths—firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and firearm accidents” (Richardson & Hemenway, 2011, p. 243). Such a message would be more persuasive to a person who is knowledgeable and invested in the issue, and thus uses the central processing route. Someone unfamiliar with or indifferent to gun-control policy would more likely be persuaded by the credibility of the source, appearance of the speaker, and so on.

The take-home message: If you want to persuade as many people as possible, make sure your arguments are logical and you present yourself as credible and attractive. That way you can take advantage of both routes.

LO 5 Define compliance and explain some of the techniques used to gain it.

The results of persuasion are internal and related to a change in attitude (Key, Edlund, Sagarin, & Bizer, 2009). Compliance, on the other hand, occurs when someone voluntarily changes her behavior at the request or direction of another person or group, who in general does not have any true authority over her. Compliance is evident in changes to “overt behavior” (Key et al., 2009). For example, if you want to get someone to help clean up after a party, you would try to get him to comply with your request, perhaps through some mild form of guilt (Remember the last party we had, when I helped you?).

Surprisingly, compliance often occurs outside of our awareness. Think of an everyday situation in which you mindlessly comply with another person’s request. You’re waiting in line at the copy machine, and a man asks if he can cut in front of you. Do you allow it? Your response may depend on the wording of the request. Researchers studying this very scenario—a person asking for permission to cut in line—have found that compliance is much more likely to result when the request is accompanied by a reason. Saying, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the [copy] machine?” will not work as well as “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the [copy] machine, because I am in a rush?” People are more likely to comply with a request that includes a “because” phrase, even if the reasoning is not logical. For example, stating that you need to use the copy machine “because I am in a rush” achieves about the same compliance as “because I have to make copies” (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978). Kind of scary, right?

As you can see, compliance can be associated with mindlessness. Understanding this might lead you to reflect on how compliance comes into play in everyday situations (Fennis & Janssen, 2010). For example, salespeople and marketing experts use a variety of techniques to get consumers to comply with their requests. One common method is the foot-in-the-door technique, which occurs when someone makes a small request, followed by a larger request (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). If a college club is trying to persuade students to help with a large service project (such as raising money for packages to be sent to soldiers overseas), its members might first stop students in the hallway and ask them if they could help with a smaller task (labeling a couple of donated boxes lying close by). If a student responds positively to this small request, then the club members might make a bigger request (to sponsor packages), with the expectation that the student will comply with the second request on the grounds of having said yes to the first request. Why would this technique work?

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The reasoning is that if you have already said yes to a small request, chances are you will agree to a bigger request to remain consistent in your involvement. Your prior participation leads you to believe you are the type of person who gets involved; in other words, your attitude has shifted (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Freedman & Fraser, 1966). So why is such a strategy called foot-in-the-door? In the past, salespeople went door to door trying to sell their goods and services, and they would often be successful if they could physically get a “foot in the door,” thereby keeping it open, which allowed them to continue with their sales pitch.

Another method for gaining compliance is the door-in-the-face technique, which involves making a large request followed by a smaller request. With this technique, the expectation is that the person will not go along with the large request, but because the smaller request may seem so minor by comparison, she will comply with it. There are numerous reasons people comply under these circumstances, but the main reason seems to be one of reciprocal concessions. If the solicitor (the person trying to obtain something) is willing to give up something (the large request), the person being solicited tends to feel that he too should give in and satisfy the smaller request (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

Let’s review these concepts using Julius as an example. After meeting the 11 orphans, Julius brought them home and asked his parents to provide them with a meal. Once his parents complied with this initial request, Julius made a much larger request—he asked them to shelter the children indefinitely. This is an example of the foot-in-the-door technique because Julius first made a modest request (“Will you feed these children?”) and then followed up with a larger one (“Will you shelter these children?”). Had these requests been flip-flopped, that is, had Julius only wanted to get the children a meal but first asked his parents to house them, we would call it the door-in-the-face technique.

