CONFORMITY
THE BASICS:
● Acting at odds with beliefs or perceptions because of pressure (real or imagined) from
others
● Individualistic and collectivist cultures both conform
● Collectivists are at peace with conformity but individualists are not
○ Strong urge to be a nonconformist
● Everyone is conforming to something
● Conformity makes society work - part of a social contract
○ Acceptance in a group = survival (evolutionary)
○ Dislike of non conformists
CONFORMITY IS UBIQUITOUS
● Conformity can make you genuinely think something terrible is good
● Conformity doesn’t add much bad or good to society - trends, fitting in
○ Sometimes it can lead to great harm - i.e. following orders in Holocaust, binge
drinking/smoking
● Elevator video - people mimic each other
6 TYPES OF SOCIAL POWER
● French & Raven 1959
● Any of the 6 types can operate together at any given moment
○ Not mutually exclusive
● You give a person their specific social power
1) Reward power
a) Person can reward you for conformity
b) Tangible rewards (i.e. money, good grades) and intangible rewards (i.e.
respect, admiration)
2) Coercive power
a) Can punish you for not conforming
b) Tangible (i.e. physically punish, arrest, take something away) and intangible
(i.e. rejection, hatred)
3) Legitimate power
, a) Person who you believe has the right to tell you what to think & how to
behave
b) Police, teachers, crossing guards
c) Noticing a police car and everyone on the road slows down
4) Referent power
a) Respect and admire this pearson, want to be like them & want them to like
you
b) Michael Jordan - so admired that people wanted Nike, Gatorade, etc
c) The cool kids, want to be accepted like them
5) Expert power
a) Someone with expertise that you don’t have
b) Doctors - we believe them because we don’t have expertise in medicine
c) Different from legitimate power but can also be tied together
i) Legit powers have the RIGHT to tell you what to do but expert
powers have the KNOWLEDGE to tell you what to do
6) Informational power
a) Person or group provides compelling information
b) Usually powerful when you are confused and see someone who is
confident in what they’re doing
3 TYPES OF CONFORMITY & 2 INFLUENCES ON CONFORMITY
● Normative influences
○ Motivation: needing to be liked, fitting in, avoiding punishment
○ Evolution - kicked out of a group means people won’t share their resources with
you = you die
○ Situation is non-ambiguous
■ Correct response is obvious but you’re still looking to others to make sure
you’re making the right choice to fit in
■ I.e. you hate acid wash jeans but you wear them because everyone else is
● Types of conformity that go with normative influences: compliance & conformity due to
identification
● Compliance:
○ Person tells you to do something and you do it right away
○ Reward, coercive, and legitimate social powers
○ Following orders or social norms
○ Not durable!
■ Only durable if the person with the power is around
● Identification:
, ○ Referent social power
○ Makes you want to conform so you can be like this person in order to be
liked/respected
○ Durable as long as identification lasts
■ Can be relatively long lasting
■ If you stop wanting to be like Michael Jordan and now you want to be like
Shaq, Michael Jordan’s reference power is gone
● Informational influences:
○ Motivation: need to be right, making the correct choice
○ Situation is ambiguous
■ Correct answer is not obvious
■ I.e. approaching a yellow light - look at what everyone else is doing
● Type of conformity that goes with informational influences: conformity with
internalization (acceptance)
● Internalization:
○ Based on outside information, you decide this is the correct decision
○ Durable!
■ Because you believe you’re correct
■ Unless someone unambiguously proves you wrong
○ Situation specific:
■ Won’t generalize a learned behaviour to the rest of your life
■ I.e. going to dinner with aliens example
● Pluralistic ignorance:
○ Not sure what the right thing to do is in an emergency
○ Normative pressure to not look like a freak so everyone remains calm
○ Looking around for info on what to do and everyone seems calm, no informational
influences
■ Information signal received is that nothing is wrong
○ One person freaking out sets off chain reaction
○ Diffusion of responsibility: someone else will do something
● Princeton drinking study
○ Princeton & Miller 1993
○ Asked princeton grads
■ 1) how comfortable are you with drinking on campus?
■ 2) how comfortable is the average Princeton student with drinking on
campus?
○ People thought other students were more comfortable than they actually were
with drinking, mostly everyone was pretty uncomfortable
■ Problem with perception
, ○ Interventions:
■ 1) told about pluralistic ignorance
■ 2) given speech on why it’s bad to drink
○ People who got speech didn’t change drinking habits, but people who were made
aware of pluralistic ignorance starting drinking a lot less
THE CLASSICS PT 1: SHERIF 1935
● Testing the impact of informational influences on conformity
● Very old conformity study
● Participants watch a laser dot move across a room and tell researcher how far dot moved
○ Dot didn’t actually move, autokinetic effect, makes an ambiguous situation
○ Autokinetic effect = no visual cues for perception system to correct our natural
sway so it seems like dot is moving
● IVs: order of presentation
○ Day 1-2-3-4:
■ Individual-group-group-group
■ Group-group-group-individual
○ 1 year follow up
■ Same room & dot, how far does it move
○ Ambiguity: some participants were told that there’s no right answer and they
explained the autokinetic effect to them
● DV:
○ Estimate in inches of how far dot moved
● Results:
○ I-G-G-G:
■ By the end of 100 individual trials they have decided their norm value for
how far dot has moved, but then do more trials with more people who had
very different answers
■ Everyone shares their judgments of how far dot had moved
■
■ Answers converged by the end of the 3 group trials - they start moving
their answers closer together
THE BASICS:
● Acting at odds with beliefs or perceptions because of pressure (real or imagined) from
others
● Individualistic and collectivist cultures both conform
● Collectivists are at peace with conformity but individualists are not
○ Strong urge to be a nonconformist
● Everyone is conforming to something
● Conformity makes society work - part of a social contract
○ Acceptance in a group = survival (evolutionary)
○ Dislike of non conformists
CONFORMITY IS UBIQUITOUS
● Conformity can make you genuinely think something terrible is good
● Conformity doesn’t add much bad or good to society - trends, fitting in
○ Sometimes it can lead to great harm - i.e. following orders in Holocaust, binge
drinking/smoking
● Elevator video - people mimic each other
6 TYPES OF SOCIAL POWER
● French & Raven 1959
● Any of the 6 types can operate together at any given moment
○ Not mutually exclusive
● You give a person their specific social power
1) Reward power
a) Person can reward you for conformity
b) Tangible rewards (i.e. money, good grades) and intangible rewards (i.e.
