MT1 Intro to social/developmental psych- Conformity Flashcards
(139 cards)
What is social psychology about?
How thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by actual/imaged/implied presence of others (Allport, 1954)
What are norms?
Shared expectations about appropriate behavior, guides rather than laws
What are the two types of norms and what do they both refer to?
Descriptive norms- what people typically do eg looking towards the door in a lift
Injunctive norms- what people ought to do, moral obligation to follow norm eg give seat to pregnant woman
Are norms fixed?
No- vary across historical eras, cultures, groups, situations eg military situation vs carnival
What is the autokinetic effect?
An illusion where a spot of light in a dark room appears to move- occurs because our eyes make saccadic movements looking around for a point of reference
Procedure of Sherif’s experiment (1935, 1936)
Participants asked to judge how far a point of light in a dark room moves
Individual phase- 100 trials where participants judge alone
Group phase- 3 successive daily sessions where participants make judgments aloud in groups of 2/3
Individual-to-group conditions vs group-to-individual condition
Sherif (1935, 1936)- results in individual-to-group condition
All arrive at individual norms as individuals, but once in a group their judgments converge as they conform to what others are saying, by 3rd day judgments are very similar
Sherif (1935, 1936)- results in group-to-individual condition
Convergence of judgement happens very quickly and stays consistent, in individual phase the norms established in group phase prevail and continue to be followed
Describe the procedure for the study showing the no of generations norms persisted
Jacobs and Campbell (1961)- in initial group trials, a confederate gave high judgements of movement
Participants were then replaced 1 by 1 until none of the original participants remained
Describe the results for Jacob and Campbell’s (1961) study of robustness of group norms
Effect of norms died out gradually
Norms continued to have an effect by the 4th/5th generation, ceased by 6th generation
What can the results of Jacob and Campbell’s (1961) study on robustness of norms be extrapolated to
How societal norms can persist even after the reason for original judgement no longer applies
How does Sherif’s (1935, 1936) study show informational influence?
Ambiguous stimulus with no background cues as a frame of reference for apparent movement
People look to others’ judgements as a social frame of reference to calibrate one’s perception against
Field study of conformity (carpark littering) procedure
Cialdini et al (1990)- hospital visitors observed returning to their cars in a car-park
Investigators placed handbills on their car to provide material for littering
Cialdini et al (1990) field study for conformity manipulations
Descriptive norm manipulation- car park was filled with litter
Norm salience manipulation- confederate either dropped litter or just walked past the participant
Cialdini et al (1990) field study for conformity results
Clean environment meant a lot less littering than littered environment
Clean environment- confederate littering reduces littering
Littered environment- confederate littering INCREASES littering
Who proposed Broken Windows Theory
Kelling and Wilson, 1982
What is Broken Windows Theory (1982)
Environmental cues indicating disorder (eg broken windows, litter, graffiti) establish descriptive norms that promote OTHER kinds of disorderly behaviour
Tidying up neighbourhoods should thus reduce crime
Describe the procedure of the study investigating BWT
Keizer et al (2008)- attached advertising flyers to all bicycles locked in an alleyway which had no bins and recorded whether participant littered
A sign in the alleyway said graffiti was prohibited (injunctive norm)
The wall behind the sign was either clean or covered with graffiti (descriptive norm)
What did Keizier et al (2008)’s study aim to investigate?
Inspired by BWT- compared people whether people adhere to injunctive norms when descriptive norms about graffiti contradict or are consistent with the injunctive norms
Results of Keizer et al (2008)’s BWT study
Observing violation of the anti-graffiti norm more than doubled the extent of littering
Pedestrians were also 2x as likely to keep a 5 Euro note in a letter poking out a mail box when it was covered in grafitti
Suggests violation of one norm can weaken conformity to other norms
Procedure of Asch’s line-length studies (1951)
Participants were asked to match one line to 1/3 comparison lines (stimuli was unambiguous)
Participants give answers aloud next to last after all confederates have given consistent wrong answers on key trials
Group size is 5-8
Stages in participants’ reactions (Asch, 1952) in line length study
1) Notice disagreement
2) Seek explanation eg ‘the ones ahead of me were following the ones ahead of them just like I was’
3) Self-doubt
Asch (1952)- what were the 3 reasons for yielding to group incorrect answers
Perception, judgement, action
Asch (1952) reasons for yielding to group pressure- perception
One participant genuinely saw the lines the way the confederates answered they were
He answered he was giving honest answers and was shocked to find he was incorrect