Chapter 7 - Conformity (PP + book)

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

-A change in behaviour due to the real/imagined influence of others.

Question 2

What are the two main reasons for conforming? (2)

Answer 2

-Informational Social Influence
-Normative Social Influence

Question 3

What is an informational social influence?

Answer 3

-Conforming because we believe that others’ interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than our own.

Question 4

What can informational social influence bring about? (2)

Answer 4

-private acceptance
-public compliance

Question 5

What is private acceptance?

Answer 5

-Conforming to other people’s behaviour out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right.

Question 6

What is public acceptance?

Answer 6

-Conforming to other people’s behaviour publicly, without necessarily believing in what they are doing, or saying.
Example: the elevator experiment where they faced the wrong direction

Question 7

If it is important to be accurate at a task, what is more likely to happen?

Answer 7

-informational social influence is more important

Question 8

What are situations where people tend to conform the most to informational social influence? (3)

Answer 8

-Ambiguous or confusing situations.
-Crisis situations.
-When other people are experts.

Question 9

Why is the decision about whether to conform so important?

Answer 9

-it influences our reality

Question 10

What is normative social influence?

Answer 10

-conforming to be liked and accepted by others

Question 11

Does normative social influence occur in public compliance and private acceptance?

Answer 11

-yes in public compliance but not necessarily private acceptance

Question 12

What are social norms?

Answer 12

-implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviours, values and beliefs of its members

Question 13

Engaging in co-deviancy behaviours with best friends at age 15 predicted what drug use increase for both boys and girls?

Answer 13

-marijuana (but not alcohol)

Question 14

What is jeer pressure?

Answer 14

-when you either observe someone else being ridiculed or ridiculing themselves
-those who observed someone else ridiculing another person were much more likely to conform

Question 15

What did Sherif study?

Answer 15

-the light moving study where people conformed based on what others said, even though the light was never moving

Question 16

What is Asch’s experiment?

Answer 16

-where they were asked which line matched the length of a particular line and a bunch of people would say the wrong line and the participant would also say the wrong line if it was more than 3 other people doing it

Question 17

What percent of participants conformed in Asch’s study and gave an obvious incorrect answer on at least one trial?

Answer 17

-76%

Question 18

Will we conform even to complete strangers we will never see again?

Answer 18

-yes

Question 19

What did Berns et al., do when they looked at conformity and brain imaging?

Answer 19

-used fMRI during essentially the Asch trial and found that people’s amygdala and caudate nucleus became active when they dissented (showing people felt negative emotions)

Question 20

What does the social impact theory predict about when will people conform to normative pressure?

Answer 20

-the likelihood depends on group strength, immediacy and number (3 or more)

Question 21

What is strength for conformity?

Answer 21

-how important the group is to you

Question 22

What is immediacy for conformity?

Answer 22

-how close the group is to you in space and time during the influence attempt.

Question 23

What is number in conformity?

Answer 23

-how many people are in the group.

Question 24

Research shows that the more important a group is to us and the more we are in its presence the more likely we are to what?

Answer 24

-conform to its normative pressures

Question 25

When is the size of a group more likely to affect conformity?

Answer 25

-under normative influence

Question 26

When something is unanimous, does this make us more likely to conform? What % conformity in Asch’s experiment? (2)

Answer 26

-yes,
-however just one dissenter will decrease conformity on Asch’s trial on average only 6%

Question 27

Do women or men conform to influence easier?

Answer 27

-women do, though the differences are very small and depend on the type

Question 28

When do women tend to conform more to normative pressure?

Answer 28

-when they are in a group situation and observed by others

Question 29

When Japanese students did the Asch line test with strangers what did some studies find?

Answer 29

-Japanese people conformed even less, because they didn’t care about strangers

Question 30

The greater the prevalence of pathogens in a country the higher degree of what in that country?

Answer 30

-conformity

Question 31

How can someone resist normative influence?

Answer 31

-be aware that it is happening, find someone else who agrees with you and know that if you’ve conformed most of the time in the past that dissenting won’t matter as much

Question 32

What does boomerang mean in terms of normative influence?

Answer 32

-lets say you’re trying to get people to drink less and so share statistics on how often university students drink. People who drink less than this may boomerang and begin to drink more

Question 33

When does minority influence occur? What helps this? (2)

Answer 33

-when a minority of group members influence the behaviours over the majority
-helps if they present their views consistently, they present them strongly

Question 34

Would minority influence be through informational or social influence and through public or private? (2)

Answer 34

-informational social influences
-private acceptance

Question 35

Define compliance

Answer 35

-a change in behaviour in response to a direct request

Question 36

What is foot-in-the-door? Example. (2)

Answer 36

-get people to agree to something small so they will agree to something larger later
-someone asks if you will put a campaign sign in your lawn and then come back later and ask for donations

Question 37

What is door-in-the-face? Example. (2)

Answer 37

-ask for something very big knowing you will get turned down, but then ask for the smaller item you really wanted
-hey mom, can I borrow $100? Okay can I borrow $10?

Question 38

What happens during the foot in the door that allows it to work?

Answer 38

-we develop a change in self perception that we are those who help others for example

Question 39

What are reciprocity norms when it comes to door in the face?

Answer 39

-people feel obligated to return something after they have rejected another thing

Question 40

What is lowballing? Why does it work? (2)

Answer 40

-getting a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low price and then raise the price
-often the customer will still purchase it because it seems irrevocable, they don’t want to disappoint, and the new price is only slightly higher

Question 41

What are they calling reverse psychology?

Answer 41

-strategic self-anticonformity

Question 42

What are two reasons to use strategic self-anticonformity?

Answer 42

-to elicit compliance from someone else or to get reassuring messages

Question 43

Define obedience

Answer 43

-conformity in response to the commands of an authority figure

Question 44

What percentage of participants fully obeyed the Milgram experiment and did the entire voltage?

Answer 44

-62.5%

Question 45

What influence made it hard for people to refuse continuing the Milgram study?

Answer 45

-normative social influence

Question 46

Describe how self justification worked in the Millburn experiment.

Answer 46

-once the participant gave the first shock which was minimal and they justified it because of it minimalness it became difficult to say when to stop, especially because they were increasing in small increments

Question 47

Did being made aware of the power of authority make a difference for people?

Answer 47

-yes, when they are more aware of it they are more likely to dissent