SOCIAL PSYCH TEST 2 CHAPTER 8
Describe three conditions that make people more likely to conform to informational social influence..
1) When the situation is ambiguous. 2) When the situation is a crisis. 3) When other's are experts.
Identify three characteristics of the group that increase conformity to normative social influence. Identify what size group induced maximum conformity in Asch's experiments. Discuss the effects of having an ally on conformity to normative social influence.
3 characteristics: the strength of the group's importance, its immediacy, the number of people in the group Maximum comfort: between 4 and 5 people Allies in the Group? If no one else in the group expresses agreement with your dissenting view, it can be difficult to stick to your position.
Explain whether being motivated to be right makes you more or less susceptible to normative social influence.
Being motivated to be right makes you less susceptible to normative social influence because we are motivated to avoid the negative conformity stereotype.
Explain whether being motivated to be right makes you more or less susceptible to informational social influence.
Being motivated to be right makes you more susceptible to informational social influence because the more important the decision is to us, the more we will rely on other people for information and guidance.
Define conformity and give some examples. Discuss American cultural views of conformity and cite some examples of how situational pressures can lead to conformity despite these views.
Conformity A change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people
Explain the role of normative social influence and of informational social influence in causing subjects to obey in Milgram's studies. Provide examples from variations of Milgram's experiments that demonstrate the role of normative and informational influence pressures.
Explain the role of normative social influence in causing subjects to obey in Milgram's studies. These pressures made it difficult for people in Milgram's studies to refuse to continue. This is particularly true when the person is in a position of authority over us. People did not conform nearly as much when one accomplice bucked the majority. Explain the role of informational social influence in causing subjects to obey in Milgram's studies. When in such a state of conflict, it was only natural for the participants to use an expert-the experimenter in the scientific -looking white lab coat-to help them decide
Discuss the consequences of resisting normative social influence. Describe Schachter's (1951) "Johnny Rocco" experiment and discuss its results.
How does one resist normative social influence? awareness find an ally Consequences of resistance? bring you "back into the fold" negativity and rejection The group will say negative things to and about you trying to get you to conform to the group norms and if you continue to go against the grain they will begin to withdraw and ultimately reject you •In Schachter's "Johnny Rocco" experiment a group of people were assigned the task of determining what the punishment should be for a juvenile delinquent. A confederate on the group asserted Johnny should receive the harshest sentence even though everyone else in the group believed she should only be punished moderately. As a result the group tried to get him to change his views but once he didn't they ignored him, nominated he not be invited to future group discussions or be assigned to less important tasks in future discussions.
Identify the steps people can take to resist normative social influence. Discuss the role of idiosyncrasy credits in resisting normative social influence
How does one resist normative social influence? awareness find an ally Consequences of resistance? bring you "back into the fold" negativity and rejection Idiosyncrasy Credits (Hollander, 1958; 1960) The tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms; if enough idiosyncrasy credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, behave deviantly without retribution from the group
Identify the motivation underlying informational social influence. Describe Sherif's (1936) experiment. Discuss why Sherif chose to use the autokinetic effect in his experiment. Describe the results of Sherif's experiment.
Informational Social Influence The influence of other people that leads us to conform because we see them as a source of information to guide our behavior - We conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action. Muzafer Sherif conducted a classic study on conformity in 1936. Sherif put subjects in a dark room and told them to watch a pinpoint of light and report how far it moved. Psychologists had previously discovered that a small, unmoving light in a dark room often appeared to be moving. This was labeled the autokinetic effect. The autokinetic effect is an illusion because the light does not actually move. However, people almost always believe that it does. Realizing that an experience that is completely "in people's heads" might be readily influenced by suggestion, Sherif decided to study how people were influenced by other people's opinions, in their perception of the autokinetic effect. Sherif's subjects were not aware of this social influence. When Sherif asked subjects directly, "Were you influenced by the judgments of other persons during the experiments," most denied it. However, when subjects were tested one at a time, later, most now conformed to the group judgment they recently made. A subject who previously settled on an estimate of 2 inches or 6 inches was more likely (after the group experience) to say the light was moving about 4 inches. These subjects had been changed by the group experience, whether they realized it or not. They had increased their conformity to group norms Group norms are agreed-upon standards of behavior. Sherif's experiment showed group norms are established through interaction of individuals and the leveling-off of extreme opinions. The result is a consensus agreement that tends to be a compromise...even if it is wrong.
Define injunctive and descriptive norms. Explain how these norms can be manipulated to promote beneficial social behavior such as reducing littering. Explain which type of norm is more potent in producing desirable behavior.
Injunctive Norms People's perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others Descriptive Norms People's perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others Using Social Influence to Promote Beneficial Behavior Model of Normative Conduct First we need to focus on what kind of norm is operating in the situation. Only then can we invoke a form of social influence that will encourage people to conform in socially beneficial ways.
