PSYC 201 Chapter 9-11

result of asch study

- Three quarters of the participants conformed to the group's incorrect answer at teast once -Overall, participants conformed on a third of the critical trials

what is the most sublte form of conformity

- our tendency to mindlessly imitate other people's behavior and movements

To get an idea of the intensity of the participants' dilemma, imagine the following scenario

-As part of a discussion of Asch's experiment, your social psychology professor shows an image of the target line and the three test lines and reports that although the right answer is line B, the confederates all say it's C. As your professor begins to move on, one student raises his hand and announces with conviction, "But the right answer is C! In subsequent lectures, people might avoid sitting by the nonconformist, and lunch invitations, dating opportunities, and offers to join a study group would likely diminish as well

what is social influence

-refers to the many ways people affect one another - It involves changes in behavior or attitudes that result from the comments, actions, or simply the presence of others -we influence others and others influence us

what was the Sherif's conformity experiment

-Autokinetic effect: A visual illusion in which a small, stationary dot of light in a dark room appears to move -Sherif (1936) ¡Participants were exposed to the autokinetic effect ¡Asked: How much did the light move? ¡Did the task across 4 trials with additional participants included in the task in each trial ¡ This is an ambiguous, difficult task!

what does conformity eliminate

-Conformity eliminates potential conflict and makes human interaction much smoother, and it allows us not to have to think so much about every possible action -Conformity plays a big part, for example, in getting people to suppress anger; to pay taxes; to form lines at the theater, museum, and grocery store; and to stay to the right side of the sidewalk or roadway

what did Michele Gelfand say about tight vs loose cultures

-Conformity to social norms lies at the heart of this construct. Some cultures, which Gelfand calls "tight," have strong norms regarding how people should behave and don't tolerate departure from those norms. Other cultures are "loose": their norms aren't as strong, and their members tolerate more deviance

what is conformity

-Do as others do -Changing behavior in response to real or imagined pressure from others defined as changing one's behavior or beliefs in response to some real (or imagined) pressure from others. -the pressure to conform can be implicit, as when you decide to toss out your loose-fitting jeans in favor of those with a tighter cut (or vice versa) simply because other people are doing so

how does expertise and status

-Expertise and status often go together, because we grant greater status to those with expertise, and we often assume (not always correctly) that those with high status are experts -Expert opinions carry more weight. In addition, the disapproval of high-status people hurts more (Koslowsky & Schwarzwald, 2001)

Why do we mindlessly copy the behavior of other people?

-Explanation #1: Ideomotor Action (Wegner, 1994) >Thinking about an action increases likelihood of doing it >This is used as an explanation for priming Explanation #2: Preparation for Social Interaction (Bargh, et al., 1996) >People who are mimicked are more prosocial afterwards >Mimicry may build social rapport and lead to more pleasant social interactions.

Torrance (1955) gave the members of navy bombing crews—pilot, navigator, and gunner—a number of reasoning problems, such as this horse-trading problem: A man bought a horse for $60 and then sold it for $70. He later repurchased the horse for $80 and then, changing his mind yet again, sold it for $90. How much money did he make on his series of transactions?

-If the navigator offered the correct answer, the group ended up reporting the correct answer 80 percent of the time. -But if the lowly gunner offered the correct answer, the group offered it up only 63 percent of the time. The opinions of higher-status individuals thus tend to carry more weight

What did Asch ask student volunteers to take part in?

-In this famous experiment (Asch, 1956), eight male students were gathered together to perform a simple perceptual task: determining which of three lines was the same length as a target line -Each person called out his judgment publicly, one at a time. The task was so easy that the experience was uneventful, boring even—at first

how is anonymity seen in asch study

-Indeed, when the true participants in Asch's paradigm are allowed to write their judgments on a piece of paper instead of having to say them aloud for the group to hear, conformity drops dramatically.

when is informational social influence most pronounced

-Informational social influence is likely to occur when... -The situation is difficult or ambiguous -In other words, when we feel low in knowledge or competence about a task or topic, so we need help

If we can pinpoint a reason for why our opinions are different ("They don't see things the way I do because they're wearing distorting glasses"), both informational influence and normative social influence are lessened. How?

