Conformity and Groupthink

MAR 3503

February 14, 2012

Conformity

• …is a change in behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure

Autokinetic effect

• In a very dark room, people will perceive a point of light as moving even though it is actually stationary

• Sherif asked participants to look at the point of light and judge how far it moved

• Participants made these judgments alone or in groups on successive days, calling out their responses

Autokinetic effect

• Sherif found that participants’ responses influenced each other, with different responses converging to a single estimate over several trials

Asch, 1956

Asch, 1956

Conformity and public vs private

Critical trial

Conformity and unanimity

Critical trial

Conformity and group size

Conformity and group size

Reasons for conforming

• Normative: In the service of avoiding the disapproval, scorn, or ostracism that accompanies norm violations

• Informational: In the service of learning what is right or appropriate in a situation

Behavioral mimicry

• …aka the “chameleon effect”

• The tendency to unconsciously imitate the behaviors, gestures, and mannerisms of one’s interaction partners

Behavioral mimicry

Behavioral mimicry

• Participants watched a video of a confederate who was touching her face– In the conscious goal condition, participants were

told they would later interact with the girl– In the unconscious goal condition, they were

subliminally flashed words related to interaction– Control participants were given no goal

Lakin & Chartrand, 2003

Seconds S touched face

No goal 5.7

Conscious goal 13.1

Unconscious goal 14.5

Behavioral mimicry

• Participants completed 2 interaction tasks, one on the computer and one in person

• In the computer interaction, the confederate was either nice or mean to them

• Participants who felt their 1st interaction was a failure were more likely to mimic

Behavioral mimicry

Behavioral mimicry

Behavioral mimicry

• Does mimicry buy you anything?• Chartrand showed that when a confederate

simply mimicked the quirks a participant showed when they interacted, Ps liked the confederate more, even though they didn’t know the confederate was mimicking

• Waitresses get bigger tips when they mimic their customers, by simply repeating the orders back in the exact same way

Groupthink

• “A kind of faulty thinking on the part of highly cohesive groups in which the critical scrutiny that should be devoted to the issues at hand is subverted by social pressures to reach consensus”

• Basically, groups try to agree with one another, and they can ignore problems with their plans to do so

• Bay of Pigs is the classic example• Enron is a tragic modern day example

Groupthink

Antecedents of groupthink• High cohesiveness• Insulation of the group• Lack of procedures for

information search and appraisal

• Directive leadership• High stress w/little hope of

finding a better solution than the leader’s proposed one

Symptoms of groupthink• Illusions of vulnerability• Collective rationalization• Belief in inherent morality

of group• Stereotypes of outgroups• Direct pressure on

dissenters• Self-censorship• Illusion of unanimity

Pluralistic ignorance

• Happens when virtually every member of a group privately feels one way, yet believes that virtually everyone else privately feels another way– People mistakenly think they’re “out of step” with the

rest of the group• Trigger: Discrepancy between people’s private

feelings and public acts• Results in conformity from almost everyone– People end up conforming to a norm that almost no

one is happy with!

Examples of pluralistic ignorance• Gang members• College drinking (Prentice & Miller, 1993)– Women: own comfort = 4.8, other comfort = 7.0– Men: own comfort = 5.8, other comfort = 7.0– This discrepancy leads to conformity

• How to dispel pluralistic ignorance?– Peer session (about pluralistic ignorance) vs.

individual session (about responsible alcohol choices)– Interviewed months later, they reported drinking:

• 3.0 drinks a week (peer session)• 4.9 drinks a week (individual session)

Examples of pluralistic ignorance

• Some products/interventions seem to “suffer” from pluralistic ignorance problems

• You may need to dispel pluralistic ignorance, rather than convince people that your product is good

Diffusion of responsibility

• Kitty Genovese• A smoke-filled room– Single subject: 75% reported it– Groups of three: 38% reported it

• You’re more likely to help when fewer people are around!– One factor: diffusion of responsibility– Another: pluralistic ignorance normative and

informational conformity

Summary• People feel compelled to act like the others in

their group• This can lead them to:– Espouse things they know to be wrong– Blindly follow the rest of the group– Ignore problems– Literally act just like those around them

• They do so for informational and normative reasons

• This can be reduced through awareness of the problem and active skepticism

Next time…

• Obedience and power