Norms & Behaviour
28 important questions on Norms & Behaviour
Once norms are formed by group consensus, what do they act as?
When do norms have their strongest impact in guiding behaviour?
- Direct reminders
- Seeing other people following norm
What can activate norms?
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What experiment shows that direct reminders can activate norms?
Task: notices placed on cars: either saying no littering or something completely unrelated promoting the local museum.
Result:
25% of those receiving the irrelevant message discarded it
Only 10% of those receiving the direct reminder about anti littering forms discarded it
(p. 354 social textbook)
What experiment shows that groups activate norms?
---> Informing guests that the previous occupants of the room had reused their towels, increased the number of guests who did the same
Two types of message:
- in group message
- control message
Results
- all in group norm-messages yielded more towel reusage than the control message
(p. 355-356 social textbook)
What makes a group more accessible and effective in accessing norms?
(p. 356 social textbook)
What effect does deindividuation have on behaviour?
- Decreases accessibility of personal standards
- Can produce negative or positive behaviour
Why do norms guide behaviour so effectively?
- Sometimes norms are explicitly enforced i.e. people tend to use reward/punishment to motivate people to adhere to group standards
(p. 363 social textbook)
- But norm may not be followed in private
- More often, norms are internalized as the right and proper things to believe, feel, or do
- People follow them even in private
(p. 363-364 social textbook)
What are the 2 most powerful norms in guiding behaviour?
- the norm of commitment
---> these benefit both individual members of a group and the group as a whole
(p. 364 social textbook)
Describe the norm of returning favours.
- Norm of social reciprocity
---> this norm is universal (Alvin Gouldner, 1960)
- Basic in almost all societies
Example: sending a dollar or two in an envelope with questionnaire induces more people to fill it out
- more examples p. 365-367 social textbook
What experiment demonstrates the norm of returning favours?
Confederate does small, “thoughtful” favour for participant
Confederate is friendly or rude
Later asks participant to buy tickets
What is an example for reciprocity for concession? When is this most effective?
Most effective if
- First request large enough to guarantee refusal, not so large as to create suspicion
- Target is given chance to compromise (first refuse, then accept)
- Second request is related to the first, and comes from same person (who made the concession)
(Cialdini and others, 1975)
- p. 367 - 368 social textbook
What experiment demonstrates that the door-in-the-face technique is extremely effective?
Researchers asked two groups to volunteer
Group 1 - asked if they were willing to accompany a group of teenage delinquents on a 2 hour trip to the zoo = only 17% agreed
Group 2 - were first asked if they would spend 2 years serving as personal councillors to juvenile delinquents
= all refused this long term commitment
---> the request was then downgraded to the 2 hour zoo trip
= 51% of participants agreed
Supporting evidence - can get young children to do their homework (Chan & Au, 2011)
(p. 367 social textbook)
What is meant by the norm of social commitment?
What study demonstrates that people will go to great lengths to maintain a commitment?
Took place on a crowded NY beach
1 condition: the researcher made an explicit social contact with neighbouring sunbathers i.e. he asked them to watch his radio while he was a away for a short time
Control condition: he only interacted with them socially i.e. he asked them for the time before leaving
Confederate tried to steal the radio
Results:
- 95% of group 1 intervened, trying to stop they thief
- only 20% of control condition intervened
(p. 368 social textbook)
What is meant by the low-ball technique?
- Obtain agreement to a deal
- Then, reveal negative aspects that significantly raise costs, reduce benefits
- Many people still feel obligated to go through with the deal
(p. 369 social textbook)
What is an example of the low-ball technique?
Students recruited for psychological experiment, agree to participate
Then, learn it starts at 7 a.m.
56% still agreed to participate as compared to the 31% who were told about early time up front
Regarding the Milgrim's study of obedience, why did so many perticipants obey the experimenter to continue the shocks?
- Did they see through the deception and realize no shocks were actually delivered?
No - Participants’ evident distress rules out both of these ideas
---> study has been replicated to include women, men and children in different countries (Askenasy, 1978; Blass, 2000 - more exps p. 372 social textbook)
Is obedience limited to males or to Americans?
How are the norms of obedience activated?
- Incompatible norms must be suppressed
- Norm of social responsibility: Help those who need help
- Closeness of suffering victim increases accessibility of that norm, decreases obedience
- Considering that victim deserves his/her suffering can disengage that norm
Regarding the Milgrim's study, how did the experimenter have so much power over the participant when is came to obedience?
- Part of Milgram study’s power came from the sequential nature of demands on participants
- Early acts were benign, participating up to a point made it hard to quit later
- Terrible nature of situation only became evident later (Participants were low-balled)
- Actions created dissonance (“I tortured him, but I am a good person.”)
Dissonance reduced by rationalizing act (“He deserves it for making such stupid mistakes.”)
(more info p. 379-380 social textbook)
What is perhaps the most important lesson we can take away from Milgram's studies?
---> obedience works well most of the time, and for that reason, resisting authority is very difficult
What is meant by normative trade-offs?
Complex societies and institutions could not function without obedience, what does this result in?
- Difficult to escape power of social situations that invoke that norm
- It was more difficult for actual participants than those reading about the Milgram study usually imagine
- 35% of the participants refused to continue on with the experiment
What is an example showing people resisting authority?
Authority figure asks groups to perform obviously unfair acts
Almost all groups resisted, disobeyed
(more useful info p. 381-382 social textbook)
By examining what happened when groups rebelled (e.g. Gamson et al., 1982 exp), what did researchers find?
- reactance
- systematic processing
- using norms against norms
(p. 382 social textbook)
Why do people respond with reactance to a simple request but not to an order to shock another person?
i.e. if we accept a norm as legitimate, we are likely to apply, even if it is used in a heavy handed way
When normative pressure is perceived as inappropriate, reactance is triggered
---> Milgram exp = the experimenter was perceived as legitimate
---> MHRC study = participants disputed a "marketing consultant's" right to tell them what they should say and do
(p. 382 social textbook)
How can systematic processing help us escape from the inappropriate use of norms?
- Question how norms are used
- Draw attention to use of low-ball technique
- Question claims about relationships
- Is the salesman really your ally against the boss, trying to get you a low price?
- Question others’ definitions of situation
(more info p. 383-384 social textbook)
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