-Informational social influence is reduced because the explanation for the difference of opinion can diminish the group's impact as a source of information ("They're biased") -Normative social influence is reduced because we can assume that those in the majority are aware of why we differ from them - For instance, if we have different views on some burning political issue of the day, those we disagree with might think we're biased, selfish, or have different values, but at least they won't think we're crazy

what is internalization

-Informational social influence, by guiding how we come to see the issues or stimuli before us, leads to internalization, or the private acceptance of the position advanced by the majority -We don't just mimic a particular response —we adopt the group's perspective

what type of group are more people likely to conform to

-It's probably no surprise that people are more likely to conform to a bigger group. -What is surprising, perhaps, is that the effect of group size levels off pretty quickly -As the size of the group increases, but only to a group size of three or four; after that, the amount of conformity levels off

what does normative social influence lead to

-Normative influence leads to temporary public compliance with the majority opinion/behavior, without any change in your attitudes and beliefs

what are people in independent cultures more likely to do

-People reared in interdependent cultures are therefore likely to be more susceptible to both informational social influence (they consider the actions and opinions of others very telling) and normative social influence -Thus, people from interdependent cultures might be expected to conform more than those from independent cultures.

what is , obedience,

-Responding to an explicit request from someone who has power over you occurs when a more powerful person, an authority figure, issues a demand (rather than a request), to which the less powerful person submits -Do as others command

what was Muzafer Sherif experiment

-Sherif was interested in how groups influence the behavior of individuals by shaping how reality is perceived -He noted that even our most basic perceptions are influenced by frames of reference.

Sherif designed his study to examine how other people can serve as a social frame of reference to change our perception of reality

-Sherif's experiment was built around what's called the autokinetic illusion —the sense that a stationary point of light in a completely dark environment is moving -To start off, Sherif put individual participants in a darkened room alone, presented them with a stationary point of light on trial after trial, and had them estimate how far it "moved" each time. Some people thought, on average, that the light moved very little on each trial (say, 2 inches), and others thought it moved a good deal more (say, 8 inches)

how do minorities have their effect

-The Influence of Minority Opinion on the Majority -Minorities must rely on informational influence ¡The majority cannot be swayed by normative social influence ¡However, they may start to wonder why a minority keeps stating is divergent opinions. ¡ - primarily through informational social influence rather than through normative social influence -People in the majority are typically not terribly concerned about the social costs of stating their opinion out loud—they have the majority on their side and normative social influence is minimized.

explain the Serge Moscovici and his colleagues had groups of participants call out whether a color was green or blue

-The border between blue and green isn't always clear, but the critical stimuli the participants saw were ones that, when tested alone, participants nearly always thought were blue (99 percent of the time). -The experimenter showed participants these stimuli in a setting in which they could hear one another's responses, including those of a minority group of respondents confederates of the study) who all responded alike -When the confederates varied their responses randomly between "green" and "blue," the participants said "green" after the confederates did so only 1 percent of the time, about the same as when participants responded alone

what is the lesson here

-The broader lesson here is about the importance of construal, even in the context of experiments.

how intense was the normative social influence

-The normative social pressures in Asch's experiment were sufficiently intense that the participants found themselves in a wrenching dilemma: "Should I say what I truly think it is? But what would everyone else think if I gave a different response?

what is the ideometer action based on

-The principle of ideomotor action is based on the fact that the brain regions responsible for perception overlap with those responsible for action -

when Gelfand and her colleagues surveyed people in each of the 33 countries, what did they find

