Chapter Seven: Conformity and Influencing Others Flashcards
TRUE OR FALSE: Conformity can only happen to humans
FALSE: An experiment showed rats who were given toxic food that made them sick later avoided it. However, if they were exposed to rats eating it they would eat it too.
The University of Manitoba asked students to rate how satisfied they felt with their intellectual abilities. Were participants influenced by other peoples responses when they saw them before responding themselves?
Yes. Specifically, if the other student provided a positive self -assessment, ppl also evaluated themselves positively while not realizing that they had been influenced by the other person’s response
The pizza bite experiment
participant went in thinking it was a different experiment which involved them watching cartoons. When they got there there was mini pizza bites for them to eat. They saw a number indicating that participants before them ate 18 pizza bites each. Participant was told to ignore this data as it was just to keep track of how much pizza to get for future experiments. The participant also ended up eating 18 pizza bites while watching the show.
Why does the influence of other people lead to us conforming?
because we see them as a source of information to guide our behaviour (informational social influence)
autokinetic effect experiment
day one: participant in dark room, told to look at dot of light and guess how far the light moves. asked numerous times, gave different answer each time when in reality the light doesn’t move at all because of the autokinetic effect (visual illusion where you think light moves because you have no stable reference point). This gave baseline for participants
Next day, they repeat the experiment except this time they did it with two other ppl at the same time and participants had to say their guesses out loud. Each member of the group conformed to a common estimate.
An important feature of informational influence is that it can lead to ____________ ____________
private acceptance
If a participant is told that the task they’re doing is important, are they more or less likely to conform to the group of other participants? What does this mean?
They are MORE likely to conform. This means that when faced with an important decision we are more likely to rely on other people for information and guidance.
What happens when you are unsure of the correct response or how to behave in a situation?
Research shows that the more uncertain you are the more you will rely on others.
If one is ambiguous about how to respond or behave and there is an expert involved, what will most likely happen?
They will follow what the expert says/does
One reason that the decision about whether to conform is so important is that it influences how people define ________.
reality
Newpaper clip about car being stolen experiment
participants read ambiguous article about a police chase involving a black man stealing a car. When asking each participant who was responsible in this situation, 75% said police and 25% said suspect. Later, group of participants were told they lost all of their answers in a computer crash and were asked to give their answers again. Results showed that ppl changed their answers to reflect the groups. Not only that, they also changed their interpretations of the situation as well, demonstrating that informational influence will not only affect one’s behaviour but also their interpretation of reality.
normative social influence results in public compliance of the group’s beliefs but not in ________ ___________.
private acceptance
“jeer pressure” study
participants observed someone ridiculing someone else or saw that person engaging in self ridicule
those who saw someone else be ridiculed later showed the greatest conformity to their peers
The belief is that one will conform as a way to avoid becoming the next target
The judgement task in Asch’s line study experiment
experiment involves a group of ppl in on the experiment and one participant. experimenter shows everyone two cards, one with a single line and the other with three lines marked one, two three. Asks each person to announce out loud which of the three lines on the second card is the same length as the line on the first card. Everyone says “line two”, and then it reaches the participant, who agrees.
They do this again and again, and then there is a time where everyone chooses a line that is not the same length, and when it reaches the participant, who 67% of the time conformed with the others and gave the wrong answer (conformed 1/3 of the time). This happened because normative pressures came into play
Experiment that explored the biological evidence for just how unpleasant and uncomfortable it is to resist normative social influence
participant put into fMRI. During task, participant was by themselves and completed one-third without the knowledge of the other ppl’s answers. Two-thirds of the time the participant saw the other ppl’s answers which were wrong half of the time.
Results showed that on their own, only the posterior brain areas responsible for vision and perception lit up. However, when the participant saw the other ppl’s responses, the amygdala (devoted to negative emotions) and right claudate nucleus (area devoted to modulating social behaviour) lit up. This demonstrates that ppl feel negative emotions when they stand up for their beliefs and go against the grain.
According to social impact theory, the likelihood that you will respond to social influence from other people depends on which three variables?
- Strength (how important is the group to you?)
- Immediacy (how close is the group to you in space and time during the influence attempt?)
- Number (how many people are in the group?)
Explain how the effects of group size depend on the kind of social influence that is operating when it comes to reaching a decision on something.
In situations where the group is clearly wrong, conformity will be motivated by normative influence; the participants will conform in order to be accepted by the group, and the more ppl who give the same incorrect response the more likely they will conform.
In contrast, in situations where the group is making a judgment that may be correct , participants will turn to the group as a source of information. Here, group sizes are less likely to matter. Once the first group member has their response, it adds very little information if two, three, or four group members also provide the same response.
