Social Influence 1: Conformity 21 January 2004

Why Conform? Our sanity depends to some degree on the belief that everyone sees the same world that we see If this belief is challenged, we’d rather change what we see (or what we say we see) than admit to ourselves (or others) that we see a different world

Conformity Conformity Compliance vs internalization Acting at odds with your beliefs or perceptions because of pressure from others Compliance vs internalization Normative vs. Informational pressure/influence Cialdini littering experiment Drisball & Muller jaywalking experiment

Jaywalking (Drisball & Muller) 45 40 35 30 % jaywalking 25 20 15 10 5 BL No JW JW

Solomon Asch: Compliance in an Unambiguous Situation

Asch Line Judgment Experiments Stimulus A B C

You cannot be serious!

Asch Results: 33% went along with the group on a majority of the trials 25% remained completely independent 75% conformed at least once When tested alone (no confederates), subjects got more than 98% of the judgments correct When tested with confederates, they only got 66% of the judgments correct

Why conform? Confusion Embarrassment Compliance, NOT internalization Informational pressure Embarrassment Normative pressure 2 more versions of the experiment Compliance, NOT internalization

Sherif (1936) Ambiguous situation Autokinetic effect Informational pressure: 1 year follow-up Internalization, NOT compliance Version B of the experiment and what that tells us

How to reduce conformity? Preferences vs Facts Crutchfield (1955) Asch-type paradigm but with drawings No conformity Why? Lone Dissenters Devil’s advocates Other versions of Asch

Minority Influence How do minority groups change things? Moscovici experiment: a minority of confederates give a plausible but incorrect answer in front of a majority of subjects Minorities must be consistent: Direct effect Latent effect

Moscovici Data: Direct Effect 9 8 7 6 % Ss saying “green” 5 4 3 2 1 consistent inconsistent not present Confederates