Social Psychology Lecture 13

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Social Psychology Lecture 13

• Conformity and Social Influence
• Jane Clarbour
• Room PS/B007 email jc129

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Overview

• Looking at a series of experiments that studied
  the effects of social influence on both
  individuals and small groups
• processes of social influence
• Majority influence (conformity compliance)
• Minority influence (innovation)

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Objectives

• By the end of this lecture, you should be able
  to
• Define what is meant by the 'fundamental
  attribution error'
• Describe the two major mechanisms through which
  groups influence their members
• Discuss why conformity is thought to result from
  exposure to a majority influence
• Discuss the characteristics a minority should
  have in order to exert influence over a majority
• Report criticisms of the dual-process model and
  alternative explanations of minority influence

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Social influence

• What is meant by social influence?
• the extent to which an individuals opinions,
  attitudes and judgments are influenced by being
  exposed to the views of others
• 
  (Van Avermaet, 2001)

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Fundamental attributional error

• The attribution error refers to the effect of the
  situation over above the effect of personality
• Situational factors generally ignored
• Termed the fundamental attributional error

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Norm formation

• The development of group norms SHERIF (1936)
• Experimental paradigm based on perception of
  motion
• autokinetic effect paradigm
• A stationary but flickering single light in dark
  room
• optical illusion appears to move but doesnt
  actually move

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Sherifs experimental design

• Private viewing task
• Private estimate of distance light moved over 100
  trials (written down)-
• Ss formed personal consensus
• Group viewing task
• Public judgement (state out loud how far moved)
  Ss formed a group consensus
• This effect influenced Ss later judgement when
  subsequently asked to perform task again on their
  own

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Why people conform

• Major mechanisms of how groups influence their
  members
• Informational influence
• Value of others opinions
• Generally useful source of information
• Adaptive advantage
• Normative influence
• Need to be accepted by others
• Need to be approved of by others
• Fear of being disliked

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Social influence (1950s) The Asch Conformity
Experiments

• Ss shown a standard line
• This was then to be compared against 3 other
  lines which varied in length from the standard
  line by between ¼ and 13/4
• A
• B
• C

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The Asch Conformity Experiments

• Ss sits in groups varying from 7 9 people
• All asked to state which line is same as standard
  line
• Only 1 subject (rest are confederates)
• Each confederate makes false judgment in turn
  (out loud)
• Ss goes last in making judgment
• Control group (no confederates)
• Ss judgments made in private

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Asch conformity experimentRESULTS

• Experimental group
• Many Ss conformed to confederates false judgments
  on majority of trials
• Most caved in on a few trials
• Control group
• errors only about 2

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Changes in size of stimuli/group

• Asch increased the disparity in line length
• Larger disparities
• 28 of experimental Ss still made errors
• Only 2 in control
• Asch decreased size of majority group
• 1 confederate to 1 Ss
• Abolished the group effect
• Even though confederate still went first.

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Increased sized of minority

• Introduced a partner
• 1 confederate (immed.) prior to Ss gave correct
  response
• Reduced majority effect to 13 of estimates
• Wrong minority of 1 (reverse of original
  experiment)
• I confederate gives wrong answer first but rest
  of group were Ss
• No majority effect

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Variations of stimulusCRUTCHFIELD (1955)

• Studies of attitude
• Free speech being a privilege rather than a
  right, it is proper for a society to suspend free
  speech when it feels threatened
• 19 agreed with statement in private
• 58 agreed under pressure of group influence

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Variations of stimulus CRUTCHFIELD (1955)

• Statement presented to Army leaders
• I doubt whether I would make a good leader
• None agreed with statement in private
• 37 agreed under group pressure
• BUT
• When Ss were presented with judgements again in
  private most reverted to their pre-group answers
• No permanent attitude change as result of
  experiment
• So, more an effect of compliance than conformity

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Critique of Asch experiments PERRIN SPENCER
(1980)

• Generalisability of Aschs experiments?
• Failure to replicate line experiments with
  British engineering, maths and chemistry students
  (6 confederates, 1 Ss)
• Only 1 out of 396 trials did a Ss join the
  erroneous majority.
• Stresses cultural rather than personality factors
  in explaining conformity

