Chapter 7: Conformity Flashcards
What is animal magnetism?
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was the name given by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century to what he believed to be an invisible natural force possessed by all living things, including humans, animals, and vegetables. He believed that the force could have physical effects, including healing, and he tried persistently but without success to achieve scientific recognition of his ideas.
What are social norms?
Rules or guidelines in a group or culture about what behaviours are proper and improper
What are the kinds of social norms?
implicit and explicit
What is explicit social norm?
Explicit norms are written or spoken openly.
What is implicit social norm?
Implicit norms are the “unwritten,” and generally understood and agreed upon, rules that play a significant role in the lives of group members. These rules are informal and not official rules but most people adhere to them naturally.
- Standing for national anthem
- Leave a tip for waiters
- Dress like everyone else
- Wait our turn in lines
Explain mass psychogenic illness
a profound, almost contagious form of social influence (Jones et al., 2000; Wang, 2006).
o Ex: Tennessee high school –> It started when a teacher noticed a gas-like smell in her classroom and then came down with a headache, nausea, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Word spread. Others soon reported the same symptoms and the school was evacuated. Eighty students and several staff members were taken to a local emergency room. Nothing showed up in blood tests, urine tests, or other medical procedures, nor were gases, pesticides, or other toxins detected.
o Ex: TV producers insert canned laughter into sitcoms to increase viewer responsiveness.
What is social influence?
The term social influence refers to the ways that people are affected by the real and imagined pressures of others
(Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Kiesler & Kiesler, 1969).
Social influences vary in the degree of pressure they bring to bear on an individual. People may:
- conform to group norms or maintain their independence
- comply with requests or be assertive
- obey or defy the commands of authority
What is the chameleon effect?
Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh (1999) set up participants to work on a task with a partner, a confederate who exhibited the habit of rubbing his face or shaking his foot. Hidden cameras recording the interaction revealed that without realizing it, participants mimicked these motor behaviors, rubbing their face or shaking a foot to match their partner’s behavior. Chartrand and Bargh dubbed this phenomenon the “chameleon effect,” after the lizard that changes
colors according to its physical environment.
What is mood contagion?
Even though the speakers and participants never interacted, the speaker’s emotional state was infectious, an automatic effect that can be described as a form of “mood contagion.”
What is conformity?
People changing their perceptions, opinions, and behavior to be consistent with group norm
How did Muzafer Sherif experiment conformity? Explain his experiment.
Male students, who believed they were participating in a
visual perception experiment, sat in a totally darkened
room. Fifteen feet in front of them, a small dot of light
appeared for two seconds, after which participants were asked to estimate how far it had moved. This procedure was repeated several times. Although participants didn’t realize it, the dot of light always remained motionless. The movement they thought they saw was merely an optical illusion known as the autokinetic effect: In darkness, a stationary point of light appears to move, sometimes erratically, in various directions. At first, participants sat alone and reported their judgments to the experimenter. After several trials, Sherif found that they settled in on their own stable perceptions of movement, with most estimates ranging from one to ten inches (although one participant gave an estimate of 80 feet!). Over the next three days, people returned to participate openly in three-person groups. As before, lights were flashed and the participants, one by one, announced
their estimates. Initial estimates varied considerably, but participants later converged on a common perception. Eventually, each group established its own set of norms.
How did Solomon Asch (1951) experiment conformity? Explain his experiment.
The line length experiment. Comparing the length of the line and going around the table to hear people’s opinion. A person who is first in answering (confederate) picks the wrong line and somehow everyone agrees on the answer. The other “participants” were actually confederates and had been trained to make incorrect judgments on 12 out of 18 presentations. There seems little doubt that the real participants knew the correct answers. Conformed to the majority about a third of the time.
Muzafer Sherif vs Solomon Asch experiments on conformity
In Sherif’s research, participants were quite literally “in the dark,” so they naturally turned to others for guidance.
When physical reality is ambiguous and we are uncertain of our own judgments, as in the autokinetic situation, others can serve as a valuable source of information (Festinger, 1954).
Asch’s participants found themselves in a much more awkward position. Their task was relatively simple, and they could see with their own eyes which answers were correct. Still, they often followed the incorrect majority. In
interviews, many of Asch’s participants reported afterward that they went along with the group even though they were not convinced that the group was right. Many who did not conform said they felt “conspicuous” and “crazy,” like a “mis- fit”
The Sherif and Asch studies demonstrate that people conform for two very different reasons:
- Informational influence
2. Normative influence
What is informational influence on conformity?
People conform because they want to be correct, and when everyone else agrees, it is likely they are correct
- More likely to conform when uncertain or ambiguous
- Eye-witness testimony
- Sherif’s autokinetic effect
What is normative influence on conformity?
- People conform because they fear the consequences of appearing deviant (and thus excluded from a group or ridiculed)
- Conforming when wanting to be liked
What are the types of conformity that two sources of influence (informational and normative) produce?
private and public
What is private conformity?
- True acceptance or conversion
- Being truly persuaded others are correct
also called true acceptance or conversion, describes instances in which others cause us to change not only our overt behavior but our minds as well. To conform at this level is to be truly persuaded that others in a group are correct.
What is public conformity?
Superficial change in behavior
• E.g., politicians telling people what they want to hear
• Recent case of very pro-life politician encouraging his mistress to get an abortion (US Tim Murphy)
refers to a more superficial change in behavior. People often respond to normative pressures by pretending to agree even when privately they do not. This often happens when we want to curry favor with others.
How does group size effect conformity?
Asch (1956) varied the size of groups, using one, two, three, four, eight, or fifteen confederates, and he found
that conformity increased with group size—but only up to a point. Once there were three or four confederates, the amount of additional influence exerted by the rest was negligible. Other researchers have obtained similar results (Gerard et al., 1968).
How do norms effect conformity?
More likely to litter in littered area (Cialdini et al, 1991)
What is pluralistic ignorance?
Pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it
What are the gender differences in conformity?
- Asch: Women conform more than men
- Modern studies: The topic (and thus expertise) matters
- When issue is football, war video games, women conform
- When issue is fashion design, birth control, men conform (Eagly & Carli, 1981)
What is the minority slowness effect?
regardless of the topic, respondents who held minority opinions were slower to answer the questions than those in the majority
What is the minority influence on conformity?
Minority influence is the process by which dissenters produce change within a group.
In Asch’s line experiments, just one other person disagreeing reduced conformity by 80%
