Norms & Conformity
17 important questions on Norms & Conformity
What are social norms?
What is the difference between descriptive social norms and injunctive social norms?
Injunctive social norms - agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people should think, feel or do
e.g. parents do love their children = descriptive social norm; parents should love their children = injunctive social norm
---> when people act in the same way over again, they begin to think that they should act that way, and descriptive norms morph into injunctive ones (Guala & Mittone, 2010)
(p. 313 social textbook)
What is the difference between public and private conformity?
Public conformity: Behave consistently with norms that are not privately accepted as correct
(private acceptance of group norms is far more prevalent and powerful p. 317 social textbook)
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What is the false consensus effect? (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977)
- the more important the connection is to these other people, the stronger the false consensus effect is (Morrison & Matthes, 2011)
EXP: Goel, Mason & Watts
= on Facebook, people significantly over-estimated the extent to which they and their friends agreed politically
---> shows false consensus at both individual and group level
(p. 318 social textbook)
What is meant by informational influence?
p. 319 social textbook
i.e. believing input from others increases their chances of making an accurate decision - particularly likely to conform when stakes are high (Lun, Sinclair, Whitchurch & Glenn, 2007) - p. 319 social textbook
What study demonstrates that people are more accurate when they rely more on the group response and less on their own?
TASK: participants judged the calorie value of food after hearing others also make the same estimates
- some participants could see the food whereas others were blindfolded
RESULTS
- participants much more accurate when they could rely on others' responses
- when they could see the food, they were overly swayed by their own judgement
(p. 319 social textbook)
What are 3 motivational functions?
- need for connectedness
- need to value me and mine
(good diagram slide 3, p. 3 lecture notes)
---> most of the time, agreement with in-group others fulfils all 3 motives simultaneously (p. 324 social textbook)
What is meant by a reference group?
E.g.
Intellective tasks: People with relevant knowledge and skills, good eyesight, etc.
Judgmental tasks: People who share our values, prejudices, frames of reference
Often those who share our social category memberships
What kind of groups have more influence than others?
(We do not expect to agree with out-group members - so there is little social influence from them (Robbins & Krueger, 2005)
= people are far more affected by social influence from in-group than from out-group members (Turner, 1982)
(p. 322-323 social textbook)
- agreeing with in-groups fulfils mastery, connectedness, and me and mine motives (p. 324 social textbook)
In what situations are mastery or connectedness more important in motivational functions regarding forming norms?
- Mastery most important when task has verifiably correct solution (intellective tasks)
- Connectedness most important with value-laden decisions, i.e., there is no verifiable right answer (judgmental tasks)
- Most of the time, both motives are important
What can explain polarized norm formation?
What can polarization result from?
- Systematic processing (thinking deeply about others’ reasoning and evidence) - makes group polarization even more likely (p. 329 social textbook)
---> these 2 processes make group polarization a likely outcome of norm formation as the average position in the group grows more extreme (p. 328 social textbook)
Describe how superficial processing has social influence on polarization.
- Majority position can be a shortcut, heuristic - provides a shortcut to what people believe to be correct
- If many group members rely on the majority, then group moves toward the extreme
- Movement to extreme also motivated by the desire to be best the representative of group (Codol, 1975)
- p. 328 social textbook
What 5 aspects can undermine true consensus?
- consensus without consideration
- consensus without independence (consensus is valid when multiple independent views converge)
- consensus without acceptance
- groupthink
---> good diagram incorporating more all of these, slide 1, p. 5
Do we have a reliance on consensus?
But: It can also lead to biased and unreliable decisions
What are 4 remedies for faulty consensus seeking?
---> Select group membership for diversity of opinions, backgrounds
---> Reduce pressures for public conformity
---> All of these help give minority viewpoints due consideration
(p. 339 social textbook)
How can using norms strengthen consensus?
- Norms favoring independence from contamination
- Norms favoring voicing dissenting opinions rather than going along with public conformity
(p. 346- 347 social textbook)
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