3. Conformity and Resistance

Conformity definition

Aligning one’s behaviour or expressed attitudes and beliefs with social norms or others’ behaviour

What are norms?

Implicit or explicit rules or principles that guide or constrain behaviour. Norms are understood by members of a group and applied without the force of laws

What did Sherif find regarding conformity using the autokinetic effect? Participants estimated how much the light was moving alone and in groups.

(The autokinetic effect is an illusion in which a point of light in a dark room appears to be moving)

• when responding alone, individuals came up with their own distinct estimates

• when responding in groups, they converged on common estimates, despite being entirely subjective

• in this norms help to resolve uncertainty (informational influence)

What was Asch’s design to test conformity?

• used a situation with less uncertainty

• task: say aloud which of the three lines on the right are the same length as the one of the left

In Asch’s study of conformity how often are participants correct alone?

99%

In Asch’s study of conformity what were the 3 key findings when participant responded in a group of confeds who provided the wrong answer?

• average conformity rate: 33%

• only 25% answered correctly consistently

• 50% conformed on 6 more critical trials (out of 12)

What did conformity in Asch’s study change to when ppts recorded their responses privately

dropped from 33% to 12.5%

• the study shows normative influence

What happened when the confed was in the minority in Asch’s study

ppts ridiculed the confederate

What is the informational influence explanation for conformity?

• one accepts information from another as evidence about reality

• e.g. “they must know something I don’t know”

What is the informational influence explanation for conformity?

• One conforms to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval

• e.g. “going along with the crowd”

What is the the referent informational influence explanation of conformity?

• one conforms to the norm of a group when one’s membership in that group is important or salient

• e.g. “that’s what people like me do”

What is the false consensus effect?

when one overestimates the degree to which attitudes or beliefs are shared by others

How did Ross et al study the false consensus effect?

• task: participants were asked to wear a sandwich board around campus

• measure 1: will you wear the sandwich board?

• measure 2: what percentage of your peers do you estimate would agree to wear the sandwich board

What were the results of Ross et al’s study of the false consensus effect?

estimated that more people would say the same thing that they did

What is pluralistic ignorance?

Conforming to what one mistakenly believes is the majority view, despite not personally endorsing it

What were the participants, scenario and measures used by Shelton and Richeson (2005) examining pluralistic ignorance in the context of intergroup interactions?

• participants: black and white students at an American University. Initial studies demonstrated that both groups wanted more intergroup friendships

• scenario ss

• measures: Did this happen because you/they were not interested in sitting together? Did this happen because you/they were afraid of rejection?

What did Shelton and Richeson (2005) find examining pluralistic ignorance in the context of intergroup interactions?

• when the other students in the story were white…

• because the white group had a lack of interest for them to join them, out of fear of rejection they’re not going to join them

• when the other students in the story were black…

• in intergroup condition their attributing this behaviour to this norm which doesn’t actually exist

What are illusory norms?

• our perception of norms is not always accurate

• but out behaviour may nevertheless be shaped by those perceived norms

What are the emotional costs of nonconformity?

guilt, shame, embarrassment, humiliation

what are the social costs of nonconformity?

isolation, ostracism, perceived as disruptive

What is the black sheep effect and what are some examples?

the costs of nonconformity can be particularly harsh for in group deviants

• people judge alcoholics from their in group more harshly

• children protest more strongly to norm violations by an ingroup member

How do tight and loose cultures differ in their sanctioning of norm violations?

• tight cultures have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behaviour

• loose cultures have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behaviour

What are moral norms?

• a subset of social norms which explicitly govern behaviours that have positive or negative outcomes for both the self and others

• e.g. fairness, trust, cooperation and etc

What might be the role of gossip with non-conformity?

• gossip is often perceived negatively

• some researchers argue that it is an important mechanism for enforcing social norms

What was the procedure of Beersma and Van Kleefs study of gossip and policing nonconformity?

ppts played a dictator game. they could donate lottery tickets to the group or keep them.

manipulations were:

• traceability: the degree to which behaviour in the game would be identifiable

• gossipy-ness: participants received a “general communication profile” which presented the mean scores of their three group members on four dimensions - two relevant to gossipyness

What did Beersma and Van Kleef find in their study of gossip and policing nonconformity?

