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Summary Exam 2 Social Psychology UvA Year 1
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Summary of Social Psychology Exam 2 as part of the course Work and Organizational & Social Psychology
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W1.1CHAPTER 9 (SMITH, MACKIE & CLAYPOOL) – NORMS AND CONFORMITY
Social norm: A generally accepted way of thinking, feeling or behaving that most people in a
group agree on and endorse as right and proper
- Descriptive social norms: Agreed upon mental representations of what a group of
people think, feel or do
- Injunctive social norms: Agreed upon mental representations of what a group of
people should think, feel or do – Implies approval or disapproval
When many people act in the same way over and over again, they begin to think that they
should act that way – Descriptive norms morph into injunctive norms
Experiment by Sherif: Participants’ estimates of how much the light moved differed, ranging
from barely an inch to nearly a foot – Numbers changed dramatically when participants
returned to the lab as members of three-person groups – Group members’ responses began to
converge until they were nearly identical – Effects were long-lasting and persisted even when
they were alone – Ambiguous (no correct answer)! → Informational influence
Experiment by Asch: Despite the ease of the task, the confederates’ wrong answers caused a
great deal of anxiety, and they also had a considerable impact on the real participants’
responses – Three-quarters of the participants echoed the confederates’ choice on at least 1
trial, and half agreed with an obviously wrong answer on 50% or more trials – Non-
ambiguous → Normative influence
Experiment by Kassin: Participants were more likely to believe themselves guilty when the
confederate agreed with the experimenter and especially if the speed at which they were
typing made them uncertain about what had actually happened
Conformity: The joint of individuals’ thoughts, feelings or behaviours toward a social norm
- Private conformity: Private acceptance of social norms – When people are truly
persuaded that the group is right and willingly and privately accept group norms as
their own beliefs, even if the group is no longer physically present – More powerful
- Public conformity: Overt behaviour consistent with social norms that are not privately
accepted – When people respond to real or imagined pressure and behave consistently
with norms that they do not privately accept as correct – Surface change
Conformity and culture:
- When people in individualist cultures are reminded of their group’s norm of
individualism, they conform more strongly to that norm
- Conformity is seen much more positively in collectivist cultures
MOTIVATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF CONFORMITY
Why do we conform to norms?
1. We expect everyone to see the world the same way
1. False consensus effect: The tendency to overestimate others’ agreement with
one’s own opinions, characteristics and behaviours
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, 2. We usually expect to see the world the same way others do – Expectation of
consensus
2. Informational influence: The process by which group norms are privately accepted to
achieve or maintain mastery of reality – Consensus tells us something about reality –
Individuals who are strongly motivated to acquire a clear and accurate view of the
world conform more to others (Sherif)
3. Normative influence: The process by which group norms are privately accepted to
achieve or maintain connectedness and a valued social identity – Members privately
conform to norms to attain a positive and valued social identity and to win respect
from other group members – Fear of repercussion (Asch)
4. Reference group: Those people accepted as an appropriate source of information for a
judgment because they share the attributes relevant for making that judgment – People
are far more affected by social influence from in-group than from out-group members
– Persuasive appeals from in-group members are typically processed more
systematically than appeals from out-group members – Contributes to valuing me and
mine
Simon: The tendency to adopt in-group norms is the product of evolution – Norms convey
knowledge about how to cope effectively with the social and physical world, and connect
people together, so individuals who adopt group norms are at a survival advantage
HOW GROUPS FORM NORMS
Middle-of-the-road compromises typically only take place when the group’s views are evenly
split, with roughly half the members supporting an issue and half opposing it
Group polarisation: When a majority of group members initially favour one side of the issue,
communication and interaction usually move the group to an even more extreme position →
Experiment by Stoner: When people work together in groups, they opt for more risky actions
when they were risk-takers already
Superficial processing → People can use the group position alone as a guide to what their
own position should be – Consensus is used as a heuristic
- How we find out about the group’s position:
1. Group interactions often open with some exchange of views
2. People can guess the group norm from who the members of the group are
3. People can reveal their preferences by the kinds of questions they ask or by
their body language
- How superficial processing can lead to extreme views:
- Undecided or dissenting members adopt the majority consensus, making the
group’s average position move toward the extreme
- Social comparison may prompt a speedy adoption of a more extreme position
so that we can again become above average on important dimensions within
the group
2
