Outline

1. Outline • Discuss paper assignments • Student input on aesthetics rsch. • Social Influence

3. Social Influence

5. Social Influence and Conformity • Social Influence: • How individual behavior is influenced by other people and groups • Conformity: • Tendency to change our behavior/beliefs/perceptions in ways that are consistent with group norms • Norms: Accepted ways of thinking, feeling, behaving

6. Why Do We Conform to the Group? • 1) Informational influence • Look to others for information • EXAMPLE: Sherif's (1936) autokinetic effect studies

7. Conformity with the Autokinetic Task

8. What’s Going On? • People need to be certain + confident in the correctness of their actions • The situation was ambiguous and uncertain • People looked to others to help define “reality” • Once developed, the norm persists beyond the immediate situation

9. Ambiguity and the Desire to be Accurate • High motivation to be accurate: • Increases conformity in people who areuncertainabout their judgments or opinions. • Decreases conformity in people who arecertain.

10. Ambiguity and the Desire to be Accurate • Baron, Vandello, & Brunsman (1996): asked groups of students to choose a criminal suspect from a line-up. • Some saw the pictures so quickly it was hard to be certain about their judgments. Others had ample time. • In addition, some students were motivated to be accurate with the promise of a $20 prize; others had no incentive (were not motivated to be accurate).

11. Baron et al. (1996) Conformity (or not) to an incorrect majority opinion as a function of motivation and task- difficulty (uncertainty)

12. Newcomb • All conformity experiments are not artificial • Newcomb’s Bennington College Study • Women at Bennington college in Vermont during the 1930s • Assess “conservatism” vs. “liberalism” • Women became increasingly more liberal as they progressed from freshmen to senior year • Attitude change was particularly strong in women who strongly identified with college groups (e.g., faculty, upperclassmen)

13. Newcomb– Bennington Political Norms More conservative Mean Attitude Score More liberal Class

14. Newcomb– Bennington Political Norms More conservative Mean Attitude Score More liberal

15. Informational Social Influence • Informational influence likely to lead to private acceptance (conversion) of what is correct • When Will People Conform to Informational Social Influence? • 1. Ambiguous Situation • 2. Crisis Situation • 3. Others Are Experts

17. Why Do We Conform to the Group? • "Do as most do, and [people] will speak well of thee" -Thomas Fuller • 2) Normative influence • We want to be liked, accepted and to fit in • We don’t want to look foolish • EXAMPLE: • Asch’s (1950s) conformity studies

18. Asch's (1955) Conformity Studies 1 2 3 Standard Line Comparison Lines Trial 1

19. Asch's (1955) Conformity Studies 1 2 3 Standard Line Comparison Lines Trial 2

20. Asch's (1955) Conformity Studies 1 2 3 Standard Line Comparison Lines Trial 3

22. Procedures: One subject, six or more confederates Which line is the same length as the standard? People reported answers out loud, one at a time Subject always last On 12 of 18 trials, confederates answered incorrectly Results: Asch's (1955) Conformity Studies

23. Normative Social Influence • The group exerts normative influence by instilling a fear of appearing deviant • Likely to leads to public conformity (compliance) (surface behavior change) in people

24. Two Types of Social Influence • Informational influence • A person uses his or her peers as a source of information • Interprets events in the light of social reality • Often seen in ambiguous situations • EG: Sherif, Newcomb • Normative influence • A person adopts the behavior of his or her peers • to secure social acceptance or avoid social rejection • EG: Asch • Proposed that conformity in Sherif situation resulted from ambiguity of stimulus • Hence, created unambiguous test situation in which conformity should be unlikely

25. Factors that Influence Conformity • Group characteristics • Size • Conformity increases as “majority” increases from 1-4 • Little if any further increase for majorities of 5-12 Conformity as a Function of Group Size in Asch’s Paradigm

26. Factors that Influence Conformity • Group characteristics • An ally in dissent: • One “correct dissent” reduces conformity rates markedly • Even one “incorrect dissent” is as effective

27. Factors that Influence Conformity • Sex differences • Early evidence: women conformed more than men • In general, sex differences are weak and unreliable • Depends on type of task • Stereotypically male or female • Observed or not observed task

28. Reinterpreting “Non-Conformity” in Males • Eagly et al. (1981): • Conformity is in part a form of impression management • Men, rather than simply being more independent, desire to be perceived as independent by others • Suggests men will be more sensitive than women to being observed by others • Use informational conformity task • Answers observed or not observed by others

29. Eagly et al. (1981) Tentative interpretation: Men’s apparent non-conformity is a way of conforming to social expectations for males. % showing conformity Experimental Condition

30. Factors that Influence Conformity • Cultural Differences in Conformity • Cultural orientations: • Individualism: • emphasizes independence, autonomy, and self-reliance • Collectivism: • emphasizes interdependence, cooperation, and social harmony • Conformity rates are generally higher in collectivist cultures • Berry (1967): Cultures differ • in the degree to which individual judgment is valued • and in the consequences for non-conformity • “Western individualistic” (Scotland) • “Non-western individualistic” (Baffin Island Innuit) • “Non-western collectivist” (Temne of Sierra Leone) • Note: • used variant of original Asch line-judgment task

31. Cross-Cultural Differences in Conformity (Berry, 1967) Related evidence: Conformity for Chinese > American (Huang & Harris, 1973) Conformity for Japanese > American (Matsuda, 1985) Mean # of Conforming Trials Culture

32. Class Discussion • Sometimes we value conformity, encouraging people to be a good team player and criticizing nonconformists as deviants or rebels. Sometimes we complain about conformity, encouraging people to stand up for themselves and criticizing conformists for going along with the crowd. Use specific examples to discuss the pros and cons of conformity.