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Difference between Asch Sherif studies

• Sherif (moving light)
• Subject didnt know wasnt correct answer
• Reasonable to consider others views
• Participants later adopted social norms
• Conformity leads to internalization
• Asch (parallel lines)
• Participants knew there was a correct answer
• Conformity does not lead to internalization
• Suggests important differences between compliance
  and conformity

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Minority influence

• Minority influence exemplified in TV play film
  Twelve Angry Men
• 12 jurors have to decide over the guilt or
  innocence of a young man charged with the murder
  of his father.
• At outset of the play a single juror in the
  murder trial favours acquittal, other 11 jurors
  favour conviction
• By end of play unanimously not guilty
• The minority (of 1) has influenced a majority jury

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Minority influence and social change

• Most instances of minority influence or
  innovation cannot be accounted for by the same
  mechanisms that explain majority influence
  (Moscovici, 1976)
• Minorities are few in number
• No normative control over the majority
• More likely to be ridiculed by the majority than
  taken seriously
• Perceived as weirdos.
• Seem to have access to the same informational and
  normative means of control either explicitly or
  implicitly as a majority

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How do minorities influence others?

• Minorities influence others through their own
  behavioural style
• Make their proposition clear at the outset
• Stick to their original proposition
• Withstand the majority influence

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Behavioural Style

• Key factor in minority influence is consistency
  of behavioural style
• Consistent
• Across time situation (diachronic consistency)
• Across individuals (synchronic consistency)
• Strength of conviction

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Assumptions of of minority influence

• Minority can create conflict
• Creates doubt and uncertainty
• Solution cognitive change
• Minority can exploit majoritys dislike of
  conflict
• Influence is reciprocal
• Every group member both influences and is
  influenced, irrespective of status

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Genetic model of social influence (Moscovici,
1976)

• Emphasis of genetic model on growth and
  innovation as basic processes of social life
• Social influence doesnt just adapt people to to
  a social system
• Continual production of system
• Continual change of system
• So, people dont merely conform to systems they
  actively participate in and change systems

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Power and Influence (Moscovici, 1976)

• Confusion within earlier social influence
  research between power and influence
• Power is the basis of social influence
• Those who are dependent conform to those with
  power
• Influence is a process of submission to social
  pressure
• Power and influence are alternatives
• Coercion when cant influence
• If can influence, dont need power

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Summary of Moscovicis theoretical framework

• A consistent minority
• Disrupts the established norm
• Produces doubt and uncertainty in majority
• Makes itself visible
• Focuses attention on itself
• Shows that there is an alternative point of view
• Demonstrates certainty, confidence commitment
  to the alternative point of view
• Does not compromise or move (flexible, not rigid)
• Implies the only solution is for the majority to
  accept the minority view.

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Differences between Asch and Moscovici

• Asch and Moscovici viewed conformity differently
• Asch
• conformity as a process to reduce cognitive
  uncertainty
• Moscovici
• conformity as a process to reduce social conflict
  (and people dont like conflict)
• Agree to avoid social conflict (nervous, anxious)

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Experimental paradigm

• Moscovici et al (1969)
• Responses to consistent minority influence
• Told female Ss that in colour perception
  experiment
• Task was to judge the colour of a series of
  slides that would vary in intensity of colour and
  name this colour aloud when seated in a row of
  groups of 6.
• In each group there were 2 confederates
• (Control group of 6 naïve Ss).

