Conformity and Resistance

Question 1

What is conformity and resistance relevant to?

Answer 1

relevant to social change campaigns, teams & working groups and trend forecasting

Question 2

what is the definition of conformity?

Answer 2

aligning one’s behaviour or expressed attitudes and beliefs with social norms or others’ behaviour. Conformity does not require internalisation.

Question 3

what is the definition of norms?

Answer 3

implicit or explicit rules or principles that guide or constrain behaviour. Norms are understood by members of a group and applied without the force of laws.

Question 4

What is the early explanation of conformity?

Answer 4

Sherif claims we use norms to explain ambiguity and others provide information for us about the world

Question 5

What is the autokinetic effect?

Answer 5

• illusion in which a point of light in a dark room appear to be moving
• participants how much the light was moving
• when alone, individuals come up with their own distinct estimates -> all measurements differed distinctly
• when responding in groups, they converged on common estimates -> conformity also infers overtime using each other for information and becoming a group norm
• norms help resolve uncertainty -> we use other people to disambiguate the world

Question 6

Asch ->
Participants were asked to say out loud which of the three lines on the right are the same lengths as the one on the left
* answer is obviously C and there’s no ambiguity

What dod they find when participants were alone?

Answer 6

correct 99% of the time

Question 7

What happened when there was a group of confederates who provided wrong answers?

Answer 7

Average conformity rate -> 33%
* people gave the wrong answer 33% of the time

Question 8

What percentage of participants answered correctly consistently?

Answer 8

25%
* which means 3/4s moved towards the group norm

Question 9

What percentage of participants conformed on 6 more critical trials (out of 12)

Answer 9

50%
* more going on, than just ambiguity the information

Question 10

What was the percentage when participants recorded their responses privately?

Answer 10

12.5%

Question 11

Which situation made the norm more powerful?

Answer 11

Answering in Public

Question 12

When the confederate was in the minority, what did the participant do?

Answer 12

ridicule the confederate

Question 13

What is Asch’s experiment a representation of?

Answer 13

Normative Influence

Question 14

What are three main influences to why we conform?

Answer 14

• Informational Influence
• Normative Influence
• Referent Informational Influence

Question 15

Informational Influence

Answer 15

one accepts information from another as evidence about reality (to disambiguate the situation).
e.g., “They must know something I don’t know.”

Question 16

Normative Influence

Answer 16

one conforms to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval/ostracism.
e.g., “Going along with the crowd.”

Question 17

Referent Informational Influence

Answer 17

one conforms to the norm of a group when one’s membership in that group is important or salient (identify with group to you answer with the group).
e.g., “That’s what people like me do.”

Question 18

What is Illusory Norms?

Answer 18

when we think there’s a norm but it actually isn’t out there as a norm
* our perception of norms is not always accurate but our behaviour may nevertheless be shaped by those perceived norms

Question 19

What is Pluralistic Ignorance?

Answer 19

Conforming to what one mistakenly believes is the majority view, despite not personally endorsing it (Katz et al, 1931 -> shift behaviours from own preferences to the imaginary norm and start reinforcing a norm you don’t even believe in).

Question 20

False Consensus Effect (Ross et al, 1977): When one overestimates the degree to which attitudes or beliefs are shared by others.
* Task: Participants were asked to wear a sandwich board around campus.
* “What we’d like you to do today is to put on one of these sandwich boards and walk around the campus for about 30 minutes.”
* Measure 1: Will you wear the sandwich board?
* Measure 2: What percentage of your peers do you estimate would agree to wear the sandwich board?

They found that:

Answer 20

• 50/50 split on whether they’d wear the sandwich board
• Willing to wear the sign, overestimated the amount others would be willing to wear the sign
• Not willing to wear sign, overestimate the amount of others who would not be willing to wear the sign
  ^ believe we share the view of every other person

Question 21

A recent study examined pluralistic ignorance in the context of intergroup interactions.
* Participants: Black and White students at an Stanford American University. Initial studies demonstrated that both groups wanted more intergroup friendships.
* Scenario: “You enter the dining hall for dinner. You are alone because your close friends are in a review session. As you look around the dining hall for a place to sit, you notice several White [Black] students who live near you sitting together. These students also notice you. However, neither of you explicitly makes a move to sit together.”

Measures:
* Did this happen because you/they were not interested in sitting together?
* Did this happen because you/they were afraid of rejection?

What did they find when other students in the story were white?

Answer 21

• among white participants -> don’t think it was a fear of rejection, they just had a lack of interest with sitting with them and vice versa
• among black participants -> didn’t join because they feared rejection and there was a lack of interest from the white students at the table

Question 22

What was the opinion when the other students were black?

