Conformity and Obedience: Social Norms

Conformity and Obedience

• Conformity involves altering one's behavior or beliefs due to perceived group pressure
• Social norms define acceptable behaviors within a group or culture
  • Implicit social norms are unwritten understood rules like tipping or holding doors
  • Explicit social norms are formally stated rules (laws/policies/guidelines)
• Normative influence involves conforming to fit in and avoid rejection, even if it contradicts personal beliefs; influence is public and short-lived
  • Example: Adopting a fashion style despite not agreeing with it
• Informational influence entails modifying behavior based on information received from others which leads to private conformity
  • Occurs when the answer or situation is ambiguous
  • Example: Following a group discussion on a subject assuming they are knowledgeable

Studies on Conformity

• Asch's Line Judgment Study demonstrates normative influence by having participants conform to incorrect answers given by the majority
• Sherif's Autokinetic Effect Study demonstrates informational influence in an ambiguous situation; participants estimates converged when together
• Situational factors affecting conformity include group size, unanimity, public response, status/authority, and prior commitment
  • Conformity is more likely in a group if everyone agrees and responses are public
• Explicit conformity include acceptance, compliance, and obedience
  • Acceptance: Accepting social behavior because you agree with it e.g., wearing a mask because you believe it helps stop the spread of COVID-19
  • Compliance: Publicly acting in accordance with social group behavior but privately disagreeing e.g., wear a face mask when recommended to avoid judgement
  • Obedience: Acting when under a direct order or command e.g., wear a face mask because it is required to enter the premises

Mimicry and Social Contagion

• Chameleon effect is mimicry that involves mirroring others' actions and expressions in a more automatic fashion
  • Example: Smiling back at a stranger or yawning
• Social contagion is the quick spread of behaviors, emotions, or ideas throughout a group
  • Example: Laughing, fear, and panic
• Mass hysteria is when suggestibility to problems spreads rapidly in a group, which leads to negative outcomes
  • Example: Salem Witch Trials

Conformity and Behavior Change

• Conformity to social norms can affect positive behavior change
• Descriptive Norm Messages state that more people are likely to conform when they are told that a majority of the group have a specific behavior
• Outcome: People tend to conform when they know others are already doing it

Obedience and Resistance

• Stanley Milgram's Obedience studies demonstrated conformity through participants continuing administering shocks due to authority figure influence
• Reactance is the motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom, leading to resistance to conformity
• Uniqueness: We want to be moderately unique, and we often aim for a balance between fitting in and standing out

Persuasion

• Persuasion is using a message to alter beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors
• Elaboration Likelihood Model describes two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral
  • Central Route of Persuasion relies on controlled thinking and leads to long-lasting attitude change
  • Peripheral Route of Persuasion relies on automatic thinking and leads to temporary attitude change
• Good feelings in persuasion can lead to more persuasion which includes product placement and evaluative conditioning
  • Outcome: participants were more persuade if they had good feelings while reading something
• Arousing fear and disgust is more effective in persuasion when paired with a solution
• Credibility, speaking style, trustworthiness, and attractiveness/liking makes a communicator more persuasive Techniques to make the message more persuasive:
  • Foot-in-the-door: Getting agreement to a small request increases compliance with a larger request later
  • Door-in-the-face: After rejecting a large request, compliance increases with a smaller, more reasonable request
  • Two-sided appeals: Addressing both sides of an argument is best if the audience already opposes the message

Persuasion Strategies

• Primacy effect shows that the information presented first can influence the perception of later information
• Recency effect describes that the information presented last is sometimes more effective when people are trying to remember
• Persuasion is more effective when using a real communication channel
• To ensure an audience is persuadable: anticipate responses, distract from counterarguments, and tailor strategy to the audience's analytical level
• Attitude inoculation enhances resistance by exposing individuals to weak counterarguments first
  • Bad News Game: Participants earned badges and spread misinformation

Group Influence

• Group: Two or more people who interact, influence each other, and perceive themselves as a collective
  • Goals of Groups: To affiliate, achieve, and gain a social identity
• Social facilitation strengthens dominant responses which improves performance on simple tasks but worsens preformance on complex ones
• Evaluation apprehension is concern about being evaluated by others increases arousal
• Social loafing is when individuals exert less effort in a group towards a common goal because of lower evaluation apprehension
• Reduce social loafing by tasking groups with challenging, appealing, or engaging work when group members are close or there is big reward for effort
• Deindividuation is losing self-awareness and evaluation apprehension in a group
• Counteract deindividuation by increasing self-awareness

Group dynamics and decision making

• Groupthink is when group harmony is prioritized over critical thinking, usually when making decisions
  • Groups at risk: Very cohesive, homogenous, and led by a directive leader
  • To prevent groupthink: Don't share opinions up front, assign a devil's advocate, subdivide the group, and invite outside critiques
• Group polarization occurs when discussion leads a group to adopt more extreme views
  • Normative Influence: We want others to like us so we compare ourselves to others
  • Informational Influence: We learn more supportive information so we have a false impression of what other people are thinking
• To avoid group polarization have a diverse, less homogenous group and be willing to interact with other groups
• Ostracism is exclusion that hurts because groups fulfill our need to belong

Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination

• Prejudice is a negative judgment of a group and its members not based on facts
• Stereotyping involves beliefs about the personal attributes of a group
• Discrimination involves harmful actions against minorities based on prejudice
• Explicit prejudice predicts behavior while implicit prejudice influences judgements when not realizing biases
• Racial discrimination is declining in recent times, but subtle forms of prejudice still persist
• Weapon bias demonstrates prejudice due to the quick judgement by police using implicit prejudice
• Hostile sexism involves negative attitudes, while benevolent sexism has positive attitudes, but both suggest women are inferior to men
• Social Dominance Orientation has a personal preference for inequality
• Realistic Group Conflict Theory is when prejudice comes from competition for scare resources

Social Identity and Prejudice Reduction

• Social Identity Theory states that we favor our own group (ingroup) and denigrate outgroups which leads to group serving bias
• Outgroup heterogeneity effect is overestimating differences between groups and underestimate differences within groups
• Subtyping is seeing those who go against a stereotype as exceptions
• Subgrouping is forming a new stereotype about a subset of the group
• Just world phenomenon is believing that the world is just, so people get what they deserve
• Prejudice can cause self-fulfilling prophecies (Behavioral Confirmation) and stereotype threat which can worsen performance
• Prejudice may be reduced by rewriting implicit associations, promote positive intergroup contact, and creating systematic changes such as making diversity & inclusiveness the norm