Social psychology
Chapter 9
Norms and conformity
What are social norms?
Because people are profoundly influenced by others’ ideas and actions, interaction or communication causes group members’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to become more alike. Whether a judgment task is clear-cut or ambiguous, trivial or important, individual members’ views converge to form a social norm. Norms reflect the group’s generally accepted way of thinking, feeling, or acting.
Social norms are similar to attitudes in that both are mental representations of appropriate ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
But whereas attitudes represent an individual’s positive or negative evaluations, norms reflect shared group evaluations of what is true or false, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate.
Descriptive social norms: agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people think, feel, or do.
Injunctive social norms: agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people should think, feel or do.
Most social norms have both qualities, because most people think, feel, or behave in a certain way that we think they should. When people act in the same way over and over again, they begin to think that they should act that way. Descriptive norms morph into injunctive norms.
Public versus private conformity
Conformity: the convergence of individuals’ thoughts, feelings, or behavior toward a social norm.
Occurs for two reasons:
Most of the time people privately accept group norms as their own, believing them to be correct and appropriate.
Sometimes people publicly go along with norms they do not privately accept.
Private conformity: private acceptance of social norms.
When people are truly persuaded that the group is right, when they willingly and privately accept group norms as their own beliefs, even if the group is no longer physically present.
Public conformity: overt behavior consistent with social norms that are not privately accepted.
Only a surface change.
We often privately conform to social norms without even realizing we are doing so.
Expecting consensus
Private conformity comes about because we expect to see the world the same way similar others see it. We often assume that most other people share our opinions and preferences. Agreement with others increases our confidence that our views are correct, whereas disagreement undermines that certainty.
The key reason people conform to norms is that we expect everyone to see the world the same way.
Norms fulfill mastery motives
Agreeing with others assures people that they are in contact with a common reality. When people privately conform because they believe a group’s norms reflect reality, the group has informational influence.
Norms are important because we need other people to help us construct an appropriate view of reality.
Consensus tells us something about reality.
Descriptive norms are such powerful guides to reality that we are often unaware of their influence and take them for granted.
If we believe that group norms reflect reality, then conforming to them satisfies our need for mastery. We believe the group has more knowledge than we do, so accepting their input makes sense if we want to make better decisions.
Informational influence: the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain mastery of reality. Because they believe a group’s norms reflect reality.
Particularly when the stakes are high.
Individuals who are strongly motivated to acquire a clear and accurate view of the world conform more to others.
Once an adequate consensus had formed, adding to the size of that consensus has not further effect.
The exact size of the consensus needed for maximal influence can differ form one judgment to another, but people share a good idea of what the burden of proof for a particular judgment should be.
As the size of the dissenting minority increases, the majority’s opinion seems more and more open to question, and is less likely to be adopted. When there is no longer a consensus about reality, the group loses its power to persuade.
Disagreement undermines our confidence in our view of reality. Thus, there is a potential for informational influence whenever people find themselves at odds with others with whom they expect to agree. Under these conditions, agreeing with the group consensus helps re-establish our confidence that we are indeed in touch with reality.
Norms fulfill connectedness motives
Agreeing with others also gives people the feeling of belonging with others. A group has normative influence when members conform to it to attain a positive and valued social identity.
Normative influence: the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain connectedness and a valued social identity.
Satisfies our needs for connectedness because consensus provides and expresses our identity and values.
People typically adopt group norms whenever they are reminded of their membership in a group that is important to them.
There are many connectedness benefits of conformity to group norms.
Being out of step with group norms undermines the secure social identity we derive from belonging to a group.
Conforming to group norms helps maintain and reconfirm our sense of identity.
Whose consensus? Me and mine norms are the ones that count
People expect to agree with those who share attributes relevant to the judgment at hand. In-groups often serve as reference groups, and people are much more influenced by in-group tan out-group others. Other in-group members do not have to be present for conformity to occur, but having other group members present increases conformity even more. The more highly member identify with the group, the greater the reference group’s impact.
Reference group: those people accepted as an appropriate source of information for a judgment because they share the attributes relevant for making that judgment.
