Conformity and Resistance Flashcards
What is conformity and resistance relevant to?
relevant to social change campaigns, teams & working groups and trend forecasting
what is the definition of conformity?
aligning oneās behaviour or expressed attitudes and beliefs with social norms or othersā behaviour. Conformity does not require internalisation.
what is the definition of norms?
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.
What is the early explanation of conformity?
Sherif claims we use norms to explain ambiguity and others provide information for us about the world
What is the autokinetic effect?
- 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
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 thereās no ambiguity
What dod they find when participants were alone?
correct 99% of the time
What happened when there was a group of confederates who provided wrong answers?
Average conformity rate -> 33%
* people gave the wrong answer 33% of the time
What percentage of participants answered correctly consistently?
25%
* which means 3/4s moved towards the group norm
What percentage of participants conformed on 6 more critical trials (out of 12)
50%
* more going on, than just ambiguity the information
What was the percentage when participants recorded their responses privately?
12.5%
Which situation made the norm more powerful?
Answering in Public
When the confederate was in the minority, what did the participant do?
ridicule the confederate
What is Aschās experiment a representation of?
Normative Influence
What are three main influences to why we conform?
- Informational Influence
- Normative Influence
- Referent Informational Influence
Informational Influence
one accepts information from another as evidence about reality (to disambiguate the situation).
e.g., āThey must know something I donāt know.ā
Normative Influence
one conforms to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval/ostracism.
e.g., āGoing along with the crowd.ā
Referent Informational Influence
one conforms to the norm of a group when oneās membership in that group is important or salient (identify with group to you answer with the group).
e.g., āThatās what people like me do.ā
What is Illusory Norms?
when we think thereās a norm but it actually isnāt out there as a norm
* our perception of norms is not always accurate but our behaviour may nevertheless be shaped by those perceived norms
What is Pluralistic Ignorance?
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 donāt even believe in).
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.
* āWhat weād like you to do today is to put on one of these sandwich boards and walk around the campus for about 30 minutes.ā
* 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:
- 50/50 split on whether theyād 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
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: āYou 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.ā
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?
- among white participants -> donāt think it was a fear of rejection, they just had a lack of interest with sitting with them and vice versa
- among black participants -> didnāt join because they feared rejection and there was a lack of interest from the white students at the table
What was the opinion when the other students were black?
- white participants -> had a fear of rejection and black students probably werenāt interested in them sitting there
- black participants said it wasnāt rejection, but they werenāt interested in sitting with each other
What does the Pluralistic Ignorance experiment draw as a conclusion?
false norm shapes our behaviour and perpetuate lack of intergroup behaviours
The costs of non-conformity are _ and _
emotional and social
what are the emotional costs of non-conformity?
guilt, shame, embarrassment, humiliation
what are the social costs of non-conformity?
isolation, ostracism, perceived as disruptive
What is the black sheep effect?
the costs of nonconformity can be particularly harsh for in-group deviants
people judge alcoholics from their _ more harshly (Cranmer & Cranmer, 2013)
in-group
Children protest _ _ to norm violations by an ingroup member (Schmidt et al, 2012).
more strongly
How do cultures differ in their sanctioning of norm violations (Gelfand et al., 2011)?
- 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.
beersma & Van Kleef (2011) looked at policing non-conformity such as gossip.
Participants played a ādictator gameā. 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 āāgeneral communication profile -> description of group members,āā 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?
- 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 wasnāt gossipy, doesnāt 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
what elicits moral outrage?
violations of moral norms
reports of moral norm violations spread _
quickly
what has emerged as a powerful force in spreading moral / immoral outrage
social media
(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?
- 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
(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. āhateā) 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?
- 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
what is the role of moral emotions
moral emotions are emotion response to either norm violations or norm compliance of a moral norm -> itās the sweet spot between words that were also moral and emotional
ādutyā is a _ word
moral
āfearā is a _ word
fear
āhateā is a _ word
moral-emotions
Follow up research suggests that moral outrage expression online (twitter) is partly driven by?
Reinforcement and Norm Learning
How is Moral Outrage driven by Reinforcement Learning?
