Social influence: Majority Influence

Question 1

What do we mean by social influence?

Answer 1

• Other people make deliberate attempts to persuade us (eg. others persuading us to buy something)
• We are also induced into obeying authorities (political authorities, religious authorities) so here we are referring to obedience.
• But we are susceptible to social influence even when others are not necessarily trying to influence us.

Question 2

Social influence definitions:
- majority influence
- minority influence

Answer 2

Majority influence (conformity)
“Social influence resulting from exposure to the opinions of a majority or the majority of one’s group”
(Can be behaviours as well as opinions)

Minority influence (innovation)
“Situation in which either an individual or a group in a numerical minority can influence the majority”

Question 3

What are the classical studies on majority influence?

Answer 3

• Sherif’s autokinetic effect
• Asch: classical paradigm and findings

Question 4

Solomon Asch

Answer 4

The “Asch” experiments
Often referred to as his studies of “conformity”

Question 5

Muzafer Sherif
- what is Asch’s work?
- what was Asch’s work stimulated by?

Answer 5

• Asch’s work central and influential
• Asch’s work stimulated by the work of Sherif on social norm formation and transmission

Question 6

What are social norms? (+ examples)

Answer 6

“belief systems about how (not) to behave, that
guide behaviour, but without the force of laws, and reflect group members’ shared expectations about typical or desirable activities”

examples of social norms:
- gender norms
- lifestyle norms
- dress styles
- how we relate to others

Question 7

Muzafer Sherif (1936)
- what did Sherif believe
- what is the autokinetic effect?
- what happens when people are asked to estimate how much this light moves?

Answer 7

Sherif believes that it is when we are unsure about how to behave that we observe social norms around us. To test this idea he created a visual task for pp’s based on autokinetic effect.

autokinetic effect= when you show someone a fixed point of light in a completely dark room, it appears to move as people open and close their eyes but in reality it is not moving.

When people are asked to estimate how much this light moves, they find this task very difficult and they feel uncertain about their essence.

Question 8

Muzafer Sherif (1936) study

Answer 8

Sherif used autokinetic effect (ambiguous stimuli) and asked groups of US male participants to determine how much the point of light had moved. He was interested to see whether pp’s will converge towards a group norm in their estimates given the ambiguous nature of the task.
The point of light never moved

Question 9

Sherif (1936) autokinetic effect
Procedure, results and conclusion

Answer 9

• the experimental context used the autokinetic phenomenon
• there were 2 conditions
• in each condition, pp’s went through 4 sessions to judge how much the light had moved

In condition (a):
Individuals 1, 2 and 3 started alone and settled on a personal norm.
Later in groups, they gradually converged on a group norm. (estimates changed from being widely different to slowly converging towards a common estimate)

in condition (b):
Individuals 4, 5 and 6 started in groups and converges on a group norm
Later when alone, they used their group norm, now internalised, as a personal guide (estimates when they are alone are similar to the group estimate - they have internalised the group norm)

Conclusion: Therefore sherif was showing that when we are confronted by an ambiguous physical reality, we tend to look to others around us to decide how to perceive our own reality rather than just simply relying on our own perception.

Question 10

What were the takeaway points from:
1- Sherif (1936)
2- Asch (1951, 1955, 1956)

Answer 10

1- Sherif (1936): influence of others on our behaviour when faced with ambiguous stimuli.
2- Asch (1951, 1955, 1956): influence of others on our behaviour when faced with unambiguous stimuli.

Question 11

What do Asch’s experiments consist of?

Answer 11

The Lines

• Asch recruits pp’s for a visual task
• His pp’s are male, white, American, college students
• The visual task includes seeing a task with a reference line on the left and three lines of differing lengths on the right
• The reference line always matches with one of the lines on the right (in this case C)
• Pp’s have to pick between a, b and c to determine which line on the right matches with the reference line
• This is an unambiguous, straight forward task
• Through a multiple of tasks, the reference line will change
• When pp’s are tested on their own, they commit almost 0 errors
• In reality, what Asch is interested in is how pp’s will react to the task when they are at least with the majority of pp’s in the same room who give incorrect responses to this straightforward task.