Answer 22

• white participants -> had a fear of rejection and black students probably weren’t interested in them sitting there
• black participants said it wasn’t rejection, but they weren’t interested in sitting with each other

Question 23

What does the Pluralistic Ignorance experiment draw as a conclusion?

Answer 23

false norm shapes our behaviour and perpetuate lack of intergroup behaviours

Question 24

The costs of non-conformity are _ and _

Answer 24

emotional and social

Question 25

what are the emotional costs of non-conformity?

Answer 25

guilt, shame, embarrassment, humiliation

Question 26

what are the social costs of non-conformity?

Answer 26

isolation, ostracism, perceived as disruptive

Question 27

What is the black sheep effect?

Answer 27

the costs of nonconformity can be particularly harsh for in-group deviants

Question 28

people judge alcoholics from their _ more harshly (Cranmer & Cranmer, 2013)

Answer 28

in-group

Question 29

Children protest _ _ to norm violations by an ingroup member (Schmidt et al, 2012).

Answer 29

more strongly

Question 30

How do cultures differ in their sanctioning of norm violations (Gelfand et al., 2011)?

Answer 30

• Tight cultures have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behaviour.
• Loose cultures have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behaviour.

Question 31

beersma & Van Kleef (2011) looked at policing non-conformity such as gossip.

Participants played a ‘dictator game’. They could donate lottery tickets to the group or keep them. The manipulations were:
* The degree to which behaviour in the game would be identifiable -> other people know your choices.
* Gossipy-ness: Participants received a ‘‘general communication profile -> description of group members,’’ which presented the mean scores of their three group members on four dimensions:
* Proficiency with computers
* Preference for communication through the computer
* Tendency to talk about others
* Tendency to gossip

What did they find about Gossip?

Answer 31

• generally evaluated negatively BUT serves as a social function -> does give more to the community in some circumstances
• provides a moderating effect on pro-group behaviours
• when the group wasn’t gossipy, doesn’t matter if behaviour was traceable or not
• when group was gossipy, they were more likely to behave in line with the norm and give the group lottery tickets because their behaviour was traceable -> want to avoid potential gossip about them
• gossip provides a mechanism where non-conformity is punished

Question 32

what elicits moral outrage?

Answer 32

violations of moral norms

Question 33

reports of moral norm violations spread _

Answer 33

quickly

Question 34

what has emerged as a powerful force in spreading moral / immoral outrage

Answer 34

social media

Question 35

(Hoffman) One study measured outage is response to moral normal violations across different media:
* experience sampling (5x per day, 3 days)
* Analysed instances in which participants learned of moral / immoral acts
* compares sources and amount of outrage (anger and disgust)

What did they find?

Answer 35

• participants were more likely to learn about immoral acts compared to moral acts -> supercharge information through social network
• were more likely to learn about it online than in person or print
• participants expressed the most moral outrage (anger and disgust) when they learned of the norm violation online, than in person or via traditional media

Question 36

(Brady et al, 2017) Recent events highlight the need to understand how norms, attitudes, and beliefs are transmitted across social networks i.e. twitter (questions i.e. what types of messages spread and to whom)

Predictor:
* the number of moral-emotional words (i.e. ‘hate’) in a tweet about a controversial topic.
* valence of words.
* group membership: conservative/liberal based on algorithm examining follower network.

Dependent variable: retweet count

What did they find?

Answer 36

• more moral-emotional words used (e.g. blame, fight, hate, shame), the more they were retweeted -> main effect of retweeting
• depending on the issue, valence of tweets and group memberships moderated the effect -> more negative words, the more the tweet was retweeted
• the more moral-emotion the tweet was, the more they were tweeting it to their in-group

Question 37

what is the role of moral emotions

Answer 37

moral emotions are emotion response to either norm violations or norm compliance of a moral norm -> it’s the sweet spot between words that were also moral and emotional

Question 38

‘duty’ is a _ word

Answer 38

moral

Question 39

‘fear’ is a _ word

Answer 39

fear

Question 40

‘hate’ is a _ word

Answer 40

moral-emotions

Question 41

Follow up research suggests that moral outrage expression online (twitter) is partly driven by?

Answer 41

Reinforcement and Norm Learning

Question 42

How is Moral Outrage driven by Reinforcement Learning?

Answer 42

• social feedback (likes/tweets) to outrage expression predicted tweeting moral outrage the following day -> if there’s a positive response to it
• effect was particular powerful among newer users
• and when social feedback was greater than expected

Question 43

How is moral outrage driven by norm learning?

Answer 43

users are less sensitive to reinforcement learning in ideologically extreme networks where moral outrage is the norm

Question 44

Violating norms can be _ to the _.

Answer 44

Violating norms can be costly to the individual.

