Social Influence – Lesson Objectives

Introduction

ACTIVITY

Choose one of the Start-up Activities for the class:

Option 1: Groupthink Experiment

Have 4-7 volunteers go up to the class and hand them all one piece of paper. Tell each volunteer that they will all be receiving a task they must hide from the rest of the class. For the first 3-6 students, have the paper say “for the next question answer C”, then for the final student have an ambiguous task (e.g., “fold your arms when answering the next question”). Show the students the diagram below and ask each student to say which line in Figure 2 matches Figure 1. The first 6 students should say “C” due to their paper task, the final student will have to decide what to say and will most likely say “C”. Have all the students sit down and explain what the experiment was.

Option 2: Social Loafing Experiment

Have 4-6 student volunteers and split them into two groups with one designated leader. Have the group of students leave the classroom, explain to the students remaining in the class that the students are going to be doing two rounds of “tug of war”, one with the whole group and another with just the two team leaders. Tell the remaining students to observe the two team leaders in both cases and evaluate if the leaders put in more effort when pulling as a group versus alone. Have the students outside come back into the classroom and have them do the two rounds of tug of war. Have all the students sit down and explain what the experiment was.

Note: make sure there is space or have students go outdoors for this activity. Other similar activities that are less active can be: mini group ring toss, mini group Jenga, trivia question game.

Option 3: Skip Activity and go to Group Discussion

DISCUSSION

Have students write down or ponder their answers to the following, then discussion as a class:

Main Lesson

VIDEO – OPTIONAL

Play this quick Crash Course YouTube Video (10 minutes) about Social Influence

VOCABULARY

Go Over and Make Sure Students Understand the Following Terms:

Social Influence

“the process by which individuals adapt their opinion, revise their beliefs, or change their behavior as a result of social interactions with other people”

Normative Social Influence

“conformity to a group norms, expectations, or behaviors to fit in, gain approval, or avoid social rejection”

Informative Social Influence

“conformity to a group norm brought about by a desire to be correct”

Deindividuation

“an experiential state characterized by loss of self-awareness, altered perceptions, and a reduction of inner restraints that results in the performance of unusual and sometimes antisocial behavior.”

Social Facilitation

“a social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance”

Social Loafing

“the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually”

Groupthink

“a psychological phenomenon where the desire for harmony or conformity within a group results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making”

DEEP DIVE

Do a Deep Dive of these terms by having students learn about their history and how they relate to everyday life.

Some concept to look into:

Solomon Asch Line Experiment

Participants were placed in a group of fake participants (researchers) with the unambiguous group task of evaluating which line in Figure 1 matched Figure 2. Each fake participant outspokenly selected the wrong choice. The real participant, going last, often also selected the wrong choice to match the group’s response.

Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiment

Participants were told to give another fake participant (a researcher) electric shocks that consecutively increased in intensity for getting answers wrong. The fake participant would purposely get answers wrong. When the real participant hesitated to give the increased electric shock, an authority figure would tell them to continue. Two-thirds of participants listened to the authority figure and went to the maximum volt shock, despite their personal judgement.

Relating to Everyday Life

Explain how these terms relate to conformity, decision making, compliance, and obedience.

Explain why these social tendencies happen, how to tell if it’s happening, and what one can do with this new information.

Additional Items Related to Social Influence
  • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
    • agreeing to a large request after initially agreeing to a small request
  • Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon
    • agreeing to a new request after denying a larger previous request
  • Foot-in-the-Mouth Phenomenon
    • agreeing to a request after developing a type of relationship with the requester

BOOK CHAPTERS

For more in-depth information, read the following book chapters:

Wesley Schultz, P., Tabanico, J. J., & Rendón, T. (2011). Normative beliefs as agents of influence: Basic processes and real-world applications. In Attitudes and Attitude Change (pp. 385–410). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203838068

Mangal, S. K., & Mangal, S. (2023). Social influence. In Essentials of Social Psychology (1st ed., pp. 221–246). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003300823-13

Final Reflection

FINAL DISCUSSION

After learning about social influence, have students re-evaluate their discussion questions responses again, this can be done independently, as a group, or as a class.