- social feedback (likes/tweets) to outrage expression predicted tweeting moral outrage the following day -> if thereās a positive response to it
- effect was particular powerful among newer users
- and when social feedback was greater than expected
How is moral outrage driven by norm learning?
users are less sensitive to reinforcement learning in ideologically extreme networks where moral outrage is the norm
Violating norms can be _ to the _.
Violating norms can be costly to the individual.
Moral outrage can facilitate _ _ and _, particular _
Norm enforcement and transmission, Online
Powerful people are more likely to..
[violate norms in general]
* Eat with their mouths open
* Interrupt conversation
* Invade personal space
* Sexualize others and harass
* Cheat
Privileged people are more likely to:
- Lie in negotiations
- Cheat at a game
- Receive bribes
Does non-conformity signal status?
scenario: āwomen walks into luxury boutiqueā
conditions:
* nonconformity: gym clothes and jacket
* conforming: dress and fur cost
participant: pedestrian or shop assistant
measure: likelihood of being high status
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
what does the boutique example suggest?
within specific environments, violating the norm can sometimes show that you possibly even above that norm
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?
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 thereās no difference
What is the Robin Hood effect?
non-conformity signals that one would make a good leader when that non-conformity is prosocial -> for the benefit of all
(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/isnāt marked ādo not touchā (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?
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
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 didnāt do so
Measures: Power Affordance of confederate (i.e., participant willingness to let confederate control subsequent task)
What did they find?
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
Nonconformity has _ and _
costs and benefits
Non-conformity is policed by social responses such asā¦
gossip and moral outrage
what affords non-conformity?
status and power
non-conformity can lead toā¦
social change
what is deviance?
when you violate a norm
what are the two types of norms
descriptive and prescriptive
what is descriptive deviance?
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]
what is prescriptive deviance?
Diverge from the average group attitude in a direction inconsistent with the desirable group attitude (i.e. heavy meat eater in veggie household).
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?
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)
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?
Blue countries: ratio of democratic to republican stickers was higher than democratic-to-republican registered voters (so youāre seeing more descriptive deviants than you would expect to see just on voterās 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
Is Deviants always negative?
no. it just means violating a norm sometimes
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?
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
In a follow-up, researchers tested causal relationships
Scenario: āThe Unite the Right rally (also known as the Charlottesville rally) was a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, from 11ā12 August 2017. The rally occurred amidst the backdrop of controversy generated by the removal of several Confederate monumentsā.
Conditions: High versus (low) moral convergenceā āthe 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 youā.
Measures
* Is the issue a moral issue?
* Is violence an acceptable response?
What did they find?
- 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)
Active deviance from norms is more likely when it is in the _ direction as community attitude
same
_ _ helps drive active resistance.
Moral Outrage
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 āblue or greenā
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?
majority said the screen was blue (manipulation check)
What was found in a consistent minority of 1?
when one person said it was green, then the influence it has on at least one response increased -> more answered green
What happened in a consistent minority of two?
increased rapidly when 2 people said they saw green on the screen -> vocal minority is having power / influence over the participant
what was found in the inconsistent minority of two?
vocal minority effect was gone
what can be suggest about consistency?
minority only emerges powerfully when the vocal minority is consistent
what was found in a unanimous majority?
if everyone is saying green, a participant is increased the most to say that it is green
what was found in a nonunanimougs majority?
some participants may still say green, but influence is slightly lower
what way did the consistent minority push participantsā threshold?
in the direction of green
Nemeth argued for the converged divergent theory -> what is this?
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.
Moscovici argued for the conversion effect -> what is this?
- 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.
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?
- 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
What was found for the majority viewpoint?
distinction did not emerge when information was from a majority group member -> processed heuristically instead
What is a tipping point?
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
What is the suggested tipping point?
when the minority is 25% or higher
What happens at a tipping point
vocal minority has an affect and flips the norm -> group are willing to change / adopt a new norm
A vocal minority can change..
norms, beliefs and behaviours
when is the vocal minority most influential?
when itās consistent
the influence of the minority voice on individuals may emerge _
implicitly
_ resistance may affect change via a critical mass
consistent