The reference group to turn to depends on the kind of judgment or evaluation you are making.
The reference groups for a value-laden or opinion-based judgment, people usually expect to agree with others who share their pastimes, tastes and values. If others don’t appear to have the qualifications for consensus on value-laden issues, their opinions hold no sway.
Because of all the things we share with them, our long-standing memberships in national, ethnic, religious, age, or political in-groups can provide ready-made reference groups.
Because they are like us and liked by us, we often use in-group as reference groups, regardless of the judgments we make.
We expect to agree with members of the groups to which we belong.
But we don’t expect to agree with out-group members.
People are far more affected by social influence form in-group than from out-group members.
Persuasive appeals from in-group members are treated differently than those from out-group members.
The in-group membership of the message source can act as a persuasion heuristic. Especially if motivation or opportunity to process are in short supply.
Because the information they provide is usually important to group memberships, persuasive appeals from in-group members are typically processed more systematically than appeals from out-group members. The more important the group, the more processing the in-group message receives.
Messages from out-group members have little impact, regardless of argument quality.
The power of persuasive appeals from the in-group shows that you do not need to have other group members present to conform to group norms. The group is part of the individual. Conformity can occur whenever group belonging becomes salient. But having other group members present can increase conformity to group norms even more.
Mastery, connectedness, or Me and mine?
Although particular circumstances can make one motive more important than another, agreeing with in-groups fulfills mastery, connectedness, and me and mine motives.
Particular circumstances can tip the balance in motives for conformity toward mastery or connectedness concerns.
Mastery concerns are particularly closely associated with descriptive norms.
Connectedness concerns are particularly associated with injunctive norms.
Most of the time, agreement with in-group others fulfills all three motives simultaneously.
Adherence to in-group norms on a day-to-day basis provides us with motivational benefits.
Need for mastery → informational influence
Need for connectedness → normative influence
Need to value me and mine → influence from valued in-group
Leads all to private conformity
Group polarization: going to normative extremes
When a majority of group members initially favor one side of the issue, communication and interaction usually move the group to an even more extreme position.
Group polarization: the process by which a group’s initial average position becomes more extreme following group interaction.
Explaining polarized norm formation
When people process superficially, merely relying on other’s positions can produce polarization of group norms as undecided or moderate group members move toward the group position and try to show that they are good group members.
When people process systematically, both other’s positions and arguments work together to polarize group norms. Majority arguments are numerous, receive more discussion, seem more compelling and are presented more persuasively.
Superficial processing: relying on other’s positions
People often know the group’s position, but not why they came to such a position.
Many overt and subtle cues can signal or communicate what the group thinks.
In cases like these, people can use the group position alone as a guide to what their own position should be.
Consensus is used as a heuristic.
Hearing what people think before a discussion begins makes group members less likely to pay attention to the information later exchanged.
How superficial reliance on consensus heuristic leads to extreme positions:
Even when other’s positions are all we know, our desire for mastery and our wish to be valued by important others encourage us to move toward, or even beyond, the majority’s view.
Group members who hold the majority may move even farther toward the extreme.
Systematic processing: attending to both positions and arguments
When the evaluations that a group makes are important or affect the group directly, group members shift their processing to high gear.
They consider not just the preferences of others but in addition they supporting arguments and evidence.
Systematic processing makes group polarization more likely.
When consensus seeking goes awry
Consensus implies that opinions are valid, but this inference is true only when consensus is achieved in the right way. A consensus cannot be trusted if its arises from unthinking reliance on other’s opinions, contamination by shared biases, or public conformity. Such a consensus offers only the illusion of mastery and connectedness and can lead to situations of pluralistic ignorance, where everyone is publicly conforming to a norm that nobody privately endorses.
Consensus without consideration: unthinking reliance on consensus
If we merely rely on the presence of consensus, we can be influenced by an unreliable or even a manipulated consensus.
Part of the strength of a consensus is that if different people come to the same conclusion after reviewing the available evidence, the conclusion is more likely to be valid. But if people skip carefully consideration of the evidence, then the consensus they contribute to is not trustworthy.
