Lecture 27- Social Psychology 2

Question 1

What are social norms according to the APA?

Answer 1

1) Social norms are socially determined consensual standards that indicate:
(a) what behaviors are considered typical in a given context and
(b) what behaviors are considered proper in the context

2) Social norms do not only prescribe the socially appropriate way to respond in
the situation but also proscribe actions that should be avoided

3) Unlike statistical norms, social norms include a significant qualitative element.
• They do not always comply to an easy explanation for their formation nor the
negative judgements that can occur if they are violated

Question 2

Describe the Abrams, Marques, Brown & Henson (2000) study?

Answer 2

-Participants took on the role of an employer at an insurance company

-Participants evaluate employees at the business on:
• Competence
• Fit at the company
• Friendliness
• Future Success Prospects
• Appropriate pay range

• Information about the employees: All seven had similar intelligence, optimism, politeness and competence scores. Five had similar ‘normative’ scores on a range of employment skills, e.g. social dominance (Normative group). One participant significant deviated higher than the normative scores (Deviant one). One participant significant deviated lower than the normative scores (Deviant two)
• Found that aside from competency where normative and deviants were rated equally. In other categories normative came out as superior every time. Shows that we don’t like in group members that deviate from norms (we judge them more harshly)

Question 3

What are inductive norms? What are they also sometimes called? What do we do when someone violates these?

Answer 3

“what behaviors are considered proper in the context”

• Social norms that describe how people should feel, act, and/or think in a
particular situation, irrespective of how people typically respond in that
setting
• These are how people think they/others SHOULD behave
• Sometimes called ‘Prescriptive norms’

violation= derogate individuals (we don’t like it)

Question 4

What are descriptive norms?

Answer 4

“what behaviors are considered typical in a given context”

• How people typically should feel, act, and/or think
• How most people actually behave

Question 5

Do inductive and descriptive norms always allign?

Answer 5

No

Question 6

What is pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 6

When you think everyone else is doing way more of something than you are

Question 7

How does food wastage show the difference between injunctive and descriptive norms?

Answer 7

Focus group of hotel managers found that they view minimizing food waste
as important (injunctive= what should do) but recognise that their actual behaviour in their kitchen’s doesn’t match that (Goh et al., 2022) (descriptive)

Question 8

What are dynamic norms as opposed to static norms?

Answer 8

• Dynamic norms mean recognizing that information about how other people’s behaviour is CHANGING over time
• Static= behaviors staying the same

Question 9

What is self persuasion?

Answer 9

When we see other people behaving in a certain way we are persuaded to change because we think the norm must be there for a reason even if we don’t personally understand(this shows dynamic norms)

Question 10

What study shows that social norms can shape our perception of physical reality?

Answer 10

• Autokinetic Illusion (Sherif, 1935)= the light one and judging how far it’s moved
• People establish their own norms across trials and then when put in group norms start to align + converge with each other
• If you flip it and start with group then the findings/ norms of the group will stick

Question 11

What did Rohrer et al. (1954) show as an expansion to Sheriff study?

Answer 11

Two groups of participants

1) one group trained with a light that moved 2 inches
2) the other group trained with a light that moved 8 inches.

‘Norms’ created in each group
Pairs were then created with a participant from each group and then both placed
in room with a light that didn’t move. Who’s norms become the ‘norm’?

It seems that the group norms converge when the participants come together in pairs despite their individual group norms being well established

Question 12

Why might we conform to norms?

Answer 12

Social world is uncertain
• Social norms provide shared social reality
• Less chance of being ‘incorrect’

Question 13

In the real world how do norms develop/ under what circumstances?

Answer 13

In the ‘real’ world (non-experimental setting) norms tend to develop among those
who communicate with each other regularly.
• But this isn’t a numerical threshold, i.e. social isolation doesn’t mean you’re
immune to social norms.

People recognise social norms, even if they do not agree with them.