Question 45

Moral outrage can facilitate _ _ and _, particular _

Answer 45

Norm enforcement and transmission, Online

Question 46

Powerful people are more likely to..

Answer 46

[violate norms in general]
* Eat with their mouths open
* Interrupt conversation
* Invade personal space
* Sexualize others and harass
* Cheat

Question 47

Privileged people are more likely to:

Answer 47

• Lie in negotiations
• Cheat at a game
• Receive bribes

Question 48

Does non-conformity signal status?

scenario: ‘women walks into luxury boutique’
conditions:
* nonconformity: gym clothes and jacket
* conforming: dress and fur cost

participant: pedestrian or shop assistant

measure: likelihood of being high status

Answer 48

shop assistants (familiar with environment), thought non-conforming women was more likely to be high status than the women in luxury clothes

pedestrians thought the opposite

Question 49

what does the boutique example suggest?

Answer 49

within specific environments, violating the norm can sometimes show that you possibly even above that norm

Question 50

In a scenario, where participants are asked to judge the likelihood of being high status in two prestige situations with conformity manipulations.

What is likely to be found?

Answer 50

if non-conforming behaviour is being executed in a high performing environment then it signalled high status and purely relied on content -> i.e. getting away with causal in a posh place
* but if the context is causal then there’s no difference

Question 51

What is the Robin Hood effect?

Answer 51

non-conformity signals that one would make a good leader when that non-conformity is prosocial -> for the benefit of all

Question 52

(Van Kleef et al., 2012)

Participants watched video clips of three people in a room with an open window. At some point, the target character closes the window.

*Prosociality conditions -> manipulated the condition:
* Prosocial: Other people visibly cold.
* Selfish (harmful): Other visibly hot.
Norm violation conditions: The window is/isn’t marked “do not touch” (non-conformist).

Measure: Power affordance (i.e., would the participant want the target as a boss/leader/etc.) -> degree to which participant wants the target to be a boss/leader

What did they find?

Answer 52

evidence for the Robin Hood effect
* when violated the norm but did not for the prosocial outcome -> prosocial non-conformist made them a better leader

Question 53

In an actual situation where participants waited in experimenter officer with confederate. When the experimenter left, confederate went to the coffee pot.

Prosociality conditions
* prosocial: offered participant a cup
* selfish condition: poured cup for humself

Norm violation condition:
* control: experimenters offered all a cup before leaving
* norm violation: experimenter didn’t do so

Measures: Power Affordance of confederate (i.e., participant willingness to let confederate control subsequent task)

What did they find?

Answer 53

Robin Hood Effect present -> as long as behaviour was pro-social (offered coffee), they saw the norm violation that increased their ratings of the power affordance of the confederate -> more willing to give power of all the conditions

Question 54

Nonconformity has _ and _

Answer 54

costs and benefits

Question 55

Non-conformity is policed by social responses such as…

Answer 55

gossip and moral outrage

Question 56

what affords non-conformity?

Answer 56

status and power

Question 57

non-conformity can lead to…

Answer 57

social change

Question 58

what is deviance?

Answer 58

when you violate a norm

Question 59

what are the two types of norms

Answer 59

descriptive and prescriptive

Question 60

what is descriptive deviance?

Answer 60

Diverge from the average group attitude in a direction consistent with the desirable group attitude (i.e. being vegan in a household of veggies) [inline with community attitudes but going further]

Question 61

what is prescriptive deviance?

Answer 61

Diverge from the average group attitude in a direction inconsistent with the desirable group attitude (i.e. heavy meat eater in veggie household).

Question 62

Morrison & Miller (2008)

Study 1:
* Scenario: Imagine you are asked to deliver a speech on a controversial issued (affirmative action, changes to the minimum wage, or ethic-themed dorms).
Conditions: descriptively deviant, prescriptively deviant, or nondeviant.
Measures: imagined subjective feelings

Study 2:
Task: Give a speech on affirmative action.
Conditions: descriptively deviant, prescriptively deviant, or nondeviant.
Measures: How the participant felt (coded during and asked afterwards) and appeared afterwards.

What did they find?

Answer 62

Compared to prescriptive deviant participants

Descriptive Deviant felt:
* more comfortable
* similar
* different but good
* and liked
* proud (self-rated) and appeared more proud (other rated)

Question 63

In study 3.

Predictors:
* Political affiliation of bumper sticker (Democrat vs Republican)
* County in which car was seen (Blue vs Red)
Measures:
* Proportion bumper stickers
* Proportion of voters in that area

What did they find?

