Social Psychology Chapter 9 social influence and persuasion

Presented by:La Torre, Krystle Mae

Ledesma, Liza

behavioral conformity by the target to the source’s requests or demands.

A threat is a communication from one person(the source) to another (the target) that takes

the general form, “If you don’t do X [which I want], then I will do Y [which you don’t want]”

Ex. An employer might say to her employee, “Ifyou don’t complete this project before thedeadline, I’ll withhold your bonus.” If theemployee needs her bonus to pay medicalbills and has no other job prospects, she willtake the threat seriously and do her best tocomply with the demand.

It involves contingent rewards, not punishments. A person using a promise says, “If you do X [which I want], then I will do Y [which you want].”

Ex. Richard Sorenson promises a payment of $20 if his son take good care of his younger sister while he’s not around.

1. Promise of Reward. One way of inducing compliance is to promise to provide a reward if the target performs the desired behavior.

Ex. The father might tell his daughter, “If you spend two hours a day studying for the next two weeks, I will buy you a brand new car.”

2. Coercion Through Threat. In contrast to the reward strategy, It might use the threat of a negative outcome to induce compliance.

Ex. “If you don’t do better on your exams next time, you will not go on Boracay trip you are planning.”

3. Referent Power. uses our desire to be accepted by members of valued social groups. When we seek acceptance, we maybe more likely to comply with the demands of the group or we may try to become more similar to the group by imitating the behavior of its members

Ex. The father could identify people whom his daughter admires and then point out how studious those people are: “Your older sister spends at least two hours a day studying.”

4. Legitimate Power. The social positions people occupy often supply them with power over other individuals, and this hierarchical arrangement is often accepted by both the higher-power and lower-power persons involved.

Ex. “I’m the parent, and one of my jobs as a parent is to make sure you study. So get to work!”

5. Information. Sometimes, we can actually change people’s attitudes about the behavior we want them to exhibit, and the behavior change will then follow in order to produce consistency with the attitude. One way of doing this is to provide information about the effects of the behavior.

Ex. “The grades you have now are not going to be high enough for you to get into medicine school. The average grades of entering students at New Era College of Medicine last year were in the 2.0 above. You currently only have a 2.5 average.”

6. Expertise. We assume that because the person is an expert, she knows what she is talking about and, thus, we will comply with her request.

Ex. When a doctor prescribes drugs, we usually take them even if we don’t know exactly how they work because we can rely on the expertise of the doctor.

In promises, the greater the magnitude of the reward offered by a source, the greater the probability of compliance by the target.

Ex. A factory supervisor might obtain compliance from a worker by offering a large incentive: “If you are willing to work the late shift next month, I’ll approve your request for four extra days of vacation in September.”

However, if his supervisor offered only a trivial incentive: “If you work the late shift next month, I’ll give you additional stipends.”

Authority refers to the capacity of one member to issue orders to others—that is, to direct or regulate the behavior of other members by invoking rights that are vested in his or her role.

A source can exercise authority only when, by virtue of the role that he or she occupies in a social group, others accept his or her right to prescribe behavior regarding the issue at hand

Inoculation. Enable target persons to defend their beliefs against persuasion attempts.

Forewarning. warning people that they are about to be exposed to a persuasion attempt. If we are warned that our attitudes will be coming under attack, we begin to develop our own counterarguments.

Reactance. it occurs when the target of the persuasion attempt begins to feel that their independence and freedom are being threatened. Feeling the need to reassert control, the targets will behave in a way counter to the persuasion attempt in order to demonstrate their independence.