• gossip serves as a social function

• gossip provides a moderating effect on pro-group behaviour

• gossip enforces moral norms

What is moral outrage?

• moral norms have powerful effects on people’s emotions and sense of purpose via both the commission of moral and immoral acts

• violation of moral norms elicit negative affect including moral outrage

What did Hoffman et al find measuring outrage in response to moral norm violations across different media?

• used experience sampling (5x per day, 3 days)

• analysed instances in which participants learned of moral/immoral acts

• compared sources and amount of outrage

• participants were more likely to learn about immoral acts versus moral acts and more likely to learn about it online

• ppts expressed the most moral outrage (anger and disgust) when they learned of the norm violation online

What were the predictors and dependent variable used by Brady et al to examine the role of moral emotions and norm transmission?

predictors:

• the number of moral-emotional words in a tweet about a controversial topic

• valence of words

• group membership: conservative/liberal based on algorithm examining follower network

dependent variables

• retweet count

What did brady et al find examining the role of moral emotions and norm transmission?

• the more moral-emotional words used (e.g., blame, fight, hate, shame), the more the were retweeted

• depending on the issue, valence of tweets and group membership moderated the effect

What are the two factors that follow-up research has suggested that moral outrage expression online is partly driven by?

reinforcement learning:

• social feedback to outrage expression predicted tweeting moral outrage on the following day. this effect was particularly powerful among newer users, and when social feedback was greater than expected

Norm learning

• users are less sensitive to reinforcement learning in ideologically extreme networks where moral outrage is the norm

Status, power and nonconformity

Powerful people are more likely to…

• eat with their mouths open

• interrupt conversation

• invade personal space

• sexualise and others and harass

• cheat

status, power and nonconformity

privileged people are more likely to:

• lie in negotiations

• cheat at a game

• receive bribes

What did Belezza, Gina and Keinan find studying whether nonconformity signals status?

Scenario: “Imagine that a woman is entering a luxury boutique in downtown Milan during winter. She looks approximately 35 years old”

Conditions

• nonconforming: she is wearing gym clothes and a jacket

• conforming: she is wearing a dress and a fur coat

Participants: pedestrian or shop assistant

Measure: likelihood of being high status

experts of the scenario (the shop assistants) reported that the non-conforming woman would be more likely to be high status

What did belezza, gina and keinan find studying if nonconformity signals status in low vs high prestige contexts

• found less smartly dressed teacher was given higher likelihood of being high status within high prestige contexts

What is the Robin Hood effect?

the notion that nonconformity signals that one would make a good leader when that nonconformity is prosocial

What was found in van Kleef et al’s study of whether nonconformity signals leadership ability?

• ppts watched video clips of three people in a room with an open window. At some point, the target character closes the window

Prosociality conditions

• prosocial: other people were visibly cold

• selfish (harmful): others visibly hot

Norm violation conditions:

• the window is/isn’t market “do not touch”

Measure: Power of affordance (would ppts want the target as a boss/leader/etc)

Power of affordance most given to target who performed prosocial behaviour, most particularly in the norm violation condition

Acts of prosocial nonconformity can signal leadership ability

• same finding found in van Keef’s study similar study using confed pouring cup of coffee in waiting room and it be offered or not

What are the key points regarding nonconformity?

• nonconformity has costs and benefits

• it is policed by social responses such as gossip

• moral norm violations elicit moral outrage, which contributes to norm policing

• status and power afford nonconformity

• nonconformity can convey status and power

• nonconformity can also lead to social change

What happens when individuals explicitly and deliberately resist societal norms for behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes?

When they deviate from the norm to challenge the norm itself?

Active resistance

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive deviance?

• descriptive deviance: diverge from the average group attitude in a direction consistent with the desirable group attitude

• prescriptive deviance: diverge from the average group attitude in a direction inconsistent with the desirable group attitude

What did Morrison and Miller find regarding people’s feelings towards being descriptive/prescriptive deviant?