Consensus without independence: contamination
The idea that a consensus provides reality insurance rests on an assumption: we think we can trust the consensus because multiple individuals considered the evidence independently and from diverse perspectives, and came to the same conclusion.
People understand that shared biases might contaminate group decisions.
One one hand, we trust a consensus when independent and separate individuals endorse it.
On the other hand, we really expect to agree only with those who share our characteristics.
Consensus without acceptance: public conformity
The most dangerous threat to the ideal of consensus formation is public conformity.
Pluralistic ignorance: occurs when everyone publicly conforms to an apparent norm that no one in fact privately accepts.
Consensus seeking at it worst: groupthink
Groupthink occurs when groups become more concerned with reaching consensus than with reaching consensus in a way that ensures its validity. Groupthink can be avoided by safeguarding consideration of alternatives, independence of views, and private acceptance.
Groupthink: group decision making that is impaired by the drive to reach consensus regardless of how the consensus is formed.
Typically occurs when groups feel overwhelming pressure of agreement to maintain a positive view of the group in the face of threat.
Groupthink processes produce an illusion of unanimity, rather than true consensus. Pluralistic ignorance reigns.
Remedies for faulty consensus seeking
The solution lies in making sure that consensus is reached the right way.
To ensure that consensus is not contaminated by shared biases, group membership can be intentionally selected for diversity.
To reduce pressures toward public conformity that contribute to apparent consensus, public votes should be the exception rather than the rule.
The role of the leader should be minimized in favor of equally valued contributions from all members, and the voicing of doubts and objections should be encouraged.
The key is to ensure that all view are thoroughly considered when groups form a consensus.
Successful minority influence
Minority vies can sway the majority. To be influential, the minority must offer an alternative consensus, remain consistent, strike the right balance between similarity to and difference from the majority, and promote systematic processing.
Offering an alternative consensus
The main source of a minority’s power is tis potential to undermine the majority’s consensus and to promote an alternative view.
The alternative view must be a consensus in its own right. It must be supported by more than one person. It must also be be presented in such a way that the majority takes it seriously.
When a minority successfully challenges the majority view, the effect can extend beyond the single immediate issue, pushing majority group members to be more open-minded in the future.
Negotiating similarity and difference
In-group minority views have much greater social influence success than out-group members with the same views.
Confirming one’s in-group credentials by first agreeing with the majority before dissenting is a particularly effective way to promote minority influence.
Promoting systematic processing
When minorities manage their dissent effectively, other group members are more likely to systematically process their arguments. Their plausible alternative creates uncertainty about reality and that stimulates thinking among majority members. The majority seeks additional information about the issue and processes it in greater depth.
Processes of minority and majority influence
By and large, majorities and minorities influence others by the same processes. Both majorities and minorities can satisfy concerns about mastery and connectedness, encourage heuristic or systematic processing of the evidence, and elicit public compliance or private acceptance.
Beyond minority influence: using norms to strengthen consensus
The best way to promote effective group norm formation and consensus seeking is to set up norms that make group members more critical thinkers as a group rather than as individuals. When group members are united behind norms of seeking consensus with systematic consideration of alternatives, independence from contamination, and the conviction of private acceptance, the desire for mastery and for connectedness work together to produce a valid consensus.
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What is social psychology? - summary of chapter 1 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)
Social psychology
Chapter 1
What is social psychology?
Social psychology: the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others.
The scientific study
Social psychologist gather knowledge systematically by means of scientific methods. These methods help to produce knowledge that is less subject to the biases and distortions that often characterize common-sense knowledge.
The effects of social and cognitive processes
The presence of other people, the knowledge and opinions they pass on to us, and our feelings about the groups to which we belong all deeply influence us through social processes, whether we are with other people or alone. Our perceptions, memories, emotions, and motives also exert a pervasive influence on us through cognitive processes. Effects of social and cognitive processes are not separate but inextricably intertwined.
Social processes: the ways in which input from the people and groups around us affect our thoughts, feelings and actions.
Affect us even when others are not physically present.
The processes that affect us when others are present depend on how we interpret those others and their actions.
Cognitive processes: the ways in which our memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and motives influence our understanding of the world and guide our actions.
