Transcript of Audio Lecture
Welcome. This is lesson
seven, module two. We’re going to continue to talk about conformity. Now
we’re going to be discussing normative social influence.
Let’s move to slide two
and begin. Norms. These are the ideas that there is some normative or
accepted way of doing something, that we follow what others do, we comply
because there’s a norm to do so. Norms give us a reason to do things such
as salt the tip jar, tell of other interests, tell people what we’re
interested in so that they too, will find common ground. Salting the tip
jar allows us to see that other people may have tipped, therefore there’s
a norm that you tip here. An empty tip jar will often remain empty
throughout a shift. Norms, in order to be effective, must be activated.
How do you activate a norm. One way is to simply tell people. The other
is to show behavioral demonstrations of norm activity. We know that norms
can influence littering behavior, but they can also influence sexual
harassment behavior.
Let’s move to slide three
and discuss this further. Studies have shown that if you have a female
confederate who is touched inappropriately by an experimenter, that others
will also touch that female inappropriately when left alone with her. If
this does not happen, that is the norm is not communicated that sexual
harassment is ok, then the male participant is less likely to touch her
inappropriately after the experimenter has left.
Let’s move on to slide
four. Norms can also be enforced. Violations of social norms versus
violations of logic. We typically punish violations of social norms by
ostracizing individuals, whereas violations of logic we tend to argue
about. We can internalize norms, so believing that it is simply the right
thing to do. We can use consensus to enforce norms. We all do it,
therefore you should do it as well. Frequent observation of a norm will
also lead to increase compliance with the norm. And finally action
heuristics. It’s easier to simply go
along with the norm than to try to fight the system.
Let’s move on to slide
five. Norms can be implicit or explicit. Implicit norms would be those
that we just come to understand without being told, whereas explicit norms
are ones that must be explained to us. For example, an implicit norm
might be that everyone in a certain hallway leaves their door open in the
afternoon so others can come visit. No one has explicitly told you this is
the case, but by being in that hallway over a period of time, you’ve come
to realize that there is a norm that that is what is done. Norms can also
be prescriptive or proscriptive, that is they can be prescriptive and tell
you what to do or proscriptive and tell you what not to do. Norms also
include body image. Things such as eating disorders, exercise disorders
are largely communicated via norms. For males, we see an increase in
breast hormone cells, power bars, and steroids in junior high. This is also
a norm that being muscular is important and often more important than
trying to grow taller or developing brain power.
Let’s move on to slide
six. Graziano and colleagues in 1993, had participants judge photo attractiveness,
either under conditions when they knew what the other person’s ratings
were or not. They were given a series of photos of people of the opposite
sex, all participants were heterosexual and when women were judging men,
they were very much influenced by whether or not other folks thought the
person was attractive, that they were not attractive or if they had no
opinion. You can see that if you were given no one else’s ratings, it was
about a 4.7. If you were told the other person’s rated very positively,
you increased your rating. If you were told that the other person rated
this other negatively, you decreased your rating. Men were not influenced
by this. Their ratings of attractiveness did not depend at all on whether
the other people thought the person was attractive. They had a more
objective way of determining whether or not a woman was attractive in a
photo.
Let’s move on to slide
seven. One norm is the norm of social reciprocity. This is the idea that
you will reciprocate favors that are given. Commonality or the idea that
there’s a strong norm of social reciprocity is very rare in most groups.
This is one reason that we might avoid favors. So if someone offers you a
piece of gum or a bottle of water or an extra quarter or asks you if
you’ve dropped change that you haven’t dropped, you’ll avoid taking it,
you’ll avoid that favor because then you will owe that person and we don’t
like to feel obligated.
Let’s move on to slide
eight. The norm of commitment is the idea that you’re in for the long
haul. Self-perception says that you have strong commitment because look
at all these things that you’ve done. Another way that we communicate the
norm of commitment is quitters never win. There’s lots of ways in which
we enforce the norm of commitment by telling people a lack of commitment
is relatively bad.
Let’s move on to slide nine. The
norm of obedience. This is the idea that authority when it is
legitimate, responsible and accessible, should be followed. Norm
of obedience also leads to blaming the victim. People who have a
high norm of
obedience have a high belief in a just world. This makes rape prevention
very difficult. They believe you get what’s coming. People who believe
in a just world believe that if they are a good enough person that they
can avoid negative events, such as rape, simply by being aware and taking
self-defense classes and carrying mace and so on, but this simply is not
true. Rape prevention is really not something that is useful and when
victims have a high belief in a just world, they tend to suffer more
psychologically afterwards because they feel it should have been prevented
by their good behavior and they must have failed some way in order for
this to happen.
Let’s move on to slide
ten. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows in 1996 brought participants into the lab. They were given
a series of sentences to unscramble. They were given one of three sets; a
rude set, a controlled set, or a polite set. The rude set included
sentences that contained words like aggressive, bold, rude, bothered,
disturbed and so on. The polite set of scrambles involved honor,
considerate, polite, cautious, courteous, unobtrusive. And the controlled
condition involved words like exercising, flawlessly, optimistically,
normally and so on. After they finished, they were told to report to the
experimenter once they were done. The experimenter was speaking with
someone else. They then looked at how many people interrupted the
experimenter to let them know that they had finished. If they had been
primed by those rude words, they were much more likely to interrupt than
in the controlled condition and the polite condition would be even
less likely than the control condition to interrupt. Therefore norms can
be primed without having it to be explicit or overt.
Let’s move on to slide
eleven. The look study done by Milgram in 1969 in New York City, they
simply went to the street and had someone look up. If just one person was
looking up, they then counted how many other people would join the group
and also look up. They found that approximately four others would look
up. But if you got 15 people to all look up at the same time, up to 40
folks would stop and also look up. We often conform because we believe
that others must be doing something reasonable, therefore we follow along
and also engage in that behavior.
This concludes lesson
seven, module two. Thank you.
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