Chapter 8
Conformity:
Influencing Behavior
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
Copyright © 2005 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
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Prepared By
Fred W. Whitford
Montana State University
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Chapter Outline
I. Conformity: When and Why
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Conformity
Conformity is a change in behavior
due to the real or imagined influence
of others.
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Conformity
American culture celebrates the
rugged individualist, but even in our
own culture extremes of conformity
occur.
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Chapter Outline
II. Informational Social Influence:
The Need to Know What’s
“Right”
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Informational Social Influence
Informational social influence is the
influence of other people that leads us to
conform because we see them as a source
of information to guide our behavior; we
conform because we believe that others’
interpretation of an ambiguous situation is
more correct than ours and will help us
choose an appropriate course of action.
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Informational Social Influence
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Informational Social Influence
An important aspect of informational
social influence is that it can result in
private acceptance, when people conform
to other people’s behavior because they
believe that what they are doing or saying
is correct.
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Informational Social Influence
A less likely result of informational social
influence is public compliance, when
people conform to other people’s behavior
publicly, without necessarily believing in
what they are doing or saying.
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Informational Social Influence
• The Importance of Being Accurate
Baron and colleagues (1996) found that
when the outcome of the task is very
important, we are more likely to succumb
to informational social influence than
when the task outcome is of low
importance.
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Informational Social Influence
• When Informational Conformity
Backfires
Depending on others to help us define the
situation can backfire. One example is
contagion, the rapid transmission of
emotions or behaviors through a crowd.
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Informational Social Influence
• When Informational Conformity
Backfires
Another example of informational
conformity backfiring is mass
psychogenic illness, the occurrence, in a
group of people, of similar physiological
symptoms with no known physical cause.
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Informational Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Informational Social Influence?
When the situation is ambiguous.
When the situation is a crisis.
When other people are experts.
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Informational Social Influence
• Resisting Informational Social
Influence
To resist undue informational social
influence, consider whether or not others’
view of a situation is any more legitimate
than your own. Understanding how
informational social influence works will
help one know when it is useful and when
it is harmful.
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Chapter Outline
III. Normative Social Influence:
The Need to Be Accepted
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Normative Social Influence
People conform to a group’s social
norms, the implicit or explicit rules a
group has for the acceptable
behaviors, values, and beliefs of its
members.
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Normative Social Influence
Humans are a social species and
thus have a fundamental need for
companionship that forms the basis
for normative social influence,
conformity in order to be liked and
accepted by others.
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Normative Social Influence
A likely result of normative social
influence is public compliance, when
people conform to other people’s
behavior publicly, without
necessarily believing in what they
are doing or saying.
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Normative Social Influence
• Conformity and Social Approval:
The
Asch Line Judgment Studies
Asch (1951, 1956) tested whether people
would conform in situations in which the
group’s judgments were obviously incorrect.
Participants in the Asch line study showed a
high level of conformity, given how obvious it
was that the group was wrong in its
judgments.
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Normative Social Influence
• Conformity and Social Approval:
Asch Line Judgment Studies
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The
Normative Social Influence
• Conformity and Social Approval:
Asch Line Judgment Studies
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The
Normative Social Influence
• The Importance of Being Accurate,
Revisited
Baron and colleagues (1996) found that
people are less likely to conform to a
group’s obviously wrong judgment when
the task is important than when the task is
not important. Yet, even when the task is
meaningful, people still conform due to
normative social influence.
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Normative Social Influence
• The Importance of Accountability
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Normative Social Influence
• The Consequences of Resisting
Normative Social Influence
When someone manages to resist normative
group influence, other group members try to
convince the deviant group member to
conform; if he or she does not, eventually
the deviant will be rejected.
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Normative Social Influence
• Normative Social Influence in
Everyday Life
Normative social influence helps explain
women’s attempts to create socially desired
body types through dieting and possibly
eating disorders.
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Normative Social Influence
• Normative Social Influence in
Everyday Life
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Normative Social Influence
• Normative Social Influence in
Everyday Life
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
Copyright © 2005 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Normative Social Influence
• Normative Social Influence in
Everyday Life
Recent studies have found that men now
are pressured to create socially desired
body types through dieting and possibly
eating disorders.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Latané’s social impact theory suggests that
conforming to normative pressures
depends on the strength, immediacy, and
number of other people in a group.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Asch’s research show that conformity does
not increase much after group size reaches
4 or 5 other people.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Normative pressures are much stronger
when they come from people whose
friendship, love, or respect we cherish.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
People from collectivist cultures are more
likely to conform to normative social
influence than are people from individualist
cultures.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Some evidence suggests that people with
low self-esteem are more likely to conform
compared to people with high self-esteem.
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Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Gender differences in conformity are small
and depend on the type of situation in which
conformity is measured.
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Normative Social Influence
• Resisting Normative Social Influence
The first step in resisting normative social
influence is to become aware that we are
doing it. The second step is to find an ally
who thinks like we do.
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Normative Social Influence
• Resisting Normative Social Influence
Additionally, if you conform to group norms
most of the time, you earn idiosyncracy
credits that give you the right to deviate
occasionally without serious
consequences.
