Pluralistic Ignorance and Social Norms

Changing people's behavior by exposing them to descriptive norms (Hotel Towel Experiment)

Standard approach: "Help save the environment" Door hanging thing Independent Variable: Varied message Standard Message: help save environment Descriptive Message: in a study 75% customers of this hotel reused their towel Much more used towel in second case

Three steps to pluralistic ignorance

1. People self-censor. They do not always express their true thoughts and feelings for fear of embarrassment/rejection 2. People incorrectly conclude others are expressing their true feelings and thoughts, even though they are censoring 3. People conclude their own thoughts/feelings are not shared by others

Social inhibition

Causal explanation:People assume their own behavior is driven more by social inhibition/ fear of embarrassment, than others' behavior.Therefore, others really do understand, and I don't.

Two Types of Norms

Descriptive norms: What behaviors are performed in particular situations. Injunctive / Prescriptive norms: What behaviors are approved of or disapproved of in particular situations.

Smoke filled room experiment (Latane & Darley)

Fill out questionaire before an interview on urban experiences Situation: Acrid smoke comes into a room from vent Independent variable: presence of others Dependent variable: Likelihood of reporting smoke Response rates were higher when people were along Message: People feel less likely to respond in a group "What you see is other people doing nothing, so you think nothing is the right thing to do"

Kitty Genovese incident

Kitty was stabbed at 3:20. Cries heard by her neighbors, lights on, windows open, but nobody called the police until 3:50am NYT portrayed the story as neighbors not wanting to get involved bc they were "tired" Incident set off research in psych to try and understand bystander apathy

Reducing Pluralistic Ignorance

Number of drinks

How does pluralistic ignorance occur?

People self-censor. They do not always express their true thoughts and feelings for fear of embarrassment/ rejection.2.People incorrectly conclude that others are expressing their true feelings and thoughts, even they are also self-censoring.3.People conclude that their own thoughts and feelings are not shared by others.

Injunctive / Prescriptive norms:

What behaviors are approved of or disapproved of in particular situations.

Descriptive norms:

What behaviors are performed in particular situations.

Pluralistic ignorance occurs when individuals ____

infer that the identical actions of the self and others reflect different internal stress

Why is the acrid experiment not diffusion of responsibility?

Diffusion is based on an assumption someone is going to act, but you can clearly see nobody is acting Diffusion is more plausible when you are removed from the situation Pluralistic Ignorance: Other's reactions affect how a person "defines the situation"

What's the explanation for Kitty Genovese?

Diffusion of responsibility - people thought that others would call the police? Pluralistic Ignorance - people gauge how serious the situation is from the reaction of others - compared with diffusion of responsibility, it is a result of social influence

Point of "Crash" experimentDarley, Teger, Lewis (1974)

Information conveyed by another's "startle response" defines situation as emergency or not. Main message: Concealing the emotional reactions of others in an emergency situation reduces chance of intervention.-Pluralistic ignorance is thus more likely.

How are normative and informational influence involved?

Information influence: Change int he "definition of the situation" Normative influence: people need to 'play it cool'/appear panicked Social influence here is a form of pluralistic ignorance -same outward behavior seen as reflecting different internal states

How are normative and informational influence involved? Smoke experiment

Informational influence: Change in the "definition of the situation".-Normative influence: don't want to appear panicked/ alarmist, etc.

Social Inhibition

People rate themselves as higher than others on internal traits leading to social inhibition - eg. self-conscious, inhibited, bashful, hesitant, self critical, sensitive Experiment: Read incomprehensible article on self concept in a group of other people Independent variable: Instructions -constrained: not possible to ask for clarification -unconstrained:could ask questions, but at the risk of embarrassment (nobody does) How do subjects rate their own understanding of the material relative to the other subject What condition does the subject think they know more? LOGIC: constrained: their is sufficient situational explanation for people not leaving unconstrained: you knew people could leave their seat, there isn't a situational explanation for people not leaving, so they think its because others understood more People rated their own understanding as lower in the unconstrained consition

"Crash" experiment (Darley, Teger, Lewis)

Study of bystander intervention Subjects taken to experiment room, past workman with ladder/equipment, etc. Task: Sketch a model horse While sketching horse, workman falls with a crash, and cries "Oh my leg!" Independent variable: - Alone - With another subject (facing each other) - With another subject (facing away) Whether people investigate Point: Information conveyed by another's "startle response" defines situation as emergency or not Rates of response are high when along and facing one another, but not when back to back If you conceal another person's emotional reaction to emergency, it's hard to get people to react

Can exposing pluralistic ignorance weaken the effects of social influence?

Two 20 minute discussion groups-Individual-focused: Individual decision-making, responsibility, negative consequences ...-Peer-focused: Exposed pluralistic ignorance, misperceptions of the norm, actual data. Why would exposing pluralistic ignorance work?-Does not change beliefs about how much others' drink.-Seems to reduce how strong people think the drinking norm is (i.e., the perceived importance others place on drinking).