PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Condom, Group Polarization, Misgivings

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Conformity: adjusting one"s attitudes and behaviours to coincide with a group norm. We always need some conformity to function safely and effectively. Ex: answering people in the language they used to address you. Ex: a person develops a personal standard by consistently reporting the same amount of movement in a study where they view light in a dark room. A few days later, the participants returned to the lab joined with two other members. At first, participants reported their previously developed personal standard but gradually they all converged on a common estimate- a group norm developed. When a person is not confident in their response it makes sense to use others" judgements for reference. Asch wanted to see whether conformity would still occur if the objective truth were more obvious. Ex: his study there was 8 men but only one was really the participant.