The way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others
Social psychology focuses on the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others. Understanding these processes can help us comprehend why people act the way they do and may also help solve important social problems.
Social psychology seeks and understanding of the reasons people act the way they do in social situations.
Social psychology is a product of its past.
Social psychology becomes an empirical science
Soon after the emergence of scientific psychology in the late 19th century, researchers began considering questions about social influences on human thought and action.
Social psychology splits from general psychology over what causes behavior
Throughout much of the 20th century, North American psychology was dominated by behaviorism, but social psychologists maintained an emphasis on the important effects of thoughts and feelings on behavior.
The rise of Nazism shapes the development of social psychology
In the 1930s and 1940s, many European social psychologists fled to North
.....read more Perceiving individuals - summary of chapter 3 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 3
Perceiving individuals
Our knowledge about people’s characteristics and the ways they are related to one another is one type of mental representation.
Our stored knowledge influences virtually all of our social beliefs and behaviors.
Impressions guide our actions in ways that meet our needs for both concrete rewards and connectedness to other people.
The raw materials of first impressions
Perceptions of other people begin with visible cues including:
Familiarity affects impressions, leading to increased liking.
Cues that stand out and attract attention in the particular context in which they occur are particularly influential.
Impressions from physical appearance
Physical appearance influences our impressions of other people.
The way people look is usually our first our only cue to what they are like.
Physical beauty, particularly a beautiful face, calls up a variety of positive expectations.
We expect highly attractive people to be more interesting, warm, outgoing and socially skilled.
People from different cultures generally agree about who is physically attractive and about the traits attractiveness conveys.
Baby-faced males were viewed as more naive, honest, kind and warm.
Impressions from nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication influences whether we like people, how we think they are feeling, and what we think they are like.
In general, we like people who express their feelings nonverbally more than less expressive individuals.
Specific nonverbal cues affect liking, even when we’re not aware of them.
Body language offers a special insight into people’s moods and emotions.
Impressions from nonverbal behavior can be formed quickly and are often quite accurate.
Detection and deception
Detecting lies is not always easy.
Paying attention instead to the diagnostic hints of deception can increase successful detection of lies from those within our own culture, as well as from those from other cultures.
Impressions form familiarity
Most of us tend to develop positive feelings about the people we encounter frequently in or everyday lives.
Mere exposure: exposure to a stimulus without any external reward, which creates familiarity with the stimulus and generally makes people feel more positively about it.
Impressions from environments
Clues to other’s personality, behavior and values can be seen in the real and virtual environments
.....read more The self - summary of chapter 4 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 4
The self
Self-concept: all on an individual’s knowledge about his or her personal qualities.
Sources of the self-concept
People construct the self-concept in much the same way they form impressions of others, by interpreting various types of cues. People often learn their own characteristics from their observed behaviors. They also use thoughts and feelings and other people’s reactions to form impressions of themselves. Finally, people compare themselves to others to learn what characteristics make them unique.
Learning who we are from our own behavior
Self-perception theory: the theory that we make inferences about our personal characteristics on the basis of our overt behaviors when internal cues are weak or ambiguous.
We can learn things about ourselves by observing our own behavior.
People rely on their behavior to draw inferences about themselves, and this is especially true when we are first developing a self-concept or when we do not have a good sense of who we are in a particular domain.
People are especially likely to draw self-inferences from behaviors that they see as having freely chosen.
Providing external rewards often undermines intrinsic motivation.
Even imagined behaviors can be input for self-perception processes.
Thinking about actual or imagined behavior increases the accessibility of related personal characteristics.
Learning who we are from thoughts and feelings
An important cue to learning who we are comes from an interpretation of our own thoughts and feelings. This might have more impact than our behaviors.
Learning who we are from other people’s reactions
Other people’s views of us also serve as a cue in the development of the self-concept.
Reactions of others serve as a kind of mirror, reflecting our image so that we, too, can see it.
Being explicitly labeled as a trait may shape your self-concept. Other people;s more subtle reactions can also do the trick.
Other people’s reactions have the largest effects on people whose self-concepts are uncertain or are still developing.
Learning who we are from social comparison
Social comparison theory: the theory that people learn about and evaluate their personal qualities by comparing themselves to others.
