- a change in behaviour or belief to accord with others.
**In Japan going along with others is a sign not of weakness but of tolerance, self control and maturity [Markus and Kitayama, 1994]
What is the insincere, outward conformity?
- compliance
- conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with social pressure while privately disagreeing
- we comply primarily to reap a reward or avoid a punishment. If our compliance is to an explicit command we call it obedience!
What is the sincere, inward conformity?
- acceptance
- conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure
Can compliance lead to acceptance conformity?
YEPPPPP
- behaviour ---> attitude
Norm formation:
Autokinetic efect?
- self[auto] motion [kinetic]. The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark. Perhaps you have experienced this when thinking you have spotted a moving satellite in the sky, only to realize later that it was merely an isolated star.
**in a study that included confederates and participants.....participants estimated how far the light over. The study's aim was to see if you could get people to agree on a distance. Once you all know each others distances will you converge answers? The study went for four days. By the fourth day= same answer = norm developed.
** follow up study by Sherif...found that when participants were tested a year later their response still was in
accordance to the norm of the original study.
***social norms may lead us to coverage with others when estimating the amount of movement
Norm formation:
-Campbell and Jacobs [1961], explain their study??
-used auto kinetic phenomenon
-confederate gave an inflated estimate of how far
the light moved. ....who was replaced by another real subject who was in turn replaced by a still newer member. The inflated illusion persisted [although less strongly each time] for five generations of participants.
Social contagion:
Mood linkage described by Totterdell et al [1988]?
- just being around happy people can make us feel happier
Social contagion:
- The chameleon effect described by Chartrand and Bargh [1998]?
-in their studies when a confederate occasionally rubbed their face or shook their foot the participants via automatic behaviour would rub and shake with them.
Social contagion:
- chameleon effect
L> Baaren et al[2004]?
- mimicry would also incline others to like and be helpful to you and to others. Being mimicked seems to enhance social bonds which can even lead to donating more money to charity.
Copy cat succeed phenomenon?
L> weather effect -> Phillips et al [1985, 1989]?
- suicides as well as fatal auto accidents and private airplane crashes [ which sometimes disguise suicides] increase after well publicized suicides.
In both Germany and the US, suicide rates rise slightly following what?
fictional suicides on soap operas and ironically in after serious dramas that focus more on the suicide problem.
The chameleon effect study in March, 1954?
- reported wind shields were getting damaged
- april --> similar damage was reported
L> later that day reported = damage 70% done
L> go out: check your windshield --> no damage to it but people believed it was
Explain Asch's classic study of group pressure!
- he asked people to judge the length of a line in the presence of others. Which of the three lines matches the standard line.
- two run throughs were everyone gets it right [they were very obvious]
- third run....the answer is very obvious but someone gives a wrong answer...the next person gives the wrong answer again...this repeated until it arrived to the true participant.
- this causes a dilemma [are they right or am I?]
L> 3/4 did
conform at least once. 37% responses totally were conformed
Describe Milgram's obedience study!
- participants were asked to apply voltages to another person by a confederate [the person receiving the shock was one too]
-40 men, [20-50yrs old]
- 26 of them [65%] went all the way to
450 volts
- repeated study but had confederate say they had a heart problem
L> 40 new men, 25 [63%] fully complied...ten later studies which included women found that they complied at similar rates vs men
What are the four factors that determined the level of obedience ?
- victim's
emotional distance
- authority's closeness and legitimacy
- whether or not the authority was a part of a respected institution
- the liberating effects of a disobedient fellow participant
Breeding obedience:
Milgram's participants acted with greatest obedience and least compassion when?
- the learners could not be seen [ and could not see them]
*same room = 40% obeyed to 450 volts
Breeding obedience:
The physical presence of the experimenter also affected obedience. Explain wrt Milgram.
- he gave the commands by telephone, full obedience dropped to 21% [ although many lied and said they were obeying]. Other studies confirmed that when the one making the request is physically close, compliance increased.
Breeding obedience:
- Kleinke, Smith etal and Willis and Hamm] studies?
- giving a light touch on the arm, ppl are
more likely to comply by lending a dime, signing a petition or sampling a new pizza.
**the authority however must be presides legitimate
Breeding obedience:
-Experimenter disagreement reduces/increases the extent of obedience
-reduces
- distance depersonalizes ... 90% quit if
experimenter quits.
Breeding obedience:
-Institutional authority?
- if the prestige of the authority is important, then perhaps the insertional prestige of Yale University [for ex] where the Milgram studies were conducted, legitimizes the commands.
Is conformity always a little prick?
L>Friske et al [2004]
- nope
- it can be constructive
L> people rushing into the burning trade towers in NY to save people were very heroic and brave but they were in part obeying their superiors , partly confirming to extraordinary group loyalty
Is conformity always a little prick?
L> Milgram?
- placed the teacher with two confederates to help conduct the procedure. During the study, both defied the experimenter who ordered the real subject to continue alone. Did he? No. 90% liberated themselves by conforming to the defiant confederates
Situations can / or cannot induce ordinary people to capitulate cruelty
The drift toward evil usually comes in large/small increments, with/without any conscious intent to doe vil.
Under the sway of evil forces, even nice people are sometimes corrupted as they do what?
- construct moral rationalizations for immoral behaviour.
What predicts conformity?
- group size, ambiguity, task difficulty, cohesion, status and prior commitment
Predicting Conformity:
The more insecure/secure we are about our judgements, the more influenced we are by others.
Predicting Conformity:
- Conformity is highest when ?
