Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Social Proof, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Muzafer Sherif
20 Nov 2016
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Chapter 7 – Conformity (Influencing Others)
A. Conformity: When and Why
• Conformity: A change in behavior as a result of the real or imagined influence of other people.
o The pressure to conform shared with other species. → E.g. Rats
▪ Research @ McMaster University
• Rats who were given toxic food that made them sick later avoided that food unless there
are other rats eating it.
• Conclusion: Conformity is so powerful that can override behaviours that promote
survival (i.e. avoiding toxic food)
o We tend to conform more than we realize.
▪ Research – Jacquie Vorauer and Dale Miller @ U of Manitoba @ 1997
• Asking participants to rate how satisfied they felt with their intellectual abilities after
providing other students’ self-assessment forms.
• Students do affected by the self-assessment forms that were given to them before they
rate for themselves; however, they usually do not realize that.
o Not simply good or bad
• 2 Main Reasons for conforming:
o Informative Social Influence
o Normative Social Influence
B. Informational Social Influence: The Need to Know What’s Right
• Informational Social Influence: Conforming 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.
o Seek others’ behaviours as a source of information to guide our behavior in ambiguous situation.
▪ The more important the decision is, the more likely a person will be conformed to the group.
• A need to be accurate!
▪ Research – Muzafer Sherif @ 1936
• 1st – Each participant was assigned in one room, asking to estimate in cm how far the
light moves in a completely dark room.
• 2nd – Due to autokinetic effect, each participants were given different answer
o Autokinetic Effect: By staring at a bright light in a uniformly dark environment, the
light will appear to waver as there is no stable reference point to anchor the position
of the light. → Everyone suppose to have different answer.
• 3rd – Asking participants to go in a dark room in a group of 3. With the same experiment,
participants were asked to shout out their answer, and, over a course of trials,
participants reached a common estimate.
o People’s answers were affected by the other people’s answers in the group.
o Lead to 2 types of behaviour
▪ Private Acceptance: Conforming to other people’s behavior out of a genuine belief that what
they are doing or saying is right.
• I do it because they are doing the right thing.
▪ Public Compliance: Conforming to other people’s behavior publicly, w/o necessarily believing
in what they are doing or saying.
• ) do it not because they are doing the right thing, is just that ) don’t want to look stupid.
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a. When People Conform to Informational Social Influence
• Ambiguous situations, crises, situations in which an expert is present.
i. When the Situation Is Ambiguous
• When you are unsure of the correct response, the appropriate behavior, or the right idea, you will be most open to
influence from others.
o The more uncertain you are, the more you will rely on others.
ii. When the Situation is a Crisis
• )f we feel scared and panicky, and are uncertain what to do, we are more likely to rely on others’ behaviours as the
situation required fast and accurate response when we do not actually have much time to think about the situation.
o Example – The War of the Worlds broadcasted on radio by Orson Welles.
▪ People in U.S. were frightened and panic about the radio drama.
• Contagion: The rapid transmission of emotions or behavior through a crowd.
▪ Reasons:
• Welles did a good job on the play
• People missed the beginning of the show, not knowing that it is a play rather than a news.
• People saw their family and friends react in fear, causing them believe in that.
o Informational Social Influence.
iii. When Other People Are Experts
• The more expertise or knowledge a person has, the more valuable he or she will be as a guide in an ambiguous or
crisis situation.
o Research – Serge Guimond @ Military College for Canadian Army Force @ 1999
▪ Social Science students became more liberal and engineering students became more conservative after 3
years in college as they learned from their professors.
b. When Informational Conformity Backfires
• Mass Psychogenic Illness: The occurrence of similar physical symptoms in a group of people for which there is no
known physical or medical cause.
o Example of extreme and misdirected informational social influence
o Example – Toxic Bus @ May 2, 200
▪ A man disembarked from a Vancouver bus made a comment to the driver that the driver was about to have
a bad day.
▪ The driver began to feel ill, and then followed by other passengers.
▪ Reasons:
• After 9/11, American is fear of terrorist attacks, including the use of chemical or biological attacks →
Anxiety reaction in the toxic bus
• The rapid information exchange through email, Internet and television
c. Resisting Informational Social Influence
• Keep in mind that it is possible to resist illegitimate or inaccurate informational social influence by
o Carefully consider people’s interpretation of a situation
o Ask yourself question
o Seek out your own information.
• The decision to conform or not will affect how you see the world.
o Study – Roger Buehler and Dale Griffin @ U of Waterloo @ 1994 (P. 200 Figure 7.2)
▪ Description
• Given a case of an African-Canadian teenager driving a stolen car and was shot by White police
officers; With limited and ambiguous details, participants were asked to choose who is responsible.
• After their 1st choice, interviewer pretended a data lost and told participants people generally believe
police has 75% responsibility and the victim has 25%, and ask participants to rate once again.
▪ Results: People who 1st believed that the police is responsible for the blame are now more confirmed with
their idea; however, people who held opposite idea (i.e. Victim-blaming construal) are now less confident
about their idea.
▪ Conclusion: Conformity not only affects a person’s behavior but also their interpretation of reality.
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C. Normative Social Influence: The Need to Be Accepted
• Normative Social Influence: The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked
and accepted by them; this type of conformity results in public compliance w/ the group’s beliefs and
behaviours but not necessarily in private acceptance.
o Due to the fact that human is a social species and has a need for social companionship.
• Social Norms: The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviours, values, and
beliefs of its member.
o People who do not follow the social norms will be punished and perceived as deviant
▪ Jeer Pressure Experiment – James Olson and Leslie Janes @ UWO @ 2000
• Participants observed someone either ridiculing another person or engaging in self-
ridicule.
• Person who observed someone else being ridiculed showed greatest conformity to their
peers → Avoid being the next target.
a. Conformity and Social Approval: The Asch Line Judgment Studies (by Solomon Asch @ 1951)
• Belief before Research Conducted:
o People will always only confront in ambiguous situation (e.g. Sherif Studies) because they will
think and act as a rational objective problem solvers. → Reject any social pressures.
• His research:
o In a group of 7, conductor shows each participant 2 cards. One with a single line and other with 3
lines in different length, label as 1, 2, and 3
o Asks each participant to announce aloud which of the 3lines on the 2nd card is closest in length to
the line on the 1st card.
o After several rounds with all consistent answers, some staged participants will start to announce
different answers
• Findings:
o Although the answer is obvious, 76% of the participants conformed on at least one trial, and
people on average often conformed on about 1/3 of the 12 trials on which the accomplices gave
the incorrect answer.
• Reasons:
o Normative Social Influence: Resulting in public compliance w/o private acceptance
▪ The fear of being the lone dissenter causing participants to conform (occasionally).
▪ The fear of being look stupid and in a risk of social disapproval, including in front of stranger
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• Research – Gregory Berns and colleagues
o Description
▪ Ask participants to complete 1/3 of the trials with no knowledge of the answers of 4 other
people. For the remaining 2/3 of the trials, participants are able to see the other group
members’ answers on a visual display. (alf of the time is all with correct answers and other
half of the time is all with wrong answers.
▪ Detect participants’ brain activity with fMR) Functional Magnetic Resonance )maging
o Result:
▪ When participant is answer w/o others’ answers → Perception and vision area activated
▪ When participants conformed to the wrong answers → Perception and vision area activated
▪ When participants do not conformed → Amygdala and right caudate nucleus activated
• Amygdala → Devoted to negative emotions
• Right Caudate Nucleus → Modulate social behavior
o Conclusion: It explains people are conforming because they are avoiding the –ve emotions when
they stand up for their beliefs and go against the group
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