Two effects:
Perceiving groups - summary of chapter 5 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Sociale psychologie
Chapter 5
Perceiving groups
Discrimination: positive or negative behavior directed toward a social group and its members.
Prejudice: a positive or negative evaluation of a social group and its members.
Stereotype: a mental representation or impression of a social group that people form by associating particular characteristics and emotions with the group.
Can be changed.
Targets of prejudice: social groups
Any group that shares a socially meaningful common characteristic can be a target for prejudice. Different cultures emphasize different types of groups, but race, religion, gender, age, social status, and cultural background are important dividing lines in many societies.
Social group: two or more people who share some common characteristic that is socially meaningful for themselves or for others.
Socially meaningful.
Social categorization: dividing the world into social groups
People identify individuals as members of social groups because they share socially meaningful features. Social categorization is helpful because it allows people to deal with others efficiently and appropriately. Social categorization also helps us feel connected to other people. However, social categorization exaggerates similarities within groups and differences between groups. It forms he basis for stereotyping.
Social categorization: the process of identifying individual people as members of a social group because they share certain features that are typical of the group.
Why?
Negative effects
The content of stereotypes
Many different kinds of characteristics are included in stereotypes, which can be positive or negative. Some stereotypes accurately reflect actual differences between groups, though in exaggerated form. Other stereotypes are completely inaccurate.
Stereotypes include many types of characteristics
Stereotypes usually go well beyond what groups look like or act like, to include the personality traits group members are believed to share and the positive or negative emotions or feelings group members arouse in others.
Stereotypes can be either positive or negative
Stereotypes can include positive as well as negative characteristics.
Even positive stereotypes can have
Social identity - summary of chapter 6 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 6
Social identity
Being a member of a group influences many of our thoughts, feelings and actions.
Some group memberships are so important that they become a basic apart of our view of ourselves.
Self-categorization: the process of seeing oneself as a member of a social group.
Flexible and can readily shift depending on social context.
Social identity: those aspects of the self-concept that derive from an individual’s knowledge and feelings about the group membership he or she shares with others.
Extends the self out beyond the skin to include other members of our groups.
Most group memberships are stable en enduring.
Learning about our groups
People learn about the groups to which they belong in the same ways that they learn the characteristics of other groups: by observing other group members or from the culture.
What we and other group members do often becomes the basis for group stereotypes.
But what we do is strongly influenced by our roles.
Performing a role based on membership in some group can shape our future behaviors and, ultimately, our self-knowledge.
Feeling like a group member
Knowledge about group membership may be activated by direct reminders, such as:
Group membership is significant in some cultures and for some individuals, who tend to see the world in terms of that group membership.
Direct reminders of membership
The process is often subtle.
Circumstances remind us of our similarities with others, and this activates group membership.
The mere presence of other in-group members can be a potent reminder.
When group similarities are highlighted membership and all it entails becomes even more accessible.
This is powerful enough to overcome alternative categorizations that might be important in other circumstances.
Presence of out-group members
The presence of even a single out-group member is enough to increase our sense of in-group membership.
Being a minority
People are more likely to think of themselves in terms of their membership in smaller groups than in larger groups. Especially when they are sole representatives of their group in a situation.
Conflict or rivalry
The most potent factor that brings group membership to mind is ongoing conflict or rivalry between groups.
The importance of conflict also means that people identify more strongly with groups
Attitude and attitude change - summary of chapter 7 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 7
Attitude and attitude change
Attitude: a mental representation that summarizes an individual’s evaluation of a particular person, group, thing, action or idea.
Attitude change: the process by which attitudes form and change by the association of positive or negative information with the attitude object.
Persuasion: the process of forming, strengthening or changing attitudes by communication.
Measuring attitudes
Researches infer attitudes from people’s reactions to attitude objects. Such reactions can range form subtle uncontrollable evaluative reactions that people are unaware of, to more deliberate and controllable expressions of support or opposition. Assessing these different reactions shows that implicit attitudes can sometimes differ from explicit attitudes.
Two aspects of people’s reactions are important for attitudes:
The most straightforward way to measure attitudes to through self-report.