-The tighter the nation's laws and norms, the fewer behaviors were allowed in these various situations. -The researchers also asked people if their country had many social norms, whether others would strongly disapprove if someone acted inappropriately, and so forth. -Citizens in tighter nations pointed to tighter constraints

what did gelfand find when she obsereved 33 nations

-They found that compared with loose nations, tight nations are more likely to have governments that are autocratic or dictatorial, to punish dissent, to have sharp controls on what can be said in the media, -If a nation was tight on one of these dimensions, it tended to be tight on all; -f it was loose on one, it tended to be loose on all

-But they might wonder why the minority keeps stating its divergent opinion

-This can lead the majority to consider the stimulus more carefully, resulting in a level of scrutiny and systematic thought that can produce genuine change in attitudes and beliefs

how does GROUP UNANIMITY affect conformity

-This effect occurs because the presence of an ally weakens both informational social influence ("Maybe I'm not crazy after all") and normative social influence ("At least I've got someone to stand by me") -This effect suggests a powerful tool for protecting independence of thought and action: if you expect to be pressured to conform and want to remain true to your beliefs, bring along an ally.

what is normative social influence

-Using others' behavior as guides for how to fit in and avoid disapproval the desire to avoid being criticized, disapproved of, or shunned

what is informational social influence

-Using others' behavior as valid information about what is appropriate in a situation -the reliance on other people's comments and actions as an indication of what's likely to be correct, proper, or effective -We want to be right, and the opinions of other people can be a useful source of information to draw on

what were the results of the normative social influence

-When participants were alone, they answer correctly 100% of the time -In the presence of (wrong) confederates, they erroneously conformed to majority on 1/3 of the trials ÷75% of participants conformed at least once

what does expertise primarly effect

-expertise primarily affects informational social influence. Experts are more likely to be right, so we take their opinions more seriously as sources of information.

how does normative social influence effec group size

-it makes sense that the larger the group, the more people one stands to displease, so conformity is more likely. But here, too, the impact of group size is seen only up to a point -A person can feel only so much embarrassment, and the difference between being viewed as odd, foolish, or difficult by 2 versus 4 people is psychologically much more powerful than the difference between being viewed that way by, say, 12 versus 14 people.

When we consider informational social influence, how does group size make sense

-it makes sense that the larger the number of people who express a particular opinion, the more likely that opinion has merit as a source of information—but only to a certain point.

how do people respond

-people respond not to the objective situations they face, but to their subjective interpretations of those situations

when do you conform more in terms of gender

-that you are more likely to conform in areas where you feel less confident - women tend to conform more in stereotypically male domains (on questions about geography or deer hunting, for instance) -whereas men tend to conform more in stereotypically female domains (such as questions about child rearing or relationship advice).

Analyses of the specific contexts in which men and women differ in the tendency to conform reveal just this effect

-that you are more likely to conform in areas where you feel less confident -Thus, women tend to conform more in stereotypically male domains (on questions about geography or deer hunting, for instance), whereas men tend to conform more in stereotypically female domains (such as questions about child rearing or relationship advice)

how is conformity viewed in western society

-the word conformity seems negative to most people. If someone called you a conformist, for instance, you probably wouldn't take it as a compliment

- the experimenter introduced them to a second investigator. This second investigator showed participants a series of blue-green colors and recorded where each participant, individually, thought blue left off and green began

-those who had earlier been exposed to a consistent minority now identified more of these stimuli as green; their sense of the border between blue and green had shifted. -when the minority opinion was consistent, it had both a direct effect on participants' responses in the public setting and a latent effect on their subsequent private judgments

explain the study where the tendency to reflexively mimic the posture, mannerisms, expressions, and other actions of those around us has been examined experimentally