Compliance generally occurs in response to specific requests or instructions: Will you pick up the kids after school? Can you chop these onions? Please collect your sweaty socks from the bathroom floor! But social influence needn’t be explicit. Sometimes we adapt our behaviors and beliefs simply to fit in with the crowd.

When Julius came to the United States on a college scholarship in 1995, he was struck by some of the cultural differences he observed between the United States and Uganda—the way people dressed, for example. Women wore considerably less clothing, and men could be seen wearing jeans halfway down their posteriors (the “sagging” pants trend). There were other differences, like the way people addressed authority figures. In Africa, explains Julius, students speak to their teachers with a certain kind of respect, using a low voice and standing still with their legs close together. Americans tend to use a more casual tone, he notes; they stand with their legs farther apart and shift around during conversation.

During the decade Julius lived in the United States, he never stopped acting like a Ugandan. Before going out in the evening, he would tuck in his shirt, check his hair, and make sure his clothes were ironed—and never would he wear sagging pants. You might say Julius refused to conform to certain aspects of American culture—and resisting conformity is not always easy to do.

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LO 6 Identify the factors that influence the likelihood of someone conforming.

FOLLOWING THE CROWD Have you ever found yourself turning to look in the same direction as other people who are staring at something, just because you see them doing so? During the Waldo Canyon Fires in Colorado Springs in the summer of 2012, a day did not pass without people pointing to the mountain range. It was next to impossible to avoid looking in the direction they were pointing, and not just because of the smoke coming from the mountains. We seem to have a commanding urge to do what others are doing, even if it means changing our normal behavior. This tendency to modify our behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and opinions to match those of others is known as conformity. Sometimes we conform to the norms or standards of the social environment, such as the group to which we are connected. Unlike compliance, which occurs in response to an explicit and direct request, conformity is generally unspoken. We often conform because we feel compelled to fit in and belong.

It is important to note that conformity is not always a bad thing. We rely on conformity in many cases to ensure the smooth running of day-to-day activities involving groups of people. Think of what a third-grade classroom would be like if it weren’t for the human urge to conform to what others are doing. Imagine checking out at Target if none of the customers adhered to common social rules.

STUDYING CONFORMITY Social psychologists have studied conformity in a variety of settings, including American colleges. In a classic experiment by Solomon Asch (1955), college-student participants were asked to sit at a table with six other people, all of whom were confederates working for the researcher. The participants were told to look at two cards; the first card had one vertical line on it, the standard line, and the second card had three vertical lines of different lengths, marked 1, 2, and 3 (Figure 14.3). The group seated at the table was instructed to look at the two cards and then announce, one at a time going around the table, which of the three lines was closest in length to the standard line, thus making a “visual judgment.” The first two rounds of this task went smoothly, with everybody in agreement about which of the three lines matched the standard. But then, in the third round, the first five people (all confederates) offered what was clearly the wrong answer, one after the other. (Prior to the experiment, the researchers had given them instructions about which line to choose in each trial.)

Would the real participant (the sixth person to answer) follow suit and conform to the wrong answer, or would he stand his ground and report the correct answer? In roughly 37% of these trials, participants went along with the group and provided the incorrect answer. What’s more, 76% of the participants conformed to the incorrect answers of the confederates at least once (Asch, 1955, 1956). When members of the control group made the same judgments alone in a room, they were correct 99% of the time, confirming that the differences between the standard line and the comparison lines were substantial, and generally not difficult to assess. It is worth noting that most participants (95%) refused to conform on at least one occasion, choosing an answer that conflicted with that of the group (Asch, 1956; Griggs, 2015). Thus, they were capable of thinking and behaving independently. This type of study was later replicated in a variety of cultures, with mostly similar results (Bond & Smith, 1996).

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WHY CONFORM? People do not always conform to the behavior of others, but what factors come into play when they do? There are three major reasons for conformity. Most of us want the approval of others, to be liked and accepted. This desire influences our behavior and is known as normative social influence. Just think back to middle school—do you remember feeling pressure to be like some of your classmates or friends? This might have been due to a normative social influence. A second reason we conform is to behave correctly; we look to others for confirmation when we are uncertain about something, and then do as they do. This is known as informational social influence. Perhaps you have a friend who is particularly well read in politics, or extremely knowledgeable about psychology. Your tendency is to defer to her expert knowledge. Third, we sometimes conform to others because they belong to a certain reference group we respect, admire, or long to join.