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Consistent minority influence
Green
Blue
Green
Blue
Blue
Blue
Confed 1
Confed 2
Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3 Subject 4
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Percent of green responses given by majority Ss
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Variations of theme

• Inconsistent minority
• Sometimes said green in a random order,
  regardless of hue of the blue slide
• Discrimination task
• Ss had to also later complete 2nd task in private
  judging varied colour of slide from green-blue
• 3 blue and 3 green
• 10 blue/green
• Slides presented randomly

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RESULTS (of subsequent experiments)

• Inconsistent minority
• 0nly 1.25 said green
• Also, changed order of confederates to being
  placed 1st and 4th
• No effect
• Discrimination task
• Ss who publicly kept to blue, privately stated
  sig more ambiguous blue/green slides as green
• So, a public vs. private distinction
• The impact of the consistent minority was greater
  at the perceptual than at the public, verbal level

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Comparison of minority and majority influence

• Moscovici Lage (1976)
• Blue-green paradigm, 6 conditions
• Controls respond to stimuli in writing
• (no group influence)
• Consistent minority
• (Same as before 2 confederates, 4 Ss)
• Inconsistent minority
• (Same as before 2 confederates, 4 Ss)
• Consistent minority of 1
• (who went first 1 confederate, 3 Ss)
• Unanimous consistent majority
• (who went first 3 confederates, 1 Ss)
• Non-unanimous consistent majority
• (4 confederates, 2 Ss, varied order)

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Replication of Aschs lines conformity exps
using blue/green paradigm

• But, when tested in private, only the consistent
  minority of 2 influenced change of belief

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Majority influence revisited

• Movement to majority position is due to
• The common belief that there is truth in numbers
  (informational influence)
• Due to the concern for being accepted by those
  numbers (normative influence)
• Underlying this social influence is a generally
  positive judgment of and attraction toward to
  majority by those being influenced (Wood et al,
  1994)

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Conformity studies of majority influence

• In conformity studies of majority influence (all
  others in group are opposed to the subject)
• Normative pressures lead to public influence
• Opinion uniformity is valued because it provides
  group members with social support for, and
  validation of their views (Festinger, 1954)
• Dissenters are disliked because they impede group
  goals (Levine, 1989)
• Informational pressures lead to public and
  private influence
• So, do minorities have less social influence?
• Or, is it because minorities tend to be disliked
  that people do not wish to conform in public?

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Minority vs. majority influences

• Depth of processing (Moscovici Lage, 1976)
• Minority influence deep
• A minority, without obtaining substantial overt
  acceptance of its point of view can influence the
  basis of other peoples judgements.
• Majority influence shallow
• A majority, if unanimous, can make almost all
  accept its point of view without affecting the
  underlying perceptual-cognitive system.

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Theory of minority conversion

• Moscovici (1980)
• Majorities produce public compliance rather than
  conversion
• Direct, immediate, temporary effect of social
  influence
• Minorities challenge beliefs and produce private
  conversion
• Indirect, delayed, private effect of social
  influence

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Dual Process Model

• Majorities induce conformity by means of a public
  comparison process
• Without giving attention or thought to the issue
  itself
• (no conversion of attitude)
• Minorities induce conformity by means of a
  private validation process
• Directed cognitive activity aimed at
  understanding why the minority consistently holds
  on to its opinion
• Attention diverted to the object, a latent
  process of conversion as Ss begin to look at the
  object as the minority does
• (conversion of attitude)

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Evaluation of dual-process model

• WOOD et al. (1994)
• Meta-analysis of 97 studies of minority influence
• 3 kinds of influence were reviewed
• Public judgment change (c.f. compliance)
• Private change on issues directly related to the
  appeal (c.f. conversion)
• Private change on issues indirectly related to
  the appeal (i.e. changes in after-image colour
  effects, or indirectly related beliefs)

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Wood et al (1994)

• Found that patterns of influence were consistent
  with Moscovicis dual-process model
• Minorities measures of influences
• Minorities influence on indirect private
  measures
• But offered different interpretation of findings

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Wood et als interpretation of results

• Social influence occurs not because of different
  cognitive processes
• But because Ss dont want to align themselves
  with deviant social groups
• i.e. studies showed less direct private agreement
  when they defined the minority source as a
  member of a minority social group (e.g.
  homosexual student, or radical feminist)

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Conclusions

• Moscovici raised questions about nature of social
  influence
• Differences in deep/shallow processing between
  minority and majority social influences
• Wood et al concluded
• Effects of social influence may not be related to
  different levels of processing but may be more
  related to social stigma of deviant minorities