Chapter 6—Conformity Flashcards
What is conformity?
Changing one’s behaviour or belief as a result of group pressure.
What are the two forms of conformity?
Compliance (public conformity): outwardly going along with the group as a result of social pressure while inwardly disagreeing
Acceptance (private conformity): believing as well as acting in accord with the social pressure
What is obediance?
A subset of compliance; complying with a direct command
What predicts conformity?
- Group cohesion (+)
- Belief is not unanimous (-)
- Higher the status of person modelling belief, higher the conformity
- If they are in public (+)
Why do people conform?
Normative Influence: We want to be liked, so we conform based on the desire to gain acceptance
Informational Influence: We want to be right, so we conform by accepting other people’s takes (evidenced takes) as correct
Who conforms—role of gender and culture
Culture and gender socialize people to be more or less socially responsive; social roles involve a degree of conformity, and meeting expectations is important when in a social roles.
When do people experience reactance to conformity?
Reactance: A motive to protect or restore our sense of freedom. Arises when someone threatens that freedom of action.
We experience reactance when social coercion becomes blatantly obvious.
Describe the autokinetic phenomenon
When a stationary point of light appears to move in the dark.
In the context of experimentation, what is a confederate?
An accomplice to the experimenter who is “in on it”
Describe the Sherif Studies in Conformity
Step 1: Individuals were asked how far a stationary light moved.
Step 2: The next day, they did this task in groups. They had participants call their answers out in front of the others
Found that participants answers converged over trials; answers slowly came closer together
One year later, the estimates of distance reflected the group consensus from a year prior
Informational influence: they want to be right. But since they don’t know the exact answer, participants synthesized the group information over time
An example of ACCEPTANCE (private conformity)
Describe the Asch studies of conformity
Asch Line Study: tested if ppl will conform to confederates’ takes on the lengths of lines.
- Normative influence: they hear what others are saying, so they wanna fit in and be accepted even tho they know the right answer
An example of COMPLIANCE (public conformity)
What influences whether people conform?
When there is group unanimity (+)
Group size of 4 or higher being unanimous (+)
Expertise and status (+)
Culture (collectivists+, individualists-)
Anonymity (-)
Describe the Romeo and Juliet effect
Positive correlation between parental interference and degree of romantic love in young couples
“Forbidden love is stronger”
Injunctive norms vs Descriptive norms
Injunctive norms are what you think people ought to do in a situation
Descriptive norms are what you think people actually do