Listed below are certain conditions that increase the likelihood of conforming (Aronson, 2012; Asch, 1955):

And here are some conditions that decrease the likelihood of conforming:

When you conform, no one is specifically telling you to do so. But this is not the case with all types of social influence (Table 14.1). Let’s take a trip to the darker side and explore the frightening phenomenon of obedience.

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BOY SOLDIERS During Uganda’s 2-decade civil war, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is said to have kidnapped some 66,000 youths. Scholars have estimated that 20% of male victims did not make it home (Annan, Blattman, & Horton, 2006). Julius came dangerously close to losing his life during a village raid that he and other child soldiers were forced to conduct. His boss ordered him to shoot a man who refused to hand over a chicken, but Julius would not pull the trigger. Had the boss not come from Julius’ home village, the punishment probably would have been death. Instead, Julius received a caning that rendered him incapable of sitting for a week.

While a captive of the LRA, Julius witnessed other boy soldiers assaulting innocent people and stealing property. Sometimes at the end of the day, they would laugh or brag about how many people they had beaten or killed. But these were just “normal” boys from the villages, children who never would have behaved this way under regular circumstances. And some showed clear signs of regret. Julius remembers seeing other child soldiers cry alone at night after returning to the camp when there was time to reflect on what they had done.

How do you explain this tragedy? What drives an ordinary child to commit senseless violence? A psychologist might tell you it has something to do with obedience.

LO 7 Describe obedience and explain how Stanley Milgram studied it.

One of the most disconcerting results of social influence is obedience, which occurs when we change our behavior, or act in a way we might not normally act, because we have been ordered to do so by an authority figure. In these situations, an imbalance of power exists, and the person with more power (for example, a teacher, police officer, doctor, or boss) generally has an advantage over someone with less power, who is more likely to be obedient out of respect, fear, or concern. In some cases, the person in charge demands obedience for the well-being of those less powerful (a father demanding obedience from a child running wildly through a crowded store). Other times, the person wielding power demands obedience for his own benefit (an adult who perpetrates sexual abuses against innocent children).

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THIS WILL SHOCK YOU: MILGRAM’S STUDY Back in the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram was interested in determining the extent to which obedience can lead to behaviors that most people would consider unethical. Milgram (1963, 1974) conducted a series of experiments examining how far people would go, particularly in terms of punishing others, when urged to do so by an authority figure. Participants were told the study was about memory and learning (another example of research deception). The sample included teachers, salespeople, post office workers, engineers, and laborers, representing a wide range of educational backgrounds, from elementary school dropouts to people with graduate degrees.

Upon arriving at the Yale University laboratory, participants were informed they would be using punishment as part of a learning experiment. They were then asked to draw a slip of paper from a hat; the slip told them they had been randomly assigned the teacher role, although the truth was that a confederate always played the role of the learner (the hat contained two slips that both read “teacher”). To start, the teacher was asked to sit in the learner’s chair, so that he could experience a 45-volt shock, just to know what the learner might be feeling. Then the teacher sat at a table that held a control panel for the shock generator. The panel went from 15 volts to 450 volts, and as you can see in Infographic 14.2, this range of voltage was labeled from “slight shock” to “XXX.” The goal, the teacher was told, was for the learner to memorize a set of paired words. Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to administer a shock, and the shock was to increase by 15 volts for every mistake. The learner was located in a separate room, arms strapped to a table and electrodes attached to his wrists; the electrodes were reportedly attached to a shock generator.