Social psychologists usually get people to report their attitudes using attitude scales.
Researchers need to keep in mind that the words they use and the response options they offer can subtly change the attitudes people report.
Social psychologists also use observations of behavior to gauge attitudes.
Explicit attitude: the attitude that people openly and deliberately express about an attitude objecct in self-report or by behavior.
People can control their explicit attitudes to hide or deny their true attitudes.
Techniques to get around people’s desire to hide what they really think:
Implicit attitude: automatic and uncontrollable positive or negative evaluation of an attitude object.
Measures:
People’s explicit attitudes sometimes differ from their implicit attitudes.
Such differences don’t mean that implicit attitudes are pure measures of what people ‘really’ think about attitude objects, while their explicit attitudes are designed to dissemble or distort.
Implicit attitudes simply reflect the positive or negative associations that people have to an object.
Explicit attitudes are more likely to reflect the evaluations that people deliberately endorse, and these include the attitudes they want to have, not just the ones they want to be seen having.
Attitude
.....read more Attitudes and behavior - summary of chapter 8 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 8
Attitudes and behavior
Attitudes and behaviors are often related for two reasons:
Some important conditions have to be in place for attitudes to guide behavior.
Attitudes are only one of several factors that can affect behavior.
From action to attitude via superficial processing
Behavior is an important part of the information on which people base attitudes. If behaviors change, attitudes can also change. When people process superficially, attitudes can be based on associations with actions or on inferences from actions. Like other forms of superficial processing, actions are more likely to affect attitudes in this way when people lack the motivation or ability to process more thoroughly.
At the most superficial level of processing, attitudes can be based on associations with actions.
Associations with action
Movements that are strongly associated with liking and disliking can rub off when they occur in the presence of an attitude object.
Because some muscle movements and positive or negative evaluation is very strong, activating those muscles and movements makes particular attitudes more likely. But this effect depends upon what such movements mean to us.
People believe that actions reflect intention and motivation. Just as we think that others’ actions reflect their inner states, we are used to assuming our own do too, unless something tells us otherwise.
Inferences from action: self-perception theory
People often make straightforward inferences from their actions to their attitudes.
People infer attitudes by observing their own behaviors and the situations in which those actions occur.
Like saying what you think someone else wants to hear. What people say colors their own attitudes.
People often infer their attitudes from their behavior, but self-perception is likely only when people chose their own behaviors freely.
The foot-in-the-door technique: could you do this small thing (first)?
Foot-in-the-door technique: a technique for increasing compliance with a large request by first asking people to go along with a smaller request, engaging self-perception processes.
How does it work?
When do action-to-attitude inferences change attitudes?
Norms and conformity - summary of chapter 9 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 9
Norms and conformity
What are social norms?
Because people are profoundly influenced by others’ ideas and actions, interaction or communication causes group members’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to become more alike. Whether a judgment task is clear-cut or ambiguous, trivial or important, individual members’ views converge to form a social norm. Norms reflect the group’s generally accepted way of thinking, feeling, or acting.
Social norms are similar to attitudes in that both are mental representations of appropriate ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
But whereas attitudes represent an individual’s positive or negative evaluations, norms reflect shared group evaluations of what is true or false, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate.
Descriptive social norms: agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people think, feel, or do.
Injunctive social norms: agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people should think, feel or do.
Most social norms have both qualities, because most people think, feel, or behave in a certain way that we think they should. When people act in the same way over and over again, they begin to think that they should act that way. Descriptive norms morph into injunctive norms.
Public versus private conformity
Conformity: the convergence of individuals’ thoughts, feelings, or behavior toward a social norm.
Occurs for two reasons:
Most of the time people privately accept group norms as their own, believing them to be correct and appropriate.
Sometimes people publicly go along with norms they do not privately accept.
Private conformity: private acceptance of social norms.
When people are truly persuaded that the group is right, when they willingly and privately accept group norms as their own beliefs, even if the group is no longer physically present.
Public conformity: overt behavior consistent with social norms that are not privately accepted.
Only a surface change.
We often privately conform to social norms without even realizing we are doing so.