Discuss the findings of cross-cultural research on conformity and the results of conformity studies replicated in the same culture after many years. Discuss recent research on brain activity during conformity and nonconformity.
Meta-analysis (Bond & Smith, 1996) 133 Asch line-judgment studies across 17 countries Stanley Milgram (1961, 1977) replicated the Asch studies in Norway and France and found that the Norwegian participants conformed to a greater degree than the French participants did. Norway has a more collectivistic culture than France Recent research found that when P's conformed to a group's wrong answers, fMRI indicated brain activity in areas for vision and perception. But when P's chose to give the right answer and disagree with the group, different areas of the brain became active: the amygdala, an area devoted to negative emotions, and the right caudate nucleus, an area devoted to modulating social behavior.
Identify two characteristics of the individual that may affect conformity to normative social influence. Discuss why the relationship between personality traits and conforming behavior is not always clear-cut. Discuss the results of meta-analyses conducted to determine whether women conform more than men. Identify when gender differences in conformity are especially likely. Discuss why male researchers are more likely to find gender differences in conformity than female researchers.
Meta-analysis of 145 studies of influenceability that included more than 21,000 participants found: Men are less prone to being influenced than women. But the size of the difference was very small. Only slightly more than half of men are less influenceable than the average woman. The gender of the person conducting conformity studies makes a difference too!
Discuss the necessity of minority influence for introducing change in groups. Identify how a minority must express its views if it is to exert influence. Identify the kind of social influence minorities exert and what effect this has on the majority.
Minority Influence The case where a minority of group members influence the behavior or beliefs of the majority The key is consistency: People with minority views must express the same view over time Different members of the minority must agree with one another
Describe Milgram's obedience studies. Identify what percentage of participants in Milgram's studies obeyed the experimenter completely.
Obedience to Authority - Milgram (1963) Imagine that you were a participant in one of Milgram's studies. When you arrive at the laboratory, you meet another participant, a 47-year-old, somewhat overweight, pleasant-looking fellow. The experimenter, wearing a white lab coat, explains that one of you will play the role of a teacher and the other a learner. You draw a slip of paper out of a hat and discover that you will be the teacher. Your job is to teach the other participant a list of word pairs (e.g., blue-box, nice-day) and then test him on the list. The experimenter instructs you to deliver an electric shock to the learner whenever he makes a mistake because the purpose of the study is to examine the effects of punishment on learning. 62.5% obey to the end 300 volts: first 5 refuse
Discuss the role of conformity to the wrong norm and the fast pace of the experiment in producing obedience. Explain the role of self-justification in increasing obedience. Discuss the evidence that Milgram's participants were not simply expressing an underlying universal aggressive urge in the study.
Role conformity: once people follow a norm, it can be difficult to switch midstream, to realize that this norm is no longer appropriate, or to recognize that another norm should be followed. The fast pace of the experiment prevented participants from stopping to reflect on what they were doing. Self-Justification: when a person is making a decision, they experience dissonance. To reduce dissonance, the act must be justified. But because reducing dissonance provides a justification for the preceding action, it can make a person vulnerable to further escalating a now justified action. Participants defined their actions as just following orders and they lost a sense of personal responsibility for their actions
Identify the motivation underlying normative social influence. Define and give examples of social norms.
Shake hands when you meet someone. Make direct eye contact with the person you are speaking with. Unless the movie theater is crowded, do not sit right next to someone.
Identify when people will conform to normative social influence. Describe social impact theory. Identify the relationships among the strength, immediacy, and number of influence sources, and subsequent conformity.
Social Impact Theory - Conforming to social influence depends on: the strength of the group's importance its immediacy the number of people in the group
Describe Asch's (1956) experiment. Identify how the situation in Asch's experiment differed from the situation in Sherif's experiment. Describe the basic findings of Asch's experiment. Explain why these findings were surprising.
The Asch Line Judgment Paradigm -Participants guessed which line in the right box is the same length as the line on the left. Almost everyone gets it right easily.... When alone In a variation of his study, Asch (1957) demonstrated the power of social disapproval in shaping a person's behavior. Confederates gave the wrong answer 12 out of 18 times, as before; this time the S's wrote their answers on a piece of paper instead of saying them out loud. What happened? Conformity dropped dramatically, occurring on an average of only 1.5 of the twelve trials. Sherif's was ambiguous and Asche's was unambiguous. What was the outcome of Asch's study? Among college aged men, the wrong answer (the conformed response) was given 37% of the time! Most participants (75%) conformed at least once during Asch's study. Conformed about a third of the time What was surprising about the results of Asche's study? People were concerned about looked foolish even in front of complete strangers. The participants were not going to be ostracized by a group that was important to them.
Explain how informational social influence can backfire and give examples of social contagions such as crisis and mass psychogenic illness situations. Discuss the role the mass media play in spreading social contagions.
When Informational Conformity Backfires When one's personal safety is involved, the need for information is acute—and the behavior of others is very informative. Contagion The rapid spread of emotions or behaviors through a crowd.