- the group has three or more people and is cohesive, unanimous, and high in
status. Conformity is also highest when the response is public and made without prior commitment
**difficulty of task as well [increased difficulty = increased conformity]
Predicting Conformity:
-Group size?
- three to five people will elicit much more conformity than just one or two. Increasing the number of people beyond five yields diminishing results.
Predicting Conformity:
-Group size?
L> Milgram?
- got confederates to pause on sidewalk and look up.
- the number participants that looked up as they were passing by the confederates increased as the number
looking up increased from one to five persons.
Predicting Conformity:
-Group size?
L> evidently, agreement of several small/large groups makes a position more credible
Predicting Conformity:
-Unanimity ?
- people
will nearly always voce their convictions if just one other person has also different from the majority.
- they often state they felt warm toward and close to their nonconforming ally; however, they state that they still would have done what they did even if the other person had not.
Predicting Conformity:
What is Cohesion?
- a "we feeling" the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction to one another
Predicting Conformity:
- cohesion??
- a minority opinion from someone outside the groups we identify - from someone t another university or different religion, for example - sways us less than the same minority opinion from someone within out group.
Predicting Conformity:
- cohesion
L> people comply more readily with?
- requests form those said to share their birthday, their first name or features of fingerprint. The more cohesive a group is the more power it gains over its members. Fearing rejection by group members whom they like, they allow them a certain power.
Predicting Conformity:
- Status?
L> jay walking?
L> Milgram?
- higher status people tend to have more impact
-The non-jaywalker
best discourages jaywalking when well dressed. [ BL rate of 25% of ppl will jaywalking...decreases to 17% when the presence of a non-jaywalking in suit]
- Milgram [1974] reported that in his obedience studies people of lower status accepted the experimenter's commands more readily than people of higher status.
Predicting Conformity:
- public response ?
- as shown in experiments, people conform more when they must respond publicly infant of others rather than writing their answer privately
Predicting Conformity:
- no prior commitment?
- once they commit themselves
to a position, people seldom yield to social pressure. Real umpires and referees rarely reverse their initial judgments.
- public announcement = hard to change
-private announcement = easier to change
**lack of anonymity**
- making a public commitment makes people hesitant to backing down
Why Conform:
- what causes conformity??
- to be accepted and avoid rejection
or
- to obtain important information
Why Conform:
- Deutsch and Gerald [1955]?
- named the two possibilities of what leads someone to conformity:
- normative influence
- informational
influence
*the first springs from our desire to be liked and the second from our desire to be right
Why Conform:
- Normative influence?
- conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill other's expectations, often to gain acceptance
Why Conform:
-Informational influence?
- conformity that results from accepting evidence about reality provided by other people.
Why Conform:
- normative influence is going along/against the crowd?
- going along with the crowd to avoid rejection. In the lab and one everyday life, groups often reject those that consistently deviate.
Why Conform:
- informational influence, leads people to privately/ publicly accept other's influence.
Why Conform:
-when
participants conformed to a wrong answer what happened?
- the brain regions dedicated to perception [and not conscious decision making brain regions] become active. And when they went against the group, brain regions associated with it .
** a concern for social mage produces formative influence. The desire to be correct produces informational influence.
Why Conform:
- what dd Bueller and Laurier find that normative influence can cause?
- informational influence as people construct reasons to justify their conformity.
Who conforms:
- personality?
- 1960s- inner motives and dispositions might be influencing other peoples actions
- not a good predictor on its own
- the situation is a powerful factor
- the two examined tougher = good
- wtr to personality dispositions it was found that although internal factors seldom precisely predict a specific action, they better credit a persons average behaviour across many situations
- personality also predicts behaviour better when social influences are weak
Who conforms:
- personality
L> good moods?
- positive moods which induce more superficial information processing, tend to enhance conformity, negative moods to reduce conformity.
- compared with people in individualistic to countries, those in collectivists countries [where social harmony is prized] are more responsive to other's influence
- 133 studies over 17 different countries found that collectivist countries had more response to other people's influences.
- working class people tend to prefer similarity to others while middle class people more strongly
prefer themselves as unique.
Who conforms:
- social roles?
- it takes a whole cluster of norms to decline a role.
- a motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.
Resistance:
- reactance?
L> boomerang effect[Brehm and Brehm] ex?
- non-nerdy students stopped wearing live strong wristbands when nearby nerdy academic students started wearing the band...Brits dissociated themselves from a dissimilar group when they stopped wearing burberry caps after they caught one among soccer hooligans.
Resistance:
- reactance is driven by?
the emotional desire to maintain personal freedom
Resistance:
- asserting
uniqueness
- western cultures feel uncomfortable when they appear exactly like everyone else.
- one is conscious of oneself insofar as and in the ways that, one is different.
- rivalry is often most intense when the other group closely resembles your own.
**we want to be seen as unique but not too different/unique as to isolate ourselves
What are the compliance techniques we discussed in class?
- foot-in door- technique
- door-in-the-face technique
- free gift technique
-low-ball technique
-scarcity technique
-liking technique
Compliance techniques:
-
foot-in-door technique?
- agreeing to a small request increases the likelihood of agreeing to a second larger request
Compliance techniques:
- door-in-the-face technique ??
- refusing a large request increases the likelihood of agreeing to second smaller request.
Compliance techniques:
-free-gift technique?
- receiving a small gift increases the likelihood of agreeing to a subsequent request.
Compliance techniques:
- low-ball technique?
- agreeing to purchase something at a given price increases the likelihood of agreeing to purchase it at a higher price.
Compliance techniques:
-scarcity technique?
- making a product appear rare or temporary increases its attractiveness
Compliance techniques:
-liking technique?
- people re more likely to help others whom they like