PSY 240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Tunxis Community College, Pluralistic Ignorance, Diminishing Returns
23 Nov 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Tunxis Community College
Social Psychology
Notes
Majority influence
The next step is to identify the situational and personal factors that make us more or less likely to
conform. But what creates these feelings of pressure and insecurity? five factors: the size of the
group, a focus on norms, the presence of an ally, gender differences, and culture.
Group Size: The Power in Numbers
Common sense would suggest that as the number of people in a majority increases, so should
their impact. but, it is not that simple.
● Asch varied the size of groups, using 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, or 15 confederates, and he found that
conformity increased with group size—but only up to a point. Once there were three or
four confederates, the amount of additional influence exerted by the rest was negligible.
● Beyond the presence of three or four others, additions to a group are subject to the law of
“diminishing returns”.
● Another possible explanation is that as more and more people express the same opinion,
an individual is likely to suspect that they are acting either in “collusion” or as “spineless
sheep.”
o David Wilder, what matters is not the actual number of others but one’s
perception of how many distinct others, thinking independently, there are.
o Wilder found that people were more influenced by two groups of two than by one
four-person group and by two groups of three than by one six-person group.
When faced with a majority opinion, we do more than just count the number of bodies—we try
to assess the number of independent minds.
A Focus on Norms
social norms give rise to conformity only when we know and focus on those norms. we often
misperceive what is normative—particularly when others are too afraid or embarrassed to
publicly present their true thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
● One common example of this “pluralistic ignorance” concerns perceptions of alcohol
usage. Clayton found that most students overestimated both the frequency and the
amount of alcohol consumed by their peers. those students who believed their peers drank
more and often, were more likely to be consuming greater quantities.
Knowing how others are behaving in a situation is necessary for conformity, but these norms are
likely to influence us only when they are brought to our awareness, or “activated.”
● researchers had confederates pass out handbills to amusement park visitors and varied the
amount of litter that appeared in one section of the park (an indication of how others
behave in that setting). The result: The more litter there was, the more likely visitors were
to toss their handbills to the ground. (p.244 – second study)
