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Psychology Notes Social Psychology (2nd year) Notes

Norms And Conformity Notes

Updated Norms And Conformity Notes

Social Psychology (2nd year) Notes

Social Psychology (2nd year)

Approximately 47 pages

Topics include: group performance, impressions of individuals, norms & behaviour, norms & conformity, and the self. Relevant research is outlined, including methodology and findings.

These notes are informative, to the point, and easy to follow. They are drawn from a wide range of sources utilising additional course reading and independent reading....

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Social Psychology (2nd year) Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL NORMS

What are social norms?

Norms are accepted ways to think/feel/act that most people in a group agree on

They form in face-to-face interacting groups when group members observe each other’s attitudes/behaviours

When people interact in groups, thoughts/emotions/actions tend to become more and more alike

Sherif (1936):

Ps sat alone in a dark room and focused on a light seemed to jump and disappear then reappear

The observer had to guess how far it moved didn’t actually move

Autokinetic effect (illusory motion)

When group members spoke judgements aloud, members tended to converge and say the same

created a social norm

Descriptive social norms = agreed upon mental reps of what a group of people think/ feel/ do

parents do love their children

Injunctive social norms = agreed upon mental reps of a group of people should think/ feel/ do

parents should love their children

Guala & Mittone, 2010: many people act the same way over and over again begin to think they should act that way

descriptive norms become injunctive norms

Role of ambiguity

Could people have conformed because situation was ambiguous and they were uncertain?

Asch, 1951:

  • Ps compared standard line with 3 comparison lines and said which of the 3 matched the standard

  • Clear, unambiguous perceptual judgments

  • Confederates posing as participants gave wrong judgments on some trials

  • Actual participants frequently went along

  • 75% conformed at least once only 25% never conformed

Why do we conform?

Connectedness: avoid criticism, ridicule from other

Mastery: assume others are correct

Perillo & Kassin, 2011: social influence is so powerful it can make us question our own guilt/ innocence

Kasin & Kiechel, 1996:

  • College students type letters quickly or slowly

  • Warned not to hit ALT key or the computer would crash

  • Computer malfunctioned and Ps accused of hitting ALT

  • Student denied asked confederate if they did hit the ALT key and they said yes

  • Experimenter demands the students write a confession

  • 69% agreed to do so

  • 28% Ps privately came to see themselves as guilt

= descriptive norm = accepted the response of multiple others

Conformity = convergence of individual responses towards group norms

Internalisation: Private conformity: deep level

Private acceptance of social norms

Personally convinced that group is correct

Conform even when group is not present

Eg Sherif’s experiment adopted group opinion even though there was no pressure to do so

Compliance: Public conformity: surface level

Overt behaviour consistent with social norms that are not privately accepted

Behave consistently with norms that are not privately accepted as correct

Eg Asch’s experiment went along with incorrect majority to avoid looking stupid in such a simple task

Culture

Jetten, Postmes & McAuliffe, 2002:

Ind cltures less likely to conform due to importance of being unique

BUT when reminded of group norms ie being American in a replication of Asch conform to this group norm by conforming to the group less

Kim & Markus, 1999:

Conformity is seen more positively in collectivist cultures view themselves as part of a group – conformity = social glue

Bond & Smith, 1996:

The more collectivist the culture, the more conformity to the responses of others occurs

BUT maybe this is just public conformity, not private?

MOTIVATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF CONFORMITY TO NORMS

Expecting consensus

Most people expect to agree with others

False consensus effect: Overestimating extent to which others agree with our attitudes, preferences, behavioral choices

Having others share our views:

  • Mastery: Reassures us that we are correct

when others share our views, their agreement increases our confidence that we our correct = we like a group consensus

disagreement with others leaves us uncertain, as Asch and Sherif showed = vulnerable to social influence

  • Connectedness: Reinforces our connectedness with others

Morrison & Matthes, 2011:

The more important the connection to those others is, the stronger this false consensus effect is

Goel, Amson & Watts, 2010:

Used Facebook to ask Ps about their own political beliefs as perceptions of their friends’ attitudes

Ps sig over-estimated the extent to which they and their friends agreed

overestimate ‘people like us’

Agreeing with in-groups fulfills:

Mastery Informational influence Adopt group consensus because it seems correct
Connectedness Normative influence Adopt group consensus to show identification with group
Me and mine motives Influence from valued in-group Adopt group consensus to feel positively about self and valued in-group

Mastery: Conformity in order to increase accuracy

Norms as mastery insurance

Agreeing with others assures people they are in contact with a common reality

Others’ reactions tell us what the world is like consensus tells us about reality

Informational influence:

= when people privately conform because they believe a group’s norms reflect reality

We believe that the group has more knowledge than us, so accepting their input makes sense

Mannes et al., 2012: Responses that groups converge upon are typically more accurate than judgments of any one group member

Motivation to be accurate can increase conformity, and reliance on others’ opinions

Number of others influences conformity:

Insko et al., 1983: variation of Asch

Amount of influence a confederate group had increased as the number in the group increased

BUT only up to a certain point more than 3 confederate did not cause further increases

already formed an adequate consensus, adding to the size has no further effect

Presence of a dissenter:

Asch:

One confederate agreed with the real Ps even one dissenter from consensus dramatically weakens impact

This was true even if the confederate gave a different incorrect answer

Connectedness: Norms fulfill connectedness motives

Agreeing with others gives a sense of belonging

Normative influence = members privately conform to attain a positive and valued social identity

...

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