,Systematic processing → When evaluations that a group makes are important or affect the
group directly, group members shift their processing into high gear – People consider not just
the preferences of others but also their supporting arguments and evidence
- How systematic processing can lead to extreme views:
- Majority arguments are more numerous – More people expressing evidence in
support of the argument – Biases the arguments discussed
- Majority arguments are discussed more – When people think that others share
their views, they are more likely to express them – Stasser: When the group
met to evaluate the candidates, they discussed 46% of the shared information
but only 18% of the unshared information (= hidden profile paradigm) – Bias
toward what everyone already knows
- Majority arguments seem more compelling – If most people buy the argument,
it must be a good one
- Majority arguments are presented more compellingly – Majority views are
expressed faster and people surrounded by others who feel the same way they
do are most likely to be confident about their views
UNDERMINING TRUE CONSENSUS
Groupthink: When groups become more concerned with reaching consensus than with
reaching consensus in a way that ensures its validity (Janis) – Typically occurs when groups
feel overwhelming pressure for agreement to maintain a positive view of the group in the face
of threat – Illusion of unanimity – NASA example
- Consensus without consideration – Not based on sound evidence
- Experiment: Students who heard cheering agreed with the probation policy,
whereas students who heard jeering opposed it – The students who followed
the norm without considering the relevant information themselves not only
ended up on the wrong side of the issue, but also further strengthened the false
consensus by adding their support to it
- Consensus without independence – Contamination by shared biases – It seems
unlikely that many people with many different perspectives will all make the same
mistake – No true convergence of viewpoints
- Consensus without acceptance – Public conformity – ‘Go along to get along’
- Experiment by Schachter: The group ignored the views of a confederate asked
to persistently disagree, assigned him to undesirable tasks and suggested that
he be excluded from the group
- Pluralistic ignorance: When everyone is publicly conforming to a norm that
nobody privately approves
Conformity to a consensus fulfils mastery and connectedness needs only when that consensus
reflects careful consideration, is free from contamination and is privately accepted rather than
reflecting mere public conformity
Remedies for faulty consensus seeking:
- Consensus without consideration → Open inquiry, carefully processing available
evidence and alternatives, and encouraging dissenting perspectives and points of view
- Consensus without independence → Intentional selection for diversity
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, - Consensus without acceptance → Public votes should be the exception rather than the
rule, the role of the leader should be minimised in favour of equally valued
contributions from all members and the voicing of objections should be encouraged
SUCCESSFUL MINORITY INFLUENCE
How minority viewpoints can alter the consensus in a group:
- Offering an alternative consensus – Because group members expect to agree, a
minority can exert influence by undermining confidence in the correctness of the
majority consensus or majority norm
- Minorities are most influential when they agree among themselves
- Minorities are most influential when they are consistent – Experiment by
Moscovici: When a minority of confederates insisted on all 36 trials that the
slides were green, a significant number of participants joined them in this
error; when the minority wavered, calling the slides green on only 24 of the 36
trials, they had no influence on the majority
- Striking the right balance between similarity to and difference from the majority –
Turner & Crano: The most effective way is for the minority to first establish itself as
psychologically part of the in-group
- Promoting systematic processing – Plausible alternatives create uncertainty about
reality and stimulates thinking among majority members
- Experiment: Participants in the minority condition had been persuaded if they
had been exposed to strong arguments but not if they had been exposed to
weak arguments, indicating systematic processing
- Minority dissent can be a facilitator of creativity and innovation when
systematic processing is involved
When a minority successfully challenges the majority view, the effect can extend beyond the
immediate issue, pushing majority group members to be more open-minded in the future
- Experiment: Students who had not been exposed to any prior dissent conformed to the
majority 70% of the time, but those who had viewed minority dissent in an earlier
experiment were much more likely to insist on the correct response
Both majority and minority influence can satisfy concerns about mastery and connectedness
Consensus will have the greatest chance of being accurate when groups overcome tendencies
to accept shared and majority arguments at face value
- Experiment: Making group members better individual information processors by
encouraging them to think counterfactually actually undermined the group’s chances
of solving the murder; encouraging the group as a whole to think counterfactually
together improved their ability to identify the culprit
LECTURE W1.1
Implicit norms: The ‘unwritten’ and generally understood and agreed upon rules that play a
significant role in the lives of group members
Explicit norms: Norms that have been written down or are spoken about
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