Expecting consensus
Private conformity comes about because we expect to see the world the same way similar others see it. We often assume that most other people share our opinions and preferences. Agreement with others increases our confidence that our views
.....read more Norms and behavior - summary of chapter 10 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 10
Norms and behavior
All human groups establish social norms.
Activating norms to guide behavior
Norms must be activated before they can guide behavior. They can be activated by direct reminders, environmental cues, or observations of other people’s behavior. When people see themselves purely in terms of group identity, their behavior is likely to be guided by group norms alone.
Norms can be made accessible by several means
- Direct reminders of norms
Which norms guide behavior?
Both descriptive norms and injunctive norms influence behavior, and these norms may sometimes interact with each other in interesting ways. One type of normative information may me more important than another, depending on our motivation and ability to think carefully.
Descriptive norms as guides for behavior
What other people are doing (descriptive norms) frequently influences what we do.
Giving people more accurate views of what their reference groups are doing changes behavior.
Injunctive norms as guides for behavior
Injunctive norms (shared beliefs about what should be done) can also influence behavior.
We sometimes misperceive injunctive norms.
The interplay of descriptive and injunctive norms
When injunctive and descriptive norms mismatched, behavioral intentions were as low as they were when there was no support from either type of norm.
Endorsement of injunctive norms is more effective when it is seen as sincere rather than as mere lip service.
When people get information about just one type of norm, they assume that the other norm is in line. Using descriptive norms may be cognitively easier.
Injunctive norm information has stronger effects.
Why norms guide behavior so effectively
Norms are sometimes enforced by rewards and punishments. More often, however, people follow norms simply because they seem right. Following norms may also be in our genetic makeup.
Enforcement: Do it, or else
The most obvious reason is that groups sometimes use rewards and punishments to motivate people to adhere group standards.
Interaction and performance in groups - summary of chapter 11 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 11
Interaction and performance in groups
Interdependence: each group member’s throughts, emotions, and behaviors influence the others’.
Social facilitation: improvement and impairment
Even when interdependence is minimal, the mere presence of others can produce arousal, either because the other people are highly evaluative or because they are distracting.
Social facilitation: an increase in the likelihood of hihgly accessible responses, and a decrease in the likelihood of less accessible responses, due to the persence of others.
Even the virtual presence of virutal others can cause these effects.
Evaluation apprehension
When we focus on what other people think about us, it creates arousal, with sometimes postive and sometimes negative effects on performance.
Most of the time, we want other people to value, include, and like us. Ou self-esteem is greatly affected by what others think of us.
The presence of others who are in a posititon to judge us produces evaluation apprehension, which changes our performance in the way predicted by social facilitation theory.
Distraction
The presence of others can also disctract us from our task, also creating arousal and impacting performance. However, with specific types of tasks, distraction can focus us on taks-relevant cues, potentially improving performance.
Others can distract us.
Their mere presence causes us to think about them, to react to them, or to monitor what they are doing, and thereby deflects attention from the task at hand.
Our impulses to do two different things at once, conentrate on the task and to react to others, start to conflict wich each other, we become agitated and aroused.
This arousal will typically improve performance on simple tasks and interfere with it on difficult tasks.
The presence of others also requires people to split their attention between the other people and the task at hand.
Being crowded is arousing because crowds create many opportunities for evaluation and distraction.
Task interdependence: reliance on other members of a group for mastery of material outcomes that arise from the group’s task.
Social interependence: relieance on other members of the group for feelings of connectedenss, social and emotional rewards, and a positive social identity.
How groups change: stages of group development
Face-to-face groups usually go
.....read more Attraction, relationships, and love - summary of chapter 12 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 12
Attraction, relationships, and love
Challenges in studying attraction, relationships, and love
By necessity, most research on close friendships uses nonexperimental settings that leave some ambiguity about causal relations between variables, and most studies have focused on romantic attachments between heterosexual couples in individualist cultures.
We are fist drawn to people on the basis of their immediately obvious appearance or behavior.
Attraction follows rules:
As those factors draw tow people together, liking can develop, as each individual goes beyond surface features to start knowing the other better.
