Conformity Flashcards
what is conformity?
change in one’s behaviour due to real or imagined influence of other people
why do people conform?
- did not know what to do in confusing or unusual situation
- did not wish to be ridiculed or punished for being different
- did not want to be rejected or thought less by group members
- gain acceptance from others due to fundamental need for social companionship
what is most powerful form of social influence?
obedience to order from authority figure
what is informational social influence?
- relying on other people as a source of information to guide our behaviour, believing that others’ interpretation of an ambiguous situation is correct
- usually leads to private acceptance
what increases informational influence?
ambiguous situations, crises, others are experts
how do ambiguous situations increase informational influence?
the more uncertain we are, the more we rely on others
how do crises increase informational influence?
do not have time to stop and think about which course of action to take
how do experts others increase informational influence?
the more expertise, the more valuable the person will be as a guide in an ambiguous situation (even if they might not be reliable source of information)
Sherif’s (1936) auto-kinetic studies
- ambiguous situation
- people converged on common estimate and tended to conform to that estimate
- even when asked to answer on their own, participants continued to give the answer the group had given earlier → suggests private acceptance
how to produce private acceptance for energy conservation?
by using informational social influence
- Jessica Nolan et al. (2008) study:
- message containing information about the behavior of one’s neighbours, caused people to conserve more energy than did the other three messages
- Goldstein et al. (2008) study:
- informational sign in the bathroom stating that the majority of guests in this very room had reused their towels → increased hotel guests’ compliance with reusing their hotel
what is private acceptance?
conforming to other people’s behaviour out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right, to avoid standing out from the crowd or looking foolish
what is public compliance?
conforming to other people’s behaviour publicly without necessarily believing in what the other people are doing or saying
how does importance of being accurate affect informational social influence?
- high-importance conditions → more susceptible to informational social influence
what is the risk of informational social influence and how to overcome it?
- risk of mistakenly recalling information due to other people
- overcome by interviewing each eyewitness individually and allowing them to view lineup individually as well
when does informational conformity backfire?
during crises, when individual is confronted with frightening, potentially dangerous situations to which he/she is ill-equipped to respond → need for information is acute → behaviour of others is very informative
what are social norms?
implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviours, values, and beliefs of its members
what is normative social influence?
going along with what other people do to be liked and accepted by them, which leads to public conformity with the group’s beliefs and behaviours but not always private acceptance of them
asch-line judgment studies
- unambiguous situation
- 76% of the participants conformed and gave an obviously incorrect response on at least one trial
- participants demonstrated public conformity without private acceptance
- writing down version: conformity dropped dramatically
Gregory Berns and colleagues neural evidence
- answering alone & conforming to group’s answer → increased activity in the posterior brain areas dedicated to vision and perception
- not conforming to group’s answer
→ visual/perceptual areas of the brain not activated
→ amygdala activated, people feel arousing emotions, such as discomfort and tension
what are the consequences of resisting normative social influence?
- groups will try to get you to conform to their expectations
- say negative things to you and you start to withdraw from group
two things that influence normative social influence?
- social impact theory
- minority influence
what is social impact theory?
idea that conforming to social influence depends on the group’s importance, immediacy, and the number of people in the group
- conformity is more prevalent in collectivist cultures
how does group’s importance affect social influence?
the more important a group is to us, more likely to conform
what are idiosyncrasy credits?
the tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms; if enough credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, deviate from the group without retribution
how does immediacy affect social influence?
the closer group members are to us physically, more likely to conform
how does number of people in the group affect social influence?
- as the size of the group increases, the normative pressure it exerts increases, but each additional person has less of
an influencing effect - the larger the group the stronger the social pressure
what is minority influence?
case where a minority of group members influences the behaviour or beliefs of the majority
how does minority influence work?
- key is consistency — people with minority views must express the same view over time, and different members of the minority must agree with one another
- minorities typically influence via informational social influence
what are injunctive norms?
people’s perceptions of what behaviours are approved or disapproved by others
how do injunctive norms work?
- motivate behaviour by promising rewards (or punishments) for normative (or non-normative) behavior
- have to do with what people believe they should do in a given situation
when do injunctive norms work?
- when aim is to produce desirable behavior (more powerful than descriptive norms)
- particularly effective when the norm is salient
- particularly good predictors of behavior when the sense of approval/disapproval in question comes from close others (e.g., family and close friends) versus more distant sources (e.g., “the average person”)
what are descriptive norms?
people’s perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behaviour is approved or disapproved by others
how do descriptive norms work?
- motivate behavior by informing people about what is effective or adaptive behavior
- have to do with what people actually do in a given situation
Cialdini and colleagues littering study
- descriptive norm is made salient, littering decreases significantly only in the clean environment (middle)
- injunctive norm is made salient, littering decreases significantly in both types of environment
boomerang effect
must consider who?
must consider two groups: those performing undesirable behaviour at above-average level and those performing undesirable behaviour at below-average level
how does using descriptive norm affect boomerang effect?
those performing undesirable behaviour at below-average level actually increased their undesirable behaviour
how does using descriptive and injunctive norm affect boomerang effect?
prevents boomerang effect, those performing undesirable behaviour at below-average level maintained same level of energy use as they were reminded that they were doing the right thing
what is foot-in-the-door?
social influence strategy in which getting people to agree first to a small request makes them more likely to agree later to a second, larger request
what is door-in-the-face?
social influence strategy in which first asking people for a large request that they will probably refuse makes them more likely to agree later to a second, smaller request
what is propaganda?
deliberate, systematic attempt to advance a cause of manipulating mass attitudes and behaviours, often through misleading or emotionally charged information
what is obedience?
change in one’s behaviour due to the direct influence of an authority figure
what are the results of milgram’s study?
why did people obey?
- most of Milgram’s participants succumbed to the pressure of the authority figure
- people obeyed due to normative and informational social influence, adhering to the wrong norm, self-justification, and loss of personal responsibility
what was the role of normative social influence in Milgram’s study?
normative pressures made it difficult for people in Milgram’s studies to refuse to continue (participants scared that experimenter would be disappointed or angry); people did not conform nearly as much when one accomplice bucked the majority
what was the role of informational social influence in Milgram’s study?
- When people are in confusing circumstances, they use other people to help define the situation; It’s natural for participants to use an “expert”, the experimenter, to help them decide the right thing to do
- When a person with no expertise gave a suggestion or when researchers began to disagree, people were much less likely to use them as a source of information
why did participants in Milgram’s study adhere to the wrong norm?
- particularly difficult for people to abandon the initial norms in the Milgram study because the study was fast paced, preventing the participants from stopping to reflect on what they were doing
- participants were busy recording learner’s response
why did participants in Milgram’s study engage in self-justification?
- participants increased voltage in small increments
- every time a person makes an important or difficult decision, dissonance is produced, along with resulting pressures to reduce it.
- reducing cognitive dissonance justifies the preceding action, it can make a person vulnerable to further escalating a now-justified activity
- as participants administered each level of shock, they had to justify it → justifying one level of shock laid the groundwork for the next level of shock
how did loss of personal responsibility affect Milgram’s study?
participants offloaded personal responsibility to someone else; just implementing orders
why was Milgram’s research unethical?
- deception
- not fully informed consent
- psychological distress
- right to withdraw not made clear
- inflicted insight
what changes were made in Burger’s study?
- reduced psychological distress by stopping the study after 150 volts
- prescreened participants to avoid those who might have a
negative reaction to the experiment - explicitly and repeatedly told his participants that they could leave the study at any time
what were the results of Burger’s study?
no significant difference in obedience rates between his participants and Milgram’s