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Normative Social Influence
• Minority Influence: When the Few
Influence the Many
Moscovici (1985) argues that a minority can
affect change in the majority. The key to
this is consistency over time and consistent
unanimity among members of the minority.
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Normative Social Influence
• Minority Influence: When the Few
Influence the Many
A recent meta-analysis by Wood et al. (1994)
leads to the conclusion that majorities often
cause public compliance because of
normative social influence, whereas
minorities often cause private acceptance
because of informational social influence.
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Chapter Outline
IV. Using Social Influence to
Promote Beneficial Behavior
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Using Social Influence
In order to promote behavior for the
common good through social
influence, Cialdini and colleagues
(1991) suggest that the norms
operating in the situation must be
known.
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Using Social Influence
• The Role of Injunctive and
Descriptive Norms
Two types of norms exist, injunctive
norms, which are people’s perceptions of
what behaviors are approved or
disapproved of by others and descriptive
norms, which are people’s perceptions of
how people actually behave in given
situations.
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Using Social Influence
• The Role of Injunctive and Descriptive
Norms
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Using Social Influence
• The Role of Injunctive and
Descriptive Norms
Research has found that injunctive norms
are more powerful than descriptive norms
in producing beneficial behavior.
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Chapter Outline
V. Obedience to Authority
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Obedience to Authority
Philosopher Hannah Arendt (1965)
argued that the atrocities of the
Holocaust occurred not because the
participants were psychopaths, but
because they were ordinary people
bowing to extraordinary social
pressures.
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Obedience to Authority
Milgram (1963, 1974, 1976) examined
the power of obedience to authority
in social psychology’s most famous
laboratory experiments. Milgram’s
results indicate the powerful
tendency people have to obey
authority figures even when their
orders go against people’s values
and morals.
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Obedience to Authority
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Obedience to Authority
• The Role of Normative Social
Influence
A variation on the Milgram experiment
demonstrated the role of normative social
influence. Significantly less compliance
was demonstrated if two other “teachers”
refused to continue.
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Obedience to Authority
• The Role of Normative Social
Influence
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Obedience to Authority
• The Role of Informational Social
Influence
Other variations on the experiment
demonstrate the role of informational
social influence due to the confusion and
ambiguity raised by the situation.
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Obedience to Authority
• Other Reasons Why We Obey
Another factor influencing obedience
includes conforming to the wrong norm.
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Obedience to Authority
• Other Reasons Why We Obey
Social pressures can combine in
insidious ways to make humane people
act in inhumane ways.
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Study Questions
What are two main reasons why
we conform? What advantages
does conforming provide?
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Study Questions
When are we likely to conform to
informational social influence?
What are the differences
between private acceptance and
public compliance? Which one
is more likely when we conform
due to informational social
influence?
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Study Questions
What is the relationship between
conformity due to informational
social influence and the
importance of being accurate?
Aronson Social Psychology, 5/e
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Study Questions
Why are times of crisis related to
an increase in conformity due to
informational social influence?
What is contagion? How do the
mass media influence the
likelihood of mass psychogenic
illness?
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Study Questions
What are three main factors that
make conforming due to
informational social influence
very likely?
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Study Questions
Why is the decision of whether or
not to conform so important?
What are some questions we
should ask ourselves when we
are deciding whether we should
conform due to informational
social influence?
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Study Questions
What are the differences between
informational social influence
and normative social influence?
What are social norms? Why are
they followed so often?
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Study Questions
Why were findings of Asch’s
conformity study surprising?
Were Asch’s participants more
likely conforming due to
informational social influence or
normative social influence?
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Study Questions
What is the relationship between
normative social influence and
the importance of being
accurate?
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Study Questions
According to Schachter’s (1951)
study, how do people deal with a
nonconformist?
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Study Questions
What are historical examples of
normative social influence?
What do they tell us about the
power and consequences of
conforming due to social
pressures?
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Study Questions
What does social impact theory
attempt to explain? To what do
the variables of strength,
immediacy, and number of
influence sources refer? What is
the relationship between these
variables and conformity?
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Study Questions
When will people conform due to
normative social influence?
What are the main conditions
that increase this conformity?
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Study Questions
What are cross-cultural
differences in conformity? Has
conformity increased or
decreased since the 1950s?
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Study Questions
Do personality traits readily
predict who will conform due to
normative social influence? Why
or why not?
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Study Questions
What is the magnitude of sex
differences in conformity? Under
what conditions are women more
likely to conform than men?
Why?
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Study Questions
What are two steps toward
nonconformity? What are
idiosyncrasy credits?
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Study Questions
What are important conditions for
the occurrence of minority
influence on the majority? What
is more likely a result of minority
influence, public compliance or
private acceptance?
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Study Questions
What are injunctive and
descriptive norms and how can
they be used to foster beneficial
behavior?
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Study Questions
How does mindless conformity
happen?
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Study Questions
What are the basic findings of the
Milgram obedience study? What
percentage of participants
delivered the highest voltage of
shock possible? Why was it
difficult for participants in
Milgram’s studies to disobey
authority?
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Study Questions
What do variations of Milgram’s
study tell us about limits to
obedience?
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