1. CONFORMITY Social Influence

2. Conformity Indirect form of social influence Tendency to adjust one’s thoughts, feelings or behaviour to  Those of a particular individual or group  How a person should behave in specific situation (social norm)  Peer pressure (schools)  Occurs at all levels of society

3. Asch (1951) Conformity study  6 people in room and researcher  Dressed as businessmen (suits and ties)  Confederates- deceived the participant  Told it was an experiment on visual judgement  Asked to select the line from the second card that matched the length of the first line on first card

4. Asch continued Confederates answered correctly for some of the cards but incorrectly for most of them 75% of participants agreed with the confederates at least once during the trials 24% of participants did not conform

5. Asch- reasoning Participants knew it was wrong but  Went along with group because they did not want to ruin the experiment  Need to be part of group stronger than desire to give correct answer

6. Asch Asch’s paradigm  Replicated many times  Factors that influence conformity  Group size- need more than 3 confederates (1955)  Unanimity-conformity occurred more often when all confederates agreed (1956)  Confidence-when engineers and medical students participated conformity rates were almost nil (1988)  Self-esteem- participants with high self-esteem less likely to conform (1973)

7. Strengths and Weaknesses Artificial and ecological validity  Do they accurately predict how people will react in real-life?  Task atypical  concern with demand characteristics Cultural bias  First study not multicultural  Limited in it application and might not be valid today Ethics  Participants deceived and participants were uncomfortable  Would not be allowed today

8. Another opinion Friend et al. (1990)  Argues that it should not surprise us that people conform and that we should look at the factors that allow people not to conform (dissent)

9. Moscovici and Lage (1976) Can minorities influence the majority?  Incorrect judgement of color by minority of confederates  Found that minority was able to influence 32% of the participants to make at least one incorrect judgement

10. Hogg and Vaughan (1995) Reasons that minority can have influence  Dissenting opinions produce uncertainty and doubt  Such dissenters show that alternatives exist  Consistency shows that there is a commitment to the alternative view Examples  Right to vote for women  Civil rights  Conservation and protection of the environment

11. Group Think Irving Janis  Minority opinions are essential to decision making  All are blinded by optimism and the idea that they are correct and will be successful  Idea’s are accepted without looking at any other choices and mistakes will be made  “World War Z”

12. Deutsch and Gerard (1955) Conformity is a result of informational social influence and normative social influence  The way people cognitively process information about a situation  The way people evaluate their own opinions by looking at what others are doing

13. Festinger (1954) Cognitive Dissonance  When you notice that others are not behaving or thinking the same way you are you get anxious  1. you conform  2. you rationalize your opinion and develop confidence that your opinion is acceptable, even though it is not the majority of the group thinks Normative social influence  Change of behaviour is based on need for friendship, and to belong to a group

15. Cultural Aspects of Conformity Individualist cultures (America, north-west Europe)  Lower conformity Collective cultures (Asia, Africa, Oceania, South America)  High conformity

16. Matsumoto (2004)- cultural norms 128 definitions of culture Complex concept  Surface culture-what we see (clothes, food, religion)  Deep culture- beliefs, attitudes, values  A dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviour

17. Kuschel Kuschel (2004)  Culture should not be used to explain behaviour by itself  Descriptions of cultural factors can be used to understand how people have survived in their environment  We need to ask how questions related to how specific factors resulted in behaviours (infanticide, rain dance, initiation rites)

18. Defining Culture Lonner (1995)  Culture is defined as common rules that regulate interactions and behaviour in a group Hofstede(2002)  Culture is a “mental software”- cultural schema’s  Influence thinking, emotions and behaviour  Learned through daily interactions and feedback

19. TOK ethics Page 124 Can the values of one society ever be judged with any validity by applying the values of another culture?

20. Western View - etic “rules” of human behaviour Apply to all cultures Cross-cultural approach- but across specific cultures Belief in universal properties of cultures  Share common perceptual, cognitive and emotional structures

21. Alternative View- emic Behaviours can be culturally specific Truth may be relative, based on the culture you are raised in Psychologists need to recognize these cultural variations in order to understand members of other cultures

22. Culture is Dynamic Cultures change over time  Environment  Social change Exists at many levels  School culture  Country culture Psychologist study  Attitudes, beliefs, values and cultural norms  Passed down through generations  Alcohol consumption, marriage, spanking children etc

23. Understanding Cultural Dimensions Hofstede (1973)  Dimensions- perspective of a culture based on values and cultural norms  Recognizing and learning about cultural dimensions is important in international business  Meaning of handshakes

24. Individualism vs Collectivism Individual society  Ties between individuals is loose  “look out for yourself”  “squeaky wheel gets the grease” Collectivist society  People integrated into strong cohesive groups  Extended families  If individual does not conform rules can be severe  “the nail that stands out gets pounded down”

25. Uncertainty vs Avoidance How tolerant is the society to uncertainty and ambiguity  How does the culture “program” its members to feel in unstructured situations  Uncertainty is okay  Novel, unknown, surprising  Uncertainty-avoiding cultures will have  Strict laws, rules, safety and security measures, belief in an absolute truth

26. Bond (1988) Confucian work dynamism  The Chinese culture replaces uncertainty-avoidance with this  Focus on virtue not truth  Long-term oriention  Value persistance, loyalty, trustworthiness  Status  Protect the collective identity  Respect tradition “saving face”

27. Hofstede Finland, France, Germany  Short-term orientation  Value personal steadiness and stability  Focus on future not the past  Innovation highly valued Beware of ecological fallacy  We can not assume that two people from two different cultures must be different  This is all generalization

28. Hall (1966) Proxemic theory  Personal space the “Hidden Dimension”  USA (10-15 cm)  Europe (5-7 cm)  Causes all kinds of issues when traveling  Time consciousness  Monochronic cultures one thing at a time, schedules, punctuality  Polychronic culture many things happen at once, relationships, interactions, interruptions are part of life, postponements or being late normal

29. Assessment Examine the role of two cultural dimensions on human behaviour. Discuss how the role of marriage may be different in an individualistic culture and in a collective culture. How does culture affect the way we date, choose a partner, and potentially start a family? Check out www.Geert-hofstede.com