The learner (the confederate) did not receive actual shocks, but instead had a script of responses he was to make as the experiment continued. The learner’s behaviors, including the mistakes he made and his responses to the increasing shock levels (including mild complaints, screaming, references to his heart condition, pleas for the experiment to stop, and total silence as if he were unconscious or even dead), were identical for all participants. A researcher in a white lab coat (also a confederate with scripted responses) always remained in the room with the teacher, and he was insistent that the experiment proceed if the teacher began to question going any further given the learner’s responses (such as “Experimenter, get me out of here. . . . I refuse to go on” or “I can’t stand the pain”; Milgram, 1965, p. 62). The researcher would say to the teacher, “Please continue” and “You have no other choice, you must go on” (Milgram, 1963, p. 374).

How many teachers do you think obeyed the researcher and proceeded with the experiment in spite of the learner’s desperate pleas? Before the experiment, Milgram asked a variety of people (including psychiatrists and students) to predict how many teachers would obey the researcher. Many believed that the participants would refuse to continue at some point in the experiment. Most of the psychiatrists, for example, predicted that only 0.125% of participants would continue to the highest voltage (Milgram, 1965). They also guessed that the majority of the participants would quit the experiment when the learner began his protests.

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Here’s what actually happened: 65% of participants continued to the highest voltage level. Most of these participants were obviously not comfortable with what they were doing (stuttering, sweating, trembling), yet they continued. Even those who eventually refused to proceed went much further than anyone (even Milgram himself) had predicted—they all used shocks up to at least 300 volts, labeled as “Intense Shock” (Milgram, 1963, 1964; Infographic 14.2).

We should emphasize that participants were not necessarily comfortable with their role as teachers. One person who witnessed the study reported the following:

I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse. . . . At one point he pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered: “Oh God, let’s stop it.” And yet he continued to respond to every word of the experimenter, and obeyed to the end (Milgram, 1963, p. 377).

REPLICATING MILGRAM This type of research has been replicated in the United States and in other countries, and the findings have remained fairly consistent, with 61–66% of participants continuing to the highest level of shock (Aronson, 2012; Blass, 1999). Not surprisingly, the criticisms of Milgram’s studies were strong. Many were concerned that this research went too far with its deception (it would certainly not receive approval from an Institutional Review Board today), and some wondered if the participants were harmed by knowing that they theoretically could have killed someone with their choices during the study. Milgram (1964) spent time with the participants following the study, and reported that 84% claimed they were “glad” they had participated, whereas only 1.3% reported they were “sorry” to have been involved. The participants were seen for psychiatric evaluations a year later, and reports indicate that none of them “show[ed] signs of having been harmed by his experiences” (Milgram, 1964, p. 850).

Milgram and others have followed up on the original study, to determine if there were specific factors or characteristics that made it more likely someone would be obedient in this type of scenario (Blass, 1991; Burger, 2009; Milgram, 1965). Several key factors determined whether participants were obedient in these studies: (1) the legitimacy of the authority figure (the more legitimate, the more obedience demonstrated by participants); (2) the closeness of the authority figure (the closer the experimenter was to participants, the higher their level of obedience); (3) the closeness of the learner (the closer the learner, the less obedient the participant); and (4) the presence of other teachers (if another confederate was acting as an obedient teacher, the participant was more likely to obey as well).

Milgram’s initial motivation for studying obedience came from learning about the horrific events of World War II and the Holocaust, which “could only have been carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of people obeyed orders” (Milgram, 1974, p. 1). And his experiments on obedience seem to support this suggestion. One ray of hope did shine through in his later experiments, and that was how participants responded when they saw others refuse to obey. In one follow-up experiment, two more confederates were included in the study as additional teachers. If these confederates showed signs of refusing to obey the authority figure, the research participant was far less likely to cooperate. In fact, Milgram (1974) reported that in this type of setting, only 10% of the research participants were willing to carry on with the learning experiment. What this suggests is that one person can make a difference, and when someone stands up for what is right, others will follow that lead.

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Question 1

1. how a person is affected by others

2. intentionally trying to make people change their attitudes

3. a person voluntarily changes behavior at the request of someone without authority

4. someone asks for a small request, followed by a larger request

5. the urge to modify behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs to match those of others

Question 2

1. Persuasion

2. Compliance

3. Conformity

4. Obedience

Question 3