respect, admiration)
2) Coercive power
a) Can punish you for not conforming
b) Tangible (i.e. physically punish, arrest, take something away) and intangible
(i.e. rejection, hatred)
3) Legitimate power
, a) Person who you believe has the right to tell you what to think & how to
behave
b) Police, teachers, crossing guards
c) Noticing a police car and everyone on the road slows down
4) Referent power
a) Respect and admire this pearson, want to be like them & want them to like
you
b) Michael Jordan - so admired that people wanted Nike, Gatorade, etc
c) The cool kids, want to be accepted like them
5) Expert power
a) Someone with expertise that you don’t have
b) Doctors - we believe them because we don’t have expertise in medicine
c) Different from legitimate power but can also be tied together
i) Legit powers have the RIGHT to tell you what to do but expert
powers have the KNOWLEDGE to tell you what to do
6) Informational power
a) Person or group provides compelling information
b) Usually powerful when you are confused and see someone who is
confident in what they’re doing
3 TYPES OF CONFORMITY & 2 INFLUENCES ON CONFORMITY
● Normative influences
○ Motivation: needing to be liked, fitting in, avoiding punishment
○ Evolution - kicked out of a group means people won’t share their resources with
you = you die
○ Situation is non-ambiguous
■ Correct response is obvious but you’re still looking to others to make sure
you’re making the right choice to fit in
■ I.e. you hate acid wash jeans but you wear them because everyone else is
● Types of conformity that go with normative influences: compliance & conformity due to
identification
● Compliance:
○ Person tells you to do something and you do it right away
○ Reward, coercive, and legitimate social powers
○ Following orders or social norms
○ Not durable!
■ Only durable if the person with the power is around
● Identification:
, ○ Referent social power
○ Makes you want to conform so you can be like this person in order to be
liked/respected
○ Durable as long as identification lasts
■ Can be relatively long lasting
■ If you stop wanting to be like Michael Jordan and now you want to be like
Shaq, Michael Jordan’s reference power is gone
● Informational influences:
○ Motivation: need to be right, making the correct choice
○ Situation is ambiguous
■ Correct answer is not obvious
■ I.e. approaching a yellow light - look at what everyone else is doing
● Type of conformity that goes with informational influences: conformity with
internalization (acceptance)
● Internalization:
○ Based on outside information, you decide this is the correct decision
○ Durable!
■ Because you believe you’re correct
■ Unless someone unambiguously proves you wrong
○ Situation specific:
■ Won’t generalize a learned behaviour to the rest of your life
■ I.e. going to dinner with aliens example
● Pluralistic ignorance:
○ Not sure what the right thing to do is in an emergency
○ Normative pressure to not look like a freak so everyone remains calm
○ Looking around for info on what to do and everyone seems calm, no informational
influences
■ Information signal received is that nothing is wrong
○ One person freaking out sets off chain reaction
○ Diffusion of responsibility: someone else will do something
● Princeton drinking study
○ Princeton & Miller 1993
○ Asked princeton grads
■ 1) how comfortable are you with drinking on campus?
■ 2) how comfortable is the average Princeton student with drinking on
campus?
○ People thought other students were more comfortable than they actually were
with drinking, mostly everyone was pretty uncomfortable
■ Problem with perception
, ○ Interventions:
■ 1) told about pluralistic ignorance
■ 2) given speech on why it’s bad to drink
○ People who got speech didn’t change drinking habits, but people who were made
aware of pluralistic ignorance starting drinking a lot less
THE CLASSICS PT 1: SHERIF 1935
● Testing the impact of informational influences on conformity
● Very old conformity study
● Participants watch a laser dot move across a room and tell researcher how far dot moved
○ Dot didn’t actually move, autokinetic effect, makes an ambiguous situation
○ Autokinetic effect = no visual cues for perception system to correct our natural
sway so it seems like dot is moving
● IVs: order of presentation
○ Day 1-2-3-4:
■ Individual-group-group-group
■ Group-group-group-individual
○ 1 year follow up
■ Same room & dot, how far does it move
○ Ambiguity: some participants were told that there’s no right answer and they
explained the autokinetic effect to them
● DV:
○ Estimate in inches of how far dot moved
● Results:
○ I-G-G-G:
■ By the end of 100 individual trials they have decided their norm value for
how far dot has moved, but then do more trials with more people who had
very different answers
■ Everyone shares their judgments of how far dot had moved
■
■ Answers converged by the end of the 3 group trials - they start moving
their answers closer together