Question 12

Explain Asch paradigm

Answer 12

• Series of experiments
• Basic experiment
• pp’s do the experiment in the presence of other pp’s like them who are in fact confederates (recruited by experimetner)
• 18 trials
• Pp’s take turns in saying what the correct answer is out loud in front of the experimenter, one by one.
• Differing number of confederates (e.g., 9)
• Naïve participant last but one to call out
• Correct responses is given by confederates on 6/18 trials (1/3rd of trials)
• Confederates made errors on 12/18 trials (2/3rds of trials), starting trial 3
• Unanimous majority

Question 13

Basic findings (Asch 1951; 1956; see also Asch, 1955)
CONFORMITY

Answer 13

• 37% of responses were incorrect.
• 75% of participants made at least one error (compared to almost 0% when doing task alone)- so the majority of pp’s conformed to the majority at least once
• 5% of participants yielded all the time (conformed to majority all the time)

So Asch’s experiment is taken as evidence for how conformist people can actually be.

Question 14

Basic findings (Asch 1951; 1956; see also Asch, 1955)
INDEPENDENCE

Answer 14

• 63% of responses were correct.
• 95% of participants gave correct responses at least once. (meaning at least all pp’s resisted majority pressure at least once
• 25% of participants never yielded.
• 65% of participants gave correct answers most or all of the time.

Question 15

Asch’s take on his results

Answer 15

“Despite this large effect, the preponderance of judgments was independent, evidence that under the present conditions the force of the perceived data far exceeded that of the majority. (Asch, 1956, p.
10).”

Ones perception was more important/ stronger than the force and pressure of the majority

Question 16

When do we conform?

Answer 16

• Group size
• Unanimity
• Culture

Question 17

Group size
Does conformity increase the larger the size of the majority?

Answer 17

Inconsistent: leveling off (e.g. majority of 3 in Asch, 1951) vs linear increase (Gerard et al., 1968) (see meta-analysis by Bond, 2005, suggesting inconclusive findings!)

Bond found that it depends on several factors and the results are inconclusive

Question 18

Effect of increasing majority size on conformity to majority (Asch, 1955)

Answer 18

In Aschs’ experiments he finds that conformity does increase the larger the group but only up until a certain point

When one person gives an incorrect answer there is very little conformity

When two people give an incorrect answer conformity increases a little bit but is still quite low

When 3 people give incorrect answers, there is a remarkable increase in conformity but then it levels off as the group size increases.

Question 19

How can we think of unanimity?

Answer 19

Can think of it as a simulation of how likely we are to be leaders and to speak up if we disagree with people around us.

Question 20

Effect of breaking consensus on conformity to majority

Answer 20

Asch varied whether the naive pp is confronted with a group that shows absolute unity (meaning everyone else is giving the incorrect answer) or whether the pp is faced with a majority that answer incorrectly but there is some dissent among those people.

• In one condition, pp’s hear the majority say incorrect answers alongside another naive pp who gave the correct answers. So this is the 2 true pp’s conditions.
• In a third condition, pp’s saw the majority give incorrect answers along with a confederate who also gave correct answers.
• In both of these conditions, you are seeing dissent happening- even though the majority are saying incorrect answers, there are still some people who are dissenting.
• You see a dramatic drop in rates of conformity. We see that unanimity is a very important factor in whether people actually conformity to the majority or not.
• (therefore when one person decides to dissent against the majority, it makes it a lot easier for others to dissent too)

Question 21

What is another variation of Aschs’ experiment:

Answer 21

He tried to test whether dissent of any kind helps decrease conformity. A confederate gave incorrect answers that were different to those of the majority

Conformity actually drops- this tells us that one type of disagreement with the majority can encourage other types of disagreement as well. Again showing the importance of dissent.

Question 22

Unanimity- what decreases conformity?

Answer 22

Variation where confederate gives a deviate but wrong answer decreases conformity. Dissent in Asch’s paradigm, regardless of accuracy, decreases conformity

Question 23

Culture- what did Bond and Smith (1996) find in relation to conformity?

