Social Psychology 2. Topic 7: Opinion formation in groups. group norms, conformity, groupthink

Social Norms

• accepted ways think, feel, act

• mental representations 

• attitudes 

• information on appropriateness 

• tells us what right behavior/opinion/emotion is in the situation 

• learned by observing, reading guidebooks, etc.

Descriptive social norms

• what the group typically does

• desired path

• seeing what other people do

• Action heuristics

• through observations → follow their behavior

• e.g. red light → others walk → u walk 

• e.g. hungarian students start filling classroom from the back and international students from the front 

• has stronger effect if there is a mismatch

Injunctive social norms

• what the group should do

• written/unwritten rule of behavior

• what people believe should be done

• requires more cognitive effort: looking it up, read the rule book, …

• e.g. red light → don’t walk

Establishing a group norm (Sherif)

• it was a challenge to land a plane in darkness because the light on landing strip was not stable → light is moving → autokinetic effect (illusory motion) 

• experiment: peopleneeded to judge how much light is moving 

  • individual = a lot of different answers

  • second person involved = other person got taken into account and judgement was similar

  • that established group norm → (term=) informational influence

Informational influence (mastery)

• agreement of independent judgements made by many people is an idication of correctness → source of informational influence 

• motivation to be accurate increases reliance on others’ opinions 

• trusting them they know best 

Normative Influence (Ash) (Connectedness)

• clear, unambiguous perceptual judgements

• confederates posing as participants gave wrong judgements on trials

• actual participants frequently went along

• not adjusting behaviour out of accuracy but only to not stand out

• 100% right answer when asked individually

• 25% right answer when in a group

• only 25% never conformed

Conformity

• adjusting behavior/opinion/emotion to the rest of the group

• convergence of individuals`thoughts, feelings or behavior toward a group norm

• normative influence → connectedness: to avoid criticism, ostracism, express group identity

  • in sitzations where u want to belong and be a good group member

• informational influence → mastery: others are correct and i am wrong

  • especially in situations where u are not really sure like with optical illusions

Private Conformity

• informational influence leads to it

• convinced that the group is correct

• conform when the group is not present

• e.g. after sherfis study (autokinetic effect) on a follow up, the individuals still gave groups answer even when group was not present

Public conformity

• behave consistently with norm → even tho privately not accepted as coorect

• go along to get along

• reward and punishment

• ash experiment basis → only go with group norm when others are present

Consensus in groups: Is this a good thing?

• different people coming to the same conclusion → the conclusion is more likely to be valid 

• group processes do not garantee that consensus is reached through careful consideration of evidence 

Similarity-difference paradox

• more trustful to people similar to us → e.g. peace treaty

• but we trust more when more different people have the same opinion

• renovating isabella utca → it is good idea said by bilers, school, students, people living there and drivers => sounds like an excellent idea

Dark side of consensus

• often used on how to make a decision

• without consideration

  • based on heuristics

  • not based on well-considered arguments

• without interdependence

  • group members share a bias → convergence is not trustworthy

Groupthink (Janis: Bay of Pigs Invasion → perfect failure) 

• how did they make such a bad decision to sacrifice these soldiers in cuba? 

  • consensus achieved without considering all available evidence

  • members suppress their doubts

  • consensus contaminated by members’ shared backgrounds

  • public conformity without private acceptance

• happens in groups with members of high status/power

  -> leader says something and even tho they do not share the same opinion they agree; because they think he is a great leader and a trusted source

  -> happens in groups that feel extremly importent themselves

• spaceship challenger which blew up within a minute after launching; knew the problem beforehand -> group of engeneers and they had 1 hour to say yes or no to the launch; they knew the problem; felt the pressure -> they agreed to launch -> belief in inner greatness of group

False consensus effect 

• Overestimating the extent to which others agree with us 

• we don’t really accounter the people who disagree → politics 

• most people think like me 

• what we think is the right way to think 

Pluralistic Ignorance

• most members of a group privately reject a norm or belief, but incorrectly assume that everyone else accepts it, so they go along with it even though they personally disagree

• fairy tale -> sewer says textile will only be seen for people who are honest -> doesn’t say that he doesn’t see the dress

Cures of faulty group decisions

• Open enquirery

• Encourage dissenting

• members selected for diversity

• reduce pressure for conformity

• democratic leadership

• devil’s advocate role

Risk taking in groups 

• Rsik shift (Stoner, 1961)

• individuals take more risks when in group then when alone

  study was about judgement of carrer either individually or in group

  one job low promotion, no risk, stable lower income

  one job highr promotion, higher risk, higher income

  at which chance would you suggest Mr. A to take the risk

  people made more risky decisions in groups

Group polarozation (Moscovici)

• groups position bevomes more extreme as a result of discussion and the group’s influence

Superficial processing

• Normative influence

• heuristics

• others follow the norms

• desire to be the best group member

Systematic Processing

• Informational influence

• more people - more arguments 

• more compelling 

• more confident 

• more discussion