Coffee with cows

Your inner cow --> social proof / social norms. Powerful.

An introduction to social proof

All about being packed of other people to your behaviour/beliefs. It is so powerful that we wear ugly shoes (UGGS), because everybody is wearing them.

Conformity, experiment of Shirive and Ash. Other links will show this.

We even are influenced by people, when it goes clearly against our own judgement (not only when we have no clue, so we follow the rest).

Two processes of conformity

1. Normative social influence: we act in line because we want to be liked.
2. Informational social influence: you want to be correct in your judgment; say so because everyone says so, because you think they will know what’s right. (observational learning)

Social norms

Based on conformity. Social norms are what kind of behavior in society/setting is accepted and what is not.

Different social norms

• Injected social norm: the behavior perceived to be commonly (dis)approved. Mostly there is no spoken rule, but everyone knows it.
• Descriptive social norm: the behavior perceived common. If a lot of people are acting a certain way, you are more likely to also act this way (this is probably the most correct wat to act, the most adaptive).

They can be both present in a given situation, but are in conflict. So.. What influence your acting in a situation? It is all up to salience. The extent to what type of social norm is most important.

Using social norms

Hotel has experiment where they manipulate the doorhanger that says to reuse your towel.

Hotel towel reuse (N= 260 rooms)

 “Help the hotel save energy," focusing on the benefit to the hotel. (20%)

 "Help save the environment," emphasizing environmental protection. (31%)

"Help save resources for future generations," highlighting the benefit to future generations. (31%)

"Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the environment," focusing on the descriptive norm (41%)

Curbside recycling

Field experiment with 600 households for 8 weeks

3 groups:

1. Information only

2. No treatment control,

3. Descriptive normative feedback (inform what neighbors are doing)

Baseline (4 weeks), intervention (4 weeks), follow-up (4 weeks)

Trying to reduce air-conditioning in California

[note: deze afbeelding uit het college is door de WorldSupporter redactie verwijderd wegens vermoedelijke inbreuk op het auteursrecht] 

It helps the most when you see your neighbor has a lower energy rate than you. Social prove is very influential in itself, the beauty is that we don’t acknowledge it. We are not accepting it.

Combined control is not doing anything at all.

[note: deze afbeelding uit het college is door de

Commitment and consistency

• Cognitive dissonance
• Self-perception
• Social norm
• Self-persuasion

Question

• Dice game
• Make a bet: what number?
• How confident are you about your bet? (5-point-likert scale)

Self-persuasion

• We are more confident about our chances of winning AFTER placing a bet than immediately before laying down a bet
• Convince our self we have made the right choice and feel better about the choice (self-persuasion)   
• More satisfied about purchases when you have made your decision
  
  • Products have more favorable and less unfavorable aspects when choices have been made
• Minimalize regret
• With which question can you increase voting by 20% ? Do you expect to vote? (yes = social desirable)

Cognitive dissonance

• Discrepancy between beliefs and behavior causes psychological tension (cognitive dissonance)
• Motivated to reduce the discrepancy
• Changing beliefs or behavior
• After a (behavior) choice has been made: we fool ourselves to keep our belief consistent with what we have already done or decided: rationalize decision

Theory of self-concept maintenance

• A gain at the expense of honest self-concept
• Try to avoid negative update of self-concept: when starts this?
• What influences whether we update?

Negative update?

• Categorizing: act as less dishonest
  • E.g. taking €1,- VS a pen
  • Malleability (extent to which you can reinterpret: pen is borrowing, money is stealing)
  • Limit (severity of dishonest behavior: taking someone’s life is bad bc you cant give it back)
• Attention to (own) moral standards
  
  • Internal awereness
  • Salience of moral standard, personal norms

Attention to moral standards

• 229 students
• Solve set of puzzles
• €10,- per solved puzzle
• X
• Manipulation
  
  • Recall books
  • Recall 10 commandments

• • Control (experimenter checks answers)
  • Recycle (take work sheet, report correct answers on paper)

If you set a person in front of the mirror they get more focused on their own personal norms

Self awareness

• Making personal norms more salient
• Ciadini et al.
• People are more inline with personal norm in front of a mirror
• In crime places there are placed a lot of mirrors: not only to see your personal norms, but also the idea that many people are able to see you.

If you can buy a stolen bike from someone in Groningen you probably would take a crappy student bike, but if