Social Psychology Sterre Huizer
Social Psychology Summary
Interim Exam 2
Book: Smith, Eliot R. ISBN: 9781848728943
Druk: 4
Inhoudsopgave
Chapter 9 – Norms and Conformity........................................................................................................2
Chapter 11 – Interaction and performance in groups............................................................................6
Chapter 10 – Norms and Behaviour......................................................................................................10
Chapter 12 – Attraction, Relationships & Love.....................................................................................15
Chapter 13 – Aggression and Conflict...................................................................................................21
Chapter 14 – Helping and Cooperation................................................................................................26
Article – radicalisation and terrorism...................................................................................................30
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,Social Psychology Sterre Huizer
Chapter 9 – Norms and Conformity
What are social norms
Examples of social norms:
They’re sometimes group specific (bus example > not sitting right next to the only
person in the bus)
Cross-cultural elements (how we eat, burping or not)
How do we know what norms are:
Prescriptive (= injunctive) norms: What a group of people should think, feel or
do. Can be: explicit (laws, bowing to Kim Yung Un) and/or implicit (unwritten,
wearing clothes, you just do it). Specifically pointing towards this is the right
behaviour and this is not.
Descriptive norms: What a group of people think, feel and do. We induce what is
the right thing to do by looking at others (elevator movie, everyone turns around
> so you turn around)
So what others do (descriptive) versus what should people do
(injunctive/prescriptive)
- How do social norms develop?
People are influenced by the ideas, emotions and behaviours of others. Interaction
between individuals makes their thoughts, feelings and behaviours more similar.
Experiment on a campus in the UK: he followed students about their political orientation.
Hypothesis: people who lived on campus (more in contact with other students) would
gradually become more liberal, where as when they continued to live at home (country
side) would remain more conservative (become less liberal compared to the students on
campus).
Norms: reflect the accepted/preferred way of thinking and doing of a particular group.
Sherif’s study on causality on autokinetic illusion. If you would be in a dark room and see
1 dot of light > look at that dot eventually you’ll feel it moves (automatic eye
movements). Some people this movement is larger than for others (1 cm others 10cm).
Autokinetic illusion is subjective. He looked at if people talk about their perceived
movement of the dot, do they come to a consensus/a developed norm? They judged the
movement of the dot as the same, as they gave the ratings in a group. If you come back
a week alone, they don’t go back to their initial judgement > they accepted the group
judgement they gave the week before. So the movement of thoughts, feelings and
behaviour towards a social norm.
It is an ambiguous stimulus, does such conformity also occur on more objective stimuli?
Clearly one or the other. > experiment Asch: length judgments
1 participant, 7 confederates. Looking at a line and had to decide which comparison line -
A B or C - is as long as the standard line for 18 different sets of lines. When all the 7
confederates say it is A (which clearly isn’t as long), the participants conform to what the
confederates say. This doesn’t always happen: ¾ gives at least 1 wrong answer. This
happened then, is not happening now anymore > false! It is still happening > clip.
Functions of conformity > experiment Halsema
- Mastery – informational influence
Informational influence: process by which group norms are privately accepted to
achieve or maintain mastery of reality.
Using what others do to understand the world around us. Driven by the expectation that
we agree. False consensus effect: overestimation that others agree with your opinion,
characteristics and behaviour.
Examples: valuable information to see what others think about something (reviews about
hotels, restaurants etc.). There especially is informational influence when’:
Situation is ambiguous (not entirely sure about what is going on)
Uncertain about yourself
Larger numbers
- Connectedness – normative influence
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,Social Psychology Sterre Huizer
Normative influence: process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve
or maintain connectedness and a valued social identity.
Wanting to be part of the group and not be ridiculed. By expressing different opinion, we
fear that we’re excluded from the group. Fear of being ridiculed and pain of social
exclusion.
Ostracism: being socially excluded > Williams cyberball experiment:
People sit behind a computer and they are the third person. Playing a ball throwing game
with 2 other people. Two conditions:
1. Social inclusion > throwing the ball to everyone
2. Social exclusion > you’re being excluded, you don’t get the ball anymore.
Results show that, exclusion leads to:
Increased heart-rate and blood pressure
FMRI-scans show pattern similar to physical pain. So when we are excluded the
mental pain is similar to physical pain when being bullied for example.
Intense emotions > sadness, anger
Lower self-esteem, sense of belonging, feelings of control, sense of meaning etc.
Does not depend on personality
It doesn’t matter who excludes you > KKK wont let me play. Even though you know its
fake, it is annoying to not getting the ball.
Social exclusion
Being gay e.g.
Conformity comes in different flavours:
Can be (private conformity)Internalized > private and public, informational and
normative
Can be not internalized (public conformity) > public, mostly normative
Can be forced
Can be voluntary
Can be functional
Consensus within groups
Reference groups. Do we conform with everyone?:
Simple skills > everyone
Complex skills > similar others
Social and personal judgement > peers
We conform to relevant reference groups (: those people accepted as an appropriate
source of information for a judgement because they share the attributes relevant for
making that judgement) because they have more shared features > more identification >
more cohesion > more impact by the group.
Determining future behaviour > vaccinating your child yes/no > looking at the people
around you, what do they do?
Validating earlier behaviour/performance > fast runner? You look at someone with similar
skills you have to compare and to validate your performance (exam results e.g.)
How do norms develop within groups? :
1. Looking for compromise
If the group is divided but balanced (half the
members supporting an issue and half opposing it
> the opinion becomes neutral). If identification is
strong communication will lead to compromise.
2. Polarisation
When a majority of group members initially
favour one side of the issue, communication and
interaction usually move the group to an even
more extreme position (= group polarization).
Explanation for polarisation to occur:
a. Superficial processing
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Overt cues that signal what the group thinks:
Guessing the group norm from who the members of the group are
(knowing that the group consists of science major can make us assume
that the group will all think alike and tend to agree on a group-relevant
issue)
People can reveal their preferences by the kinds of questions they ask
or by their body language
In these cases people can use the group position alone as a guide to what their
own position should be (consensus is used as a heuristic: it provides a short
cut to the position that people believe to be both correct and appropriate
without their having to do a lot of hard work figuring out the right answer).
How does this reliance on consensus as a heuristic lead to extreme positions? :
When undecided members of a group adopt the majority consensus >
the groups average moves towards the extreme
People often want to be the best possible members of their group
(others say you’re not as above average as you thought you were >
speedy adoption of a more extreme position so that we can again
become above average)
b. Systematic processing
Majority arguments are more numerous > the greater the number of
people who hold a particular viewpoint, the more numerous the
arguments favouring that position are likely to be.
Majority arguments are discussed more and thus heard more often >
information all members agree on is the most relevant information they
think
Majority arguments seem more compelling > when several people
make the same argument, it has extra impact. If most people buy an
argument, it must be a good one.
Majority arguments are presented more compellingly > presented with
more confidence. information that is shared in the beginning it has
more impact than information presented later on.
Extreme polarisations > strong conformity
Where do we see extreme polarisation?
- cohesive groups making decisions under time-pressure (groupthink = group
decision making that is impaired by the drive to reach consensus regardless of
how the consensus is formed)
- terrorist cells
- cults
Examples of extreme conformity – cults
Definition
Members of an often religious belief group that differs from the original source. They
distance themselves from an original group based on different views about how the belief
should be interpreted.
Features
Leadership style
o Authoritarian
o Dominant
o charismatic
Self-appointed leaders
o With messiah-like attributes
Hierarchical organisation
o Leader’s favourites
Distance to the outside world
o Literally: geographic isolation
o Figuratively: social isolation
Informational and normative influence
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