Conformity and majority influence Flashcards
What is majority influence?
Assoc. w/ conformity = social influence from exposure to opinions of maj. or the maj. of the person’s group (Hewstone et al., 2015)
What is minority influence?
Assoc. w/ innovation = situation where indvdl or group in a min. can influence the maj. (Hewstone et al., 2015)
Who is Solomon Asch?
Asch experiments = studies on conformity
Work = influential on social psych. today but was building on Muzafer Sherif’s work on social norm formation + transmission
Much of what he has said has stood the test of time.
What are social norms?
Social norms = belief systems abt how (not) to behave, that
guide behaviour, w/out law enforcement + reflect group members’ shared expectations abt typical or desirable activities” (Hewstone et al. 2015)
What were Muzafer Sherif’s ideas (1936)?
Used autokinetic effect (ambiguous stimuli) + asked groups of US male Ps = determine how much the point of light had moved for four sessions.
The point of light never moved = when they are alone the results vary. When they are in groups, how much they say the light moved starts to converge. Shows how social norms emerges during an ambiguous reality.
Group to alone = people are internalising the social norm. At the end, they have similar results.
What happened in Asch’s series of experiments (1951,1955, 1956)
Ps = US male, undergrads, lied + told them it was a line study
Procedure = Ps are asked to match the reference line w/ what they have. 18 trials. Differing no. of confederates (7-9). They need to say out loud what they think P is second to last.
Confederates = first third of the trials (6), confederates will give correct responses. 12/18 = make errors, unanimous majority.
What were the results of Asch’s study (1951; 55; 56)?
37% of Ps responses = incorrect
75% of Ps = at least 1 error (compared to 0% when doing task alone)
5% of Ps = succumbed to the confederates all of the times
Based on the results of Asch’s study, is it conformity or independence?
Griggs (2015):
Switch the stats around:
63% of responses were correct
95% of Ps = correct responses at least once
25% of Ps = never yielded
65% of Ps = correct answers most/ all of the time
What is Asch’s interpretation of his results (1956)?
The visual reality people had = still had a lot of power on how they were bhving
What is the three factors that is the reason why we conform?
Group size
Unanimity
Culture
How does group size make us conform?
Asch (1955) = conformity increases up until a certain point (3-7) rate plateaus
Bond (2005) = meta analysis of all of these studies show, effects of the majority size on conformity relies on several factors = inconclusive findings
How does unanimity cause people to conform?
Asch (1955) = consensus, 2 true Ps, 1 true P + confed.
Results = dramatic drops when there is another person who says the right answer. Makes it easier for others to be different.
Another variation = confederates were unanimously wrong vs wrong in general. Regardless of accuracy = decreases conformacy.
How does cultures affect how we conform?
Asch = cross cultural but, conformity degrees vary
Collectivist cultures = greater conformity
Bond & Smith (1996) = 133 replications, inequality in there the replications are taking place. Individualistic vs collectivist
How did independent Ps not conform in 1956 study?
Asch = identified reasons for independence + yielding through post-experimental interviews
Independent Ps = confident (others are wrong) + tension and doubt (feeling discomfort + feeling incorrect but, obligation to respond truthfully
Why did yielding Ps conform in 1956 study?
Reasons:
1. Distortion of perception
2. Distortion of judgment
3. Distortion of action
Ps = fell into more than one group *contradictory motives)