Answer 63

Blue countries: ratio of democratic to republican stickers was higher than democratic-to-republican registered voters (so you’re seeing more descriptive deviants than you would expect to see just on voter’s preferences alone) -> reinforces its easier to be descriptively deviant than prescriptively

Red countries: ratio of republican-to-demoncrat stickers was higher than republican-to-democratic registered voters

Question 64

Is Deviants always negative?

Answer 64

no. it just means violating a norm sometimes

Question 65

Researchers study the role of moral outage on active resistance
Context: protests over death of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody
Predictor: 18 mil tweets from cities where there were portests
DV: number of arrests in violent and peaceful protests

What did they find?

Answer 65

number of moral tweets increased on days with violent protests (violating norms) and predicted the number of arrests -> supporting moral outrage notion that helps individuals violate norms

Question 66

In a follow-up, researchers tested causal relationships

Scenario: “The Unite the Right rally (also known as the Charlottesville rally) was a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, from 11–12 August 2017. The rally occurred amidst the backdrop of controversy generated by the removal of several Confederate monuments”.

Conditions: High versus (low) moral convergence– “the majority of (versus few) people in the United States share your particular moral values. Other people in the United States think about this protest in a similar (versus different) manner compared to you”.

Measures
* Is the issue a moral issue?
* Is violence an acceptable response?

What did they find?

Answer 66

• participants who believed the issue was a moral one, felt that violence was more acceptable in general -> main effect of moral outrage
• this pattern was particularly strong when participants believe that their morals converged with those of the majority (descriptive deviance)

Question 67

Active deviance from norms is more likely when it is in the _ direction as community attitude

Answer 67

same

Question 68

_ _ helps drive active resistance.

Answer 68

Moral Outrage

Question 69

Moscovici study (1969)

• participants repeatedly completed a colour labelling task in a group with other individuals. The colour always stayed blue, yet the light intensity changed

asked whether it was ‘blue or green’

Manipulation: presence and size of a vocal minority.

Measure: percentage of people who changed their response at least once (to the green direction).

What did they find in the control group?

Answer 69

majority said the screen was blue (manipulation check)

Question 70

What was found in a consistent minority of 1?

Answer 70

when one person said it was green, then the influence it has on at least one response increased -> more answered green

Question 71

What happened in a consistent minority of two?

Answer 71

increased rapidly when 2 people said they saw green on the screen -> vocal minority is having power / influence over the participant

Question 72

what was found in the inconsistent minority of two?

Answer 72

vocal minority effect was gone

Question 73

what can be suggest about consistency?

Answer 73

minority only emerges powerfully when the vocal minority is consistent

Question 74

what was found in a unanimous majority?

Answer 74

if everyone is saying green, a participant is increased the most to say that it is green

Question 75

what was found in a nonunanimougs majority?

Answer 75

some participants may still say green, but influence is slightly lower

Question 76

what way did the consistent minority push participants’ threshold?

Answer 76

in the direction of green

Question 77

Nemeth argued for the converged divergent theory -> what is this?

Answer 77

Diverging from the majority is threatening, so people inhibit their own thoughts that are at odds with those views. Good for consensus.

Diverging from the minority is not threatening, so people are comfortable entertaining minority viewpoints. Good for innovation.

Question 78

Moscovici argued for the conversion effect -> what is this?

Answer 78

• Individuals accept the majority view passively (go along with it),
• But actively engage in a validation process with the minority view.
• Much like the systematic (minority view)/heuristic (majority view) theory of persuasion.

Question 79

Participants were presented arguments about the use of animals in research -> conditions included string vs. weak sources. The sources represented either a minority or majority view point and measured the agreement which each source -> in relation to systematic and heuristic processing.

What was found for the minority viewpoint?

Answer 79

• source of argument is member of the minority viewpoint: participants made the critical distinction between weak and strong arguments which reflect systematic processing
  ^ convinced by strong arguments but not by weak arguments when listening to a Minority viewpoint

Question 80

What was found for the majority viewpoint?

Answer 80

distinction did not emerge when information was from a majority group member -> processed heuristically instead

Question 81

What is a tipping point?

Answer 81

when the size of the minority reaches a specific proportion of the population, norms flip quickly and dramatically so that the minority attitude, belief or behaviour becomes the norm

Question 82

What is the suggested tipping point?

Answer 82

when the minority is 25% or higher

Question 83

What happens at a tipping point

Answer 83

vocal minority has an affect and flips the norm -> group are willing to change / adopt a new norm

Question 84

A vocal minority can change..

Answer 84

norms, beliefs and behaviours

Question 85

when is the vocal minority most influential?

Answer 85

when it’s consistent

Question 86

the influence of the minority voice on individuals may emerge _

Answer 86

implicitly

Question 87

_ resistance may affect change via a critical mass

Answer 87

consistent