1. Social Influence 1: Conformity
21 January 2004

2. Why Conform?
Our sanity depends to some degree on the belief that everyone sees the same world that we see
If this belief is challenged, we’d rather change what we see (or what we say we see) than admit to ourselves (or others) that we see a different world

3. Conformity Conformity Compliance vs internalization
Acting at odds with your beliefs or perceptions because of pressure from others
Compliance vs internalization
Normative vs. Informational pressure/influence
Cialdini littering experiment
Drisball & Muller jaywalking experiment

4. Jaywalking (Drisball & Muller)45 40 35 30
% jaywalking 25 20 15 10 5 BL
No JW JW

5. Solomon Asch:
Compliance in an
Unambiguous
Situation

6. Asch Line Judgment Experiments
Stimulus A B C

7. You cannot be serious!

8. Asch
Results:
33% went along with the group on a majority of the trials
25% remained completely independent
75% conformed at least once
When tested alone (no confederates), subjects got more than 98% of the judgments correct
When tested with confederates, they only got 66% of the judgments correct

9. Why conform? Confusion Embarrassment Compliance, NOT internalization
Informational pressure
Embarrassment
Normative pressure
2 more versions of the experiment
Compliance, NOT internalization

10. Sherif (1936) Ambiguous situation
Autokinetic effect
Informational pressure: 1 year follow-up
Internalization, NOT compliance
Version B of the experiment and what that tells us

11. How to reduce conformity?
Preferences vs Facts
Crutchfield (1955)
Asch-type paradigm but with drawings
No conformity
Why?
Lone Dissenters
Devil’s advocates
Other versions of Asch

12. Minority Influence How do minority groups change things?
Moscovici experiment: a minority of confederates give a plausible but incorrect answer in front of a majority of subjects
Minorities must be consistent:
Direct effect
Latent effect

13. Moscovici Data: Direct Effect9 8 7 6
% Ss saying “green” 5 4 3 2 1
consistent
inconsistent
not present
Confederates