Answer 23

Bond and Smith (1996) found that the effect is replicated across various cultures but the degree of conformity differs depending on some cultural characteristics. (Effect replicated across various cultures but conformity degrees vary)

They found
- Collectivistic cultures show greater conformity

Question 24

133 Asch Replications (Adapted from: Bond & Smith, 1996)
1- what was conformity like in western cultures?
2- where did the studies come from - limitation?
3- what is there more emphasis on in individualistic cultures?
4- what is there in collectivist cultures?

Answer 24

1- Western cultures like North America, the UK, Western European countries- there is a lower degree of conformity compared to the countries that were non-Western. These included countries like the, Japan, Ghana, Kuwait, Lebanon and some other countries.

2- From the 133 studies found, the vast majority around 100 actually came from the US and 10 came from the UK. So very few actually came from non-western countries (so more cross-cultural research is needed)

3- In individualistic countries, there is more emphasis on being independent and being separate from others.

4- Whilst in collectivistic countries there is greater emphasis on maintaining social harmony.

Question 25

How do we conform?
- what did they state reasons for independence and yielding based on?
- what were the 2 groups?
- finding from Asch (1956) and what does this suggest?

Answer 25

Stated reasons for independence and yielding based on post experimental interviews

• Independent participants: 2 important groups
• Confident (the others are wrong)
• Tension and doubt (feeling of discomfort and feeling incorrect but obligation to respond truthfully)

From Asch (1956):
“Only rarely did we find an independent subject completely free of doubt.”

These results tell us that even those who dissent from the majority don’t necessarily do it without fear or doubt but they still do it.

Question 26

Yielding participants
3 things

Answer 26

1. Distortion of perception
2. Distortion of judgment
3. Distortion of action
   Participants in reality fell into more than one group (contradictory motives)

Question 27

1. Distortion of perception: (perceiving things incorrectly)

Answer 27

• Yielding without awareness
• Rare

Question 28

2. Distortion of judgment

Answer 28

One participant:
In those four to six cases I agreed because I figured they were right. […] I only assumed my answers to be wrong, because I disagreed with everyone else”.

Pp’s are aware that there is a difference between how they are perceiving things and others are perceiving things but they are not confident about their answers and they think maybe the others know better.

Question 29

3. Distortion of action

Answer 29

One participant:
“I might be alienating a few people. Here was a group; they had a definite
idea; my idea disagreed; this might arouse anger.”

Here, pp’s are aware they see things differently from others, they don’t think they are wrong but they confrom because they want to fit in

Question 30

Asch summary

Answer 30

• In his studies of majority influence Asch wanted to explore individual differences in responses to an unambiguous stimulus
• He tested factors that affected yielding rates and examined differences in the ways people yielded and remained independent
• Much of what he found has stood the test of time

Question 31

What are the 3 theoretical explanations for why we conform?

Answer 31

1. Informational social influence
2. Normative social influence
3. Referent informational influence

Question 32

1. Informational social influence
   (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955)
   Explain what it is

Answer 32

• “Accept information as evidence of reality”
• Goal to make accurate and valid judgments

(we conform because we want to learn about the reality around us and we take the majority to be an adequate source of information.)

Question 33

1. Informational social influence
   Two pieces of evidence

Answer 33

1- Sherif’s 1936 autokinetic study on norm formation (ambiguous stimuli)
condition a and b
We look to others when we are faced with uncertainty and we use others to help guide our perception

2- Meta-analysis on Ash-like experiments found that conformity was significantly higher the more ambiguous the stimulus (Bond & Smith,1996).

