Conformity and Norms

Question 1

Pressure to conform - Ash’s Line test

Answer 1

match line on left with 3 lines on the right

• under ordinary circumstances, only 1% made mistakes
• under group pressure, subjects swung to acceptances of the misleading majority judgements in 36.8% of the selections
• results were completely unambiguous

“the tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people ate willing to call white-black” - Ash

Question 2

Normative conformity

Answer 2

relates to peer pressure

Question 3

Informative conformity

Answer 3

relates to conformity because you believe others have better information that you have, so follow their leads

not only are we influenced by the behaviour of others but we are more influenced by the behaviour of those that we see as being more like ourselves

Question 4

Ariely experiment

Answer 4

students asked to solve a list of problems in 2 scenarios

1. solve problems then get them marked
2. solve, shred answers then say how many they got right

degree of cheating of 5 problems in 2

• when someone publicly cheated, more people cheated when the person was from their uni

“when the cheater is part of our social group, we identify with that person and, as a consequence feel that cheating is more socially acceptable” - Ariely

Question 5

Social Norms (both from predictably irrational)

Answer 5

relate to our sense of community, being part of a group, feels warm and fuzzy

Question 6

Market norms

Answer 6

relate to business dealing, are not at arms length and money invariably changes hands

Question 7

Ariely and Heymans experiment

Answer 7

how we are prepared to get compensated can depend on the way in which a task is framed or presented to us

3 different groups:

1. Market norms with high payment
2. Market norms with lower payment
3. No payment, task framed as doing a favour in the interest of research (social norm)

task was to drag circles into a box

1. dragged 159
2. dragged 101
3. dragged 168

“there are many examples to show that people work more for a cause than for cash” - Ariely

Question 8

Ariely example of law association

Answer 8

law association in the US who asked its members if they would charge $30 an hour to help retirees

they said no

• majority then agreed when asked if they’d fo it for free
• when money mentioned, lawyers used market norms, when it was free they used social norms

Question 9

what happens when social and market norms collide

Answer 9

Gneezy and Rustichini studied a day care centre in Israel

• asked parents to pick up kids on time as it affected when staff could leave - a lot of lateness
• then imposed a fine on parents who were late, so that there was a monetary value on lateness

now the parents were effectively paying for their tardiness, so views their situation in terms of market norms so frequently chose to be late

then took away the fine but loads were still late

“social relationships are not easy to reestablish” - Ariely

• monetary incentives can change the intrinsic motivation of doing the right thing and replacing it with the intensive motivation of money

Question 10

Scared Straight program

Answer 10

looked to scare young offenders into changing by taking them to prison to scare them straight

• it didn’t work, and reoffending was 69% higher in those that participated
• social norm was created amongst those that attended the program that prison was acceptable

Question 11

Injunctive norms

Answer 11

communicate what is commonly approved or not in a culture

experiment by Shultz et al. in 2007:

Californian community households received feedback on

A. how much energy they had consumed
B. the average consumption of other households

the ones that consumed more produced a significant decrease in consumption

those who consumed less increased their consumption

Question 12

Descriptive norms

Answer 12

describe what norms are

• the use of descriptive norms to influence behaviour can have a negative or boomerang effect
  e. g universities trying to reduce alcohol consumption might put posters up saying “not everyone binge drinks”
• can serve as a point of comparison for behaviour
• students consuming less might decide to drink more
  e. g if a poster saying that immigrant officers are selling work visas, others might then consider the idea

Question 13

When adding an injunctive norm

Answer 13

for the consumers that consumed less than average they received a :), those with more received a :(

stopped the boomerang

• those with :( continued reduction and led to continued low consumption of those with :)