Study 1: ppts imagined giving a controversial speech as either descriptively deviant, prescriptively deviant or nondeviant. Ppts asked how they would feel about it

Study 2: ppts gave speech on affirmative action, as one of three deviants. Measure how ppts felt and how observers saw they felt

• felt more better/ more positive things about being descriptive deviant rather than a prescriptive deviant

• and more pride

What did Morrison and Miller find in their third study regarding descriptive vs prescriptive deviance?

Predictors

• political affiliation of bumper sticker (democrat vs republican)

• county in which car was seen (blue vs red)

measures

• proportion of bumper stickers

• proportion of voters in that area

• in blue counties, the ratio of democratic-to republican stickers was higher than democratic-to-republican registered voters

• in red counties, the ratio of republican-to-democrat stickers was higher than republican-to-democrat registered voters

more likely to be descriptive deviants in county where their view is the majority

What did Mooijman et al (2018) find regarding the prevalence of moral outrage online and its role in active resistance?

Context: protests over death of freddie gray, who died in police custody

predictor: 18 million tweets from cities where there were protests (subset coded and used to train a model)

dependent variable: number of arrests in violent and peaceful protests

• the number of moral tweets increased on days with violent protests and predicted the number of arrests

What did Moojiman et al find in follow-up experiments testing causal relationships regarding moral outrage and action?

• high vs low moral convergence conditions

Measures

• is the issue a moral issue?

• is violence an acceptable response?

• participants who believed that issue was a moral issue felt that violence was more acceptable

• this pattern was particularly strong when participants believed that their morals converged with those of the majority

Key factors regarding resistance

• active deviance from norms is more likely when it is in the same direction as community attitudes

• moral outrage helps drive active resistance

The power of the vocal majority outline

• norms change

• majority views change

• sometimes when enough people deviate from the norm, the minority view becomes the majority view

What did Moscovici, Lage, and naffrechoux find regarding the power of the vocal minority?

• ppts repeatedly completed a colour labelling task in groups of other “participants”. The colour stayed blue but the light intensity changed

• ppts were asked (pubicly), what is the colour? and light intensity?

• manipulation: presence and size of a vocal minority

• measure: percentage of people who changed their response at least once

• percentage of influenced increased most with consistent minority of two, almost as much as with unanimous majority. But not as much as non-unanimous majority

• didn’t increase with inconsistent minority

What was some evidence of some lasting informational effect after moscovici’s minority influence exp?

• researchers also measured changes in participants’s threshold between blue and green

• the consistent minority pushed participants’ threshold between blue and green in the direction of green

What is the convergent-divergent theory as a mechanism for the vocal minority effect?

• nemeth argued for convergent-divergent theory

• diverging from the majority, so people inhibit their own thoughts that are at odds with those views. Good for consensus.

• Diverging from the minority is not threatening, so people are comfortable entertaining minority viewpoints. Good for innovation.

What is the conversion effect as a mechanism for the vocal minority effect?

• moscovici argued for the conversion effect

• individuals accept the majority view passively but actively engage in a validation process with the minority view.

• much like the systematic/ heuristic theory of persuasion

• ironically end up more persuaded by the good arguments or the minority group

What did Martin and Hewstone find regarding systematic vs heuristic processing of vocal minority messages?

participants presented arguments about the use of animals in research.

• argument conditions: strong vs weak

• source conditions: the source was representing a minority vs majority viewpoint (researchers controlled for the attitude of the ppts)

• measure: agreement with source

• showed systematic processing is used with minority - strong arguments eliciting more agreement than that of heuristic processing used for majority

What are tipping points for social change?

when the size of the minority reaches a specific proportion of the population, norms flip quickly and dramatically so that the minority attitude, belief, or behaviour becomes the norm

What did Centola et al find regarding the tipping points for social change?

• groups of ppts played a name matching game

• in each round of the game, ppts get paired with a partener

• both win points if they provide the same name

• groups first complete a series of rounds to establish a norm

• then the researchers introduce a committed minority

• manipulation: size of the minority

• groups reached a tipping point when the minority was about 25%

• below 25 - stuck with the old name. Over - flip with which new name was adopted

4 key points regarding change?

• a vocal minority can change norms, beliefs, and behaviour

• particularly when consistent

• the influence of the minority voice on individuals may emerge implicitly

• consistent resistance may affect change via a critical mass