• Through a series of experiments using Asch paradigm, he varied the level of ambiguity of his stimuli. How did he do this? Sometimes the lines were that were incorrect, were actually very close to the reference line and sometimes they were not close at all.
• A meta-analysis by Bond & Smith (1996) actually found that the more ambiguous the stimuli, the greater the conformity to the majority is.
• So the more unsure we are of what we’re seeing, the more likely we are to listen to the majority

Question 34

2. Normative social influence
   (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955)
   Explain what it is

Answer 34

“To conform with the positive expectations of another”
- Need for social approval or harmony
- compliance (public) without acceptance (private)
(look to majority to learn about what the norm is and what is acceptable social behaviour so we gain social approval)

Question 35

2. Normative social influence
   What are the two pieces of evidence?

Answer 35

1- Asch variation on original experiment
Found- when naïve participants write down their answers instead of saying them out loud, conformity rates drop from 37% to 12.5%

2- Deutsch and Gerard (1955) experiment

Question 36

Explain Deutsch and Gerard (1955) experiment
IV1

Answer 36

IV1: ambiguity of stimulus
- high certainty
- low certainty

Low uncertainty condition: pp’s judge the lines directly

High uncertainty condition: The researchers show participants the lines and ask them to give the correct answer after removing the lines so they just have to rely on their memory of what the lines really look like.

Found:
- Conformity is higher in the high uncertainty condition
(The more ambiguous the stimulus, the more we conform to the majority because we looked at them to understand our reality.)

Question 37

Explain Deutsch and Gerard (1955) experiment
IV2

Answer 37

IV2: degree of group pressure:
- private and anonymous
- face to face
- face to face and group goal (told group accuracy is an important goal to achieve)

Found:
- Increase in conformity in the face-to-face condition (regardless of ambiguous stimulus)
- This shows there is some fear of not fitting in
- This is consistent with the normative social influence explanation (it is when they are in public they are changing their view)

• The reason why conformity is increased even more is explained here by saying the pp’s feel the pressure to rely more on the group when the goal is to be accurate.
• Showing Informational social influence explanation

This study therefore shows both normative social influence explanation and social influence explanation help explain why we conform to the majority.

Question 38

3. Referent informational influence
   Turner (1982); Hogg & Turner (1987)
   Explain

Answer 38

• Adopt the norms, beliefs and behaviours of the prototypical ingroup member
• Maximises similarities between in group members and differences between in group and out group members

(- The idea for this explanation is that social influence does not happen in a social vacuum, meaning that when we look at a group of other people who this group is matters for us to decide whether we follow them or not
- If we categorise them as ingroup members as people like us that are similar to us, we are more likely to follow.
- If however we categorise them as being different to us, then we may be less likely to follow
- So the social group membership or the majority is important for us to decide whether we want to follow this majority or not)

Question 39

Asch paradigm- ingroup and outgroup implication

Answer 39

So in this case when we feel like we’re all part of the same group, we might show greater conformity, whereas when we feel like we are different from these other people, then we might show less performance.

(If others are outgroup members, conformity should decrease!)

Question 40

3. Referent informational influence
   Evidence

Answer 40

• Abrams et al. (1990) expt 2
• Meta-analysis by Bond & Smith (1996): lower conformity when the majority consist of out-group members

Question 41

3. Referent informational influence
   Abrams et al. (1990) expt 2
   Aim and IV’s

Answer 41

Aim:
They wanted to see whether we conform with majority pressure regardless of whether the majority consists of in or out group members.

IV1: majority groupmembership
- ingroup
- outgroup

IV2: visibility
- private
- public

Question 42

Abrams et al. (1990) expt 2
Results

Answer 42

When pp’s are faced with majority pressure by an in-group, they increase their conformity when they have to give their answers in public versus when they have to give them in private.

On the other hand, when they are faced with other members who are out-groups, they start to conform less when they have to give their answers in public than when they have to get their answers in private

In the public condition, participants are seeking to distinguish themselves even more from out-group members.

So you can see here that deciding to yield or resist the majority is actually influenced by whether others are in new for output members.

These results are basically taken as evidence for what is called the reference information influence, meaning that we conform to the majority mostly when we take them as a reference point for how we behave. This only happens when the others are in-group members and we can therefore trust them.

Question 43

Social influence in the digital age:
(In)exposure to different views

Answer 43

• Filter bubbles: social media feeding us personalised (targeted) content through algorithm, content from “people like us”, content that is consistent with our views. (e.g. ads, newsfeed etc).
• With social media we now have access to ways of hearing the views of others who are similar to us.