-undergraduates took part in two 10-minute sessions in which each of they, along with another participant, described various photographs from popular magazines, such as Newsweek -The other participant was, in reality, a confederate of the experimenter, and there was a different confederate in each of the two sessions

what is an example of Unconsciously imitating the behavior of others

-yawning when others yawn, laughing when others laugh

what is compliance

-¡Do as others want -Changing behavior by responding favorably to an explicit request which is when a person responds favorably to an explicit request by another person

what does research show on gender

-¡Women tend to conform more - but only a bit (Bond & Smith, 1996; Eagley, 1987; Eagley & Carli, 1981) ¡More pronounced in face-to-face interactions ¡Context-specific Reviews of the literature on gender differences in conformity have shown that women tend to conform more than men—but only a bit

what was the reason peope conformed in the ashc study

. The primary reason people conformed was to avoid standing out negatively in the eyes of the group

how does culture influence conformity

A meta-analysis of 133 conformity experiments showed that interdependent (collectivist) groups and females tend to conform more (focus on social relationships) (Bond & Smith

what is the reason for the informational social influence

Accuracy Motive: We want to be right

impt

As the number of people in a majority increases, so does the tendency to conform, but only up to a unanimous majority of three or four. After that, conformity levels off.

what is social influence

Collection of ways that people affect one another through changing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, or behaviors resulting from the real or imagined presence of others

how can compliance attempts come about

Compliance attempts can come from people with some power over you, as when your boss asks you to run an errand, or they can come from peers, as when a classmate asks to borrow your notes

As we have seen, people tend to conform when they're confused by the events unfolding around them or the topic under discussion.

For instance, if you're like most people, you know more about sandwiches than the periodic table, so you're less likely to conform to other people when they assert that the most important ingredient in a good sandwich is horseradish than when they assert that the atomic number of beryllium is 62

what are the factors affecting conformity

Group size Unanimity Anonymity Expertise/status Culture Tight and loose cultures Gender

what are some cultural differences in terms of Cultural differences in Mimicry

Hispanic, and Anglo participants applied for an upper-management position at a large corporation. When mimicked by the interview, Hispanics, but not Anglos reported less anxiety and was rated my favorably by blind observers (Sanchez-Burks et al., 2009

what does the minority do

In contrast, minorities typically influence fewer people, but the nature of the influence is often deeper and results in true private attitude change

what does ANONYMITY do

In other words, what happens when the response is anonymous? -Anonymity eliminates normative social influence and therefore should substantially reduce conformity

how is conformity good from an evolutionary standpoint

Indeed, evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists have argued that a tendency to conform is generally beneficial. We are often well served by doing what others are doing, unless we have a good reason not to

what are some tight countries

India, Germany, People's Republic of China, South Korea, Japan, Austria, Portugal, Britain, Turkey, and Italy

what happens together

Informational and normative influence almost always happen together ¡You are unsure about what is appropriate, and you want to fit in! -However, sometimes one is more important than the other

what does informational social influence lead to

Informational influence leads to internalization (private acceptance) of the majority opinion/behavior, and actual change in your attitudes and beliefs

what is the evidence for the Evidence for Normative Social Influence

Line Judgment Study (Asch, 1956) ¡Judge whether two lines are the same length...very easy task. ¡One true participant in a group of confederates ¡After a couple of rounds, the confederates start to give an (obviously) wrong answer

what are some loose countries

Loose countries include Greece, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Ukraine, New Zealand, and Brazil

contrast that to normative social influence

Normative social influence, in contrast, often has a greater impact on public compliance than on private acceptance. That is, to avoid disapproval, we sometimes do or say one thing but continue to believe another

what is true about someone who breaks the group unamnity

Note that the other person who breaks the group's unanimity doesn't need to offer the correct answer—just something that departs from the group's answer

when do people most likely conform

People high in empathy or need to affiliate with others are more likely to automatically mimic others

what do people tend to like

People tend to like those who mimic them more than those who don't, even when they're unaware of being mimicked

what is internalization

Private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology.