Physical attractiveness
Attraction to strangers is strongly influenced by perceptions of physical attractiveness. Some features are regarded as attractive across cultures. Other features that make people attractive are more dependent on experience, exposure, and expectation.
Biological bases of physical attractiveness
There are some immediately obvious physical features that almost everyone agrees are attractive.
Experimental bases of physical attractiveness
Despite the generally universal nature of cues of health and wealth, individuals and groups can also differ greatly in some of the physical characteristics they find attractive. This is because judgments of what is physically attractive are also strongly influenced by our experience and expectations.
Similarity
Similarity of many kinds increases attraction and liking because of:
Once you find someone ‘your type’, chances are you will end up liking this person.
Similarity breeds attraction and the better people get to know one another, the more their liking depends on similarity (does not have to be deep).
The more similar they are, the more people like each other. Liking is even greater is the qualities we
Aggression and conflict - summary of chapter 13 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 13
Aggression and conflict
Defining aggression and conflict
Aggression, defined by people’s immediate intention to hurt each other, is often set in motion by incompatible goals. There are two types of aggression
Aggression: behavior intended to harm someone else.
Conflict: a perceived incompatibility of goals between tow or more parties.
Aggression often has its roots in conflict. What one party wants, the other party sees as harmful to its interests.
Conflict between individuals and groups is acted out in many forms.
Aggression and conflict between individuals and groups are found throughout the world.
They generally fall into two distinct categories.
Origins of aggression
Humans have evolved to compete effectively for good and mates. Although the capacity to act aggressively may have helped, aggression has no special place in ‘human nature’. Aggression is just one strategy among many others that humans use to attain rewards and respect, and too is influenced by cognitive processes and social forces.
Research on aggression
Aggression can be difficult to study experimentally because people are often unwilling to act aggressively when they are being observed. Researchers have used a variety of techniques to get around these problems.
Whether aggression is between individuals or between groups, it is usually triggered by perceptions and interpretations of some event or situation.
What causes interpersonal aggression? The role of rewards and respect
Aggression is triggered by a variety of factors. Some aggression is a result of mastery needs. Potential rewards make this kind of aggression more likely and costs of risks make it less likely. Sometimes, however, perceived provocation such as treat to the self-esteem or connectedness produces anger, which can also set of aggression. Many negative emotions can make aggression more likely. Norms too can promote aggressive behavior.
Counting rewards and costs
When aggression pays, it becomes more likely.
When rewards are withdrawn, aggression usually subsides. Even the possibility of punishment can deter
Helping and cooperation - summary of chapter 14 of Social Psychology by Smith, E, R (fourth edition)Social psychology
Chapter 14
Helping and cooperation
Pro-social behavior: behavior intended to help someone else.
Cooperation: involves two or more people working together toward a common goal that will benefit all involved.
Altruism: behavior intended to help someone else without any prospect of personal rewards for the helper.
Egoism: behavior motivated by the desire to obtain personal rewards.
Helping is crucially dependent on people’s interpretation of a situation.
Is help needed and deserved?
Helping is dependent on people’s perception of someone as both needing and deserving help. The ability and motivation to pay attention to others’ needs influence whether people think help is needed. People are more likely to help those not held responsible for their own need.
Perceiving need
Several factors influence the judgment that someone needs help.
Becoming aware of a need is usually the first step in the helping chain of events.
Judging deservingness
Helping depends on whether we think help is deserved, and groups typically develop norms that dictate who does and who does not deserve help.
The norm of social responsibility: a norm that those able to take care of themselves have a duty and obligation to assist those who cannot.
Especially in the individualist cultures in the West, deservingness also depends on the attributions we make about controllability.
Stereotypes of social groups often influence judgments about controllability and deservingness.
Should I help?
People sometimes help because social norms, their own standards, of the behavior of others show them that it is appropriate to do so. However, sometimes the presence of other potential helpers can diminish the pressures to help. While some norms work against helping, others dictate that certain people should receive help.
Even when people think that helping is both needed and deserved, action doesn’t always follow.
Is helping up to me? Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility: the effect of other people present on diminishing each individual’s perceived responsibility for helping, one explanation for the
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