Norms 1

• How its done

• How it SHOULD be done (Moral high horse)

Norms persist beyond original group settings (If group members are swapped out one after the other)

-        formed and changed via Group interactions

o   Deliberate instruction, nonverbal feedback, observed behavior of others

target agrees to a request from influence source

o   Regulate behavior, cognition, emotion in groups, relationships w environment

o   Provide shared reality (→ Norm is only spotted when they are not present anymore)

o   Provide Identity

-        Foot in the Door technique

o   Doing a small favor

§  Must be meaningful and of little effort

§  Must be done voluntarily

o   → later commit to bigger favor that, on its own, would have been rejected

§  Self-observation of past behavior→ want to be consistent

o   higher personal desire for consistency = higher chance for this effect to work

-        Low balling-technique ( not showing full cost up front)

o   Social contracts/commitments; need to keep promises/ fulfill obligations

§  Allows intragroup- trust

-        Door in face technique

o   First refusing a Big request

§  Has to be refused

o   ⇾ more likely to commit to small request

§  Has to be seen as a compromise (person is making a step towards me)

·        Reciprocity leads to need to return favors even when unsolicited to reestablish equiliy  (eg. Free Samples)

§  Has to be related to first request and asked by same person  

convergence of individual to group norm

o   Private;acceptance of social norm as own

o   Public; behavior conforms even though norm is not accepted personally

o   Group size

o   Salience of the group (awareness of the presence of others)

o   Visibility of the own response

• Conformity drops with decreasing visibility but is still significant

o   Independence of the group responses (belief that Group didn’t arrange responses)

o   Unanimity(Einstimmigkeit) of group response

o   Social support (non-conforming allies)

• Even invalid support causes mild decrease (valid stronger tho)

o   (Culture)

§  desire to understand others and have shared and predictable reality

§  Desire for certainty over own judgement (others as source of validation)

·       Inferred via assumption of collective wisdom

-> Private conformity

-> most influential with analytical tasks and clear cut solutions

o   Need for Connectedness

§  sense of belonging

§  Need for approval and harmony

§  Social identity and expression of this identity

-> public (Also private) conformity

-> most influential whith moral/attitudinal judgement

§  If session in groups AFTER alone session (personal norm before group) -> mire interindividual variation, estimates take a few sessions to move closer together and reach common guess

§  If sessions in groups FIRST (group norm was formed before alone estimate) -> less interindividual variation (norm influences personal guess), immediate common guess

§  Persistent in retest after a year (impressive)

§  Ppl guessed length of a line with obvious answer,

·       Most conformed to obvious wrong answers

·       Effect was there even when answer wasn’t public or no direct feedback but just info about previous (but effect is greater when face to face)

o   Processed without consideration

o   Formed without independence (eg.external rewards)

o   PIuralistic ignorance;

 everyone just publicly conforms but real consensus is inferred (everyone wants to do  -> no one dares to cuz they think they’re only ones)

-        Deliberate reminders

•    Have to be Supervised and nonconformity punished

• May lead to resistance

-        Subtle reminders

• Signs of what others have done (eg. litter on the ground)

•   Exemplar study;

  • Littering cyclists with or without graffiti (Keizer)

  •   One form of form of norm violation, encourages violation of different norms as well  

-        Others presence & behavior

o   If formal norm reminders contradicts others behavior -> others behavior is stronger

• Enforcement (sanction &rewards)

o   -> norm is external behavioral standard (risks being public Norm)

o   Can be positive or negative consequence or their withdrawal

o   Needs surveillance

•   Others Presence (Consensus support)

o   Presence needs to be salient

•    Frequent activation

o   association between triggers/cues & norm

o   -> leads to automatic normative bahavior (habit?)   

• Internalisation

o   Not conscious decision but internal standard

o   Does not need situational awareness -> automatic

o   Helps to function well and without as much effort (shared reality ect.)

-        (appearant) experts and people with higher social stand

-        people with similar attitudes, values, relationships or we’re otherwise close to

-        Ingroup; if unimportant-> superficial processing= acceptance

o   If important; systematic processing of message strength ect

-        Outgroup : likely rejection regardless of processing mode

-        Def: Groups of likeminded people have more extreme positions than the average of all individuals attitudes,

o   Reasons;

• Persuasive arguments (Hearing rguments repeated or even new arguments firm beliefs),

• Social comparison (Want to distinguish from groups but in desireable way),

• Social categorization (want to distinguish from other groups)

è make the individuals attitudes more extreme

a group unterperforms given its potentials because of extreme  normative influence (eg, Bay of Pigs, Water Gate Affair, challenger Spaceshuttle)

• Scematic model of groupthink; Cohesiveness as central cause, focus on groupthink

•    Simplified general problem-solving model; cohesiveness as part of lager set of variables, not focused on groupthink

§  Empirical support is rather weak (esp. in experiments)

o   Ingroup favoritism

o   Illusion if invulnerability

o   Believed moral superiority of own group

o   Unwillingness to discuss/seek… discrepant info

o   Illusion of unanimous decision (pluralistic ignorance)

§  Pressure on dissenters to conform

o   Suppression of independent thinking

o   Premature justification of own position

o   High cohesiveness (strong social identity)  

o   Isolation from other info

o   Opinionated and/or authotitative Leadership

o   Stress, Time-pressure

o   Lack of adequate decisionmaking processes

o   Pressure to conform

o   Avoid Time pressure

o   Separate into subgroups

o   Increase group diversity

§  invite (decision-independent, non group) experts

o   avoid directive leadership

o   install devils advocate (question everything)

o   avoid public votes  

second chance meeting