Sherif's next step was to bring several participants into the room together and have them call out their estimates. He found that people's estimates tended to converge over time. Those who individually had thought the light moved a fair amount soon lowered their estimates; those who individually had thought the light moved very little soon raised theirs

Sherif argued that everyone's individual judgments quickly fused into a group norm, and that norm influenced how far participants reported seeing the light move. A follow-up experiment reinforced his interpretation: when participants came back for individual testing up to one year later, their judgments still showed the influence of their group's earlier responses

what does status affect

Status, in, mainly affects normative social influence. The disapproval of high-status individuals can hurt more than the disapproval of people we care less about

why some tight, why some loose

The Gelfand team found that tighter nations tend to have higher population densities, fewer natural resources, unreliable food supplies, less access to safe water, greater risk of natural disasters, more territorial threats from neighbors, and a higher prevalence of pathogens

What is normative social influence?

The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions (ridicule, barbs, ostracism)

what is informational social influence

The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

what were the results of this person and confederate study

The participants shook their feet more often in the presence of a foot-shaking confederate and rubbed their faces more often when next to a face-rubbing confederate

what is the ideometer action

The phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behavior makes performing it more likely

when does the validity of a consenus opinons increase

The validity of a consensus opinion increases only if the individual opinions are independent of one another -The more people there are, the less likely it is that their views are independent; therefore, additional consenting opinions don't offer any additional real information

Suppose the right answer is the shortest of the three lines, and the majority claims it's the longest. If the fellow dissenter states that it's the middle line, it still reduces the rate of conformity even though the participant's own view (that it's the shortest line) hasn't been reinforced. What matters is the break in unanimity.

This fact has important implications for free speech. It suggests that we might want to tolerate loathsome and obviously false statements ("The Holocaust never happened"; "The World Trade Center attacks were a government hoax") not because what is said has any value, but because it liberates other people to make atypical remarks that are of value

what does the majority do

Thus, majorities typically elicit more conformity, but it is often of the public compliance sort

what are the two types of conformity

Unconscious (automatic) conformity=Automatic behavioral mimicry Conscious (deliberate) conformity=Informational social influence and Normative social influence

why was asch's study famous

What made his study so well known was how often participants actually did conform, even when they thought the group's viewpoint was completely crazy

The principle of ideomotor action is based on the fact that the brain regions responsible for perception overlap with those responsible for action.

When this principle is applied to mimicry, it means that when we see others behave in a particular way, the idea of that behavior is brought to mind (consciously or otherwise) and makes us more likely to behave that way ourselves

When conformity pressure is sufficiently explicit, what is it

compliance

what is Conformity based on the desire to be liked or socially accepted when the situation is clear/unambiguous but one's own beliefs conflict with group beliefs

for normative social influence

conformity can be

good bad neutral

what is an example of the ideometer action

thinking aobut ice cream makes you more apt to open freezer, take carton out and dig in -The thought that we might type the wrong letter on the keyboard makes us more prone to typing that very letter

what was true compared to sheirrf study

less conformity the rate of caving in to the group was still surprisingly high.

Informational influence leads

o internalization (private acceptance) of the majority opinion/behavior, and actual change in your attitudes and beliefs

what are the three types of social influence

obedicine, compliance, conformity

what do people who have been mickied do

people who have been mimicked tend to engage in more prosocial behavior (behavior intended to help others) immediately afterward, such as donating money to a good cause or leaving a larger tip for the person who mimicked them

what happened But when the confederates responded with "green" consistently,

the participants responded with "green" 8 percent of the time.

what does normative social influence lead to

to temporary public compliance with the majority opinion/behavior, without any change in your attitudes and beliefs

Tight and Loose Cultures (Gelfand et al., 2001

¡Similar to independent-interdependent ¡Some cultures tolerate deviance, others don't ¡Examination of 33 countries showed when a country is "tight" on one domain, it's tight on all ÷Tight: India, Germany, China, Korea ÷Loose: Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Brazil Tight nations are more likely to have governments that are autocratic or dictatorial, to punish dissent, to have sharp controls on what can be said in the media, to have more laws ad higher monitoring to ensure that the laws are obeyed.