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Social Conformity
Social Conformity: Lecture
Objectives
1.
2.
3.
Discuss the issue of “power to the
people” in a democracy.
Describe the Asch experiment and
discuss when and why conformity
occurs
State what is meant by the “real
managers” problem.
Power of the people: Founders
vs. populism

The “people” in a democracy can be a source
of power – by their votes, support for
candidates, and volunteer activities.
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Populism see “power to the people” as a good
thing
The founders perceived “power to the people” as
a potential threat to democracy
Autocracies control people via totalism:
manipulate the masses by information control
and appeals to granfalloon among other
tactics
Populism
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Populism embraced by left and right
Assumptions
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Collective wisdom of the people is better
than expertise; the “people” know best.
The “people” share the same view of the
issues.
The “people” united can never be
defeated.
Do the “people” know best?

Wisdom of crowds: The average
judgment of many people is better than
the judgment of any given person over
time
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Ox weight and jelly bean estimate
Bookies and points spreads
Most investors under perform the stock
market average
Limitations of the people and
knowledge
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Lack of diversity of knowledge in the
group (converge on wrong solution)
Conformity pressures such as
groupthink
Lack of independence in judgment
(imitation of others)
Centralized information
Collusion of members
Do the “people” share the
same view of the issues?

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False consensus effect: use one’s attitude
to estimate the attitudes of others; generally,
people believe that others share their
attitudes and overestimate the extend of
agreement
Naïve realism: everyone else shares my
construal of the world (my facts and values
about reality); opposite of realistic empathy
Do the “people” share the
same view of the issues?

Debate among scholars:


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What is public opinion (single or multiple
perspectives)?
What is the common good (or is there such
a thing)?
Naïve realism and false consensus can
be used by demagogues to manipulate
opinion via “glittering generalities.”
If the “people” are united can they
be defeated in American democracy?

Generally, when a consensus emerges in
American public opinion, public policy
changes to reflect that consensus

Page & Shapiro (1983) looked at 357 cases
between 1935 & 1979 where public opinion
changed by 6% or more on an issue

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Within a year in 66% of the cases, public policy changed
to reflect that opinion
For large swings (over 20%) and those involving a
majority, it was almost 100% and was 100% after a 4
year lag.
Limitations on the people
united

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
The people divided do not have the same effect
Large swings at a minority level (say, a change from
5 to 25%) do not generally affect policy
Page & Shapiro findings apply only to highly visible
issues (not less visible issues where people do not
generally have an opinion); such cases are more
likely to be influenced by interest groups and others
who have a direct stake in the issue.

But yet, most constituents support their earmarks, but not
the earmarks of others.
The Founders’ Fear

The Founders’ feared that the people could
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turn into the mob and infringe on the rights of
others
be ill-informed and make poor choices
They believed as Machiavelli did that a
republic would be lost if its citizens became:
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Lazy (low involvement persuasion)
Unfit (ignorant, lacking in knowledge and virtue)
Corrupt (promoting the interests of the few over
the many)
Envious of true leadership; mislead by the envious
Checks and balances on the
people
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Original checks (no longer effective):
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Restricted vote
Electoral college
Non-direct election of Senators
Current checks
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Senate vs. House
Judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
14th amendment requiring equal protection under
the law
Potential problems with
“power to the people”
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Social Conformity
“Real Managers” (social approval
instead of merit)
Demagogues
Lippmann problem: stereotypes and
lack of knowledge of the people leads
to poor decision making
Granfalloon (social identities)
Social Conformity: Asch
Experiment

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Asch believed that people would not
conform if there was objective reality.
He created an objective reality (line
lengths) that no one could deny as true.
Show Dateline NBC Asch experiment
Asch: Results
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107 replications plus Dateline find:
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55% of the subjects conform on at least
one trial; conformity on 35% of the trials
Asch: variations
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The following decrease conformity:
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An ally giving the same answer
Another person giving a different wrong
answer than the group
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(dissent breaks unanimity)
Commitment before conformity information
Private as opposed to public report
Asch: variations
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The following increase conformity
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Uncertainty about one’s place in the group,
especially when group is attractive
Group members who are:
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Expert
Important and attractive
Similar to the target
Why does conformity occur?
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Social consensus invokes two (and sometimes
three) processes:
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Information: we look to others to see what is the
right thing to do; if others are doing it, it must be
right (social proof)
Normative: going against the group is difficult;
“don’t want to be different anymore” (social
pressure)
Social identity (granfalloon): membership in the
group takes on meaning for the individual
Social proof
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Milgram passerby experiment
Donors give more after seeing a list of donors
giving $1.45 (on average) compared to 35
cents (Blake et al. 1955)
More likely to give blood after seeing a list of
others agreeing to give (Reingen, 1982)
Polling data/horse-race coverage as social
proof (bandwagon and campaign donation)
Shills in cons
False testimonials in advertising
Information & Social Proof
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When everyone agrees (social proof) it
serves as information control – only one
point of view comes to create reality
Show Candid Camera at the airport
Information control
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Information can be censored and
centralized.
Information can also be self-selected
(agreeable information via dissonance
reduction) resulting in biased
information.

Internet is decentralized but increasingly
segmented by user attitudes
Social proof: individual
response

Subject in Dateline experiment: “When
I see that others are agreeing, I use
this as a cue to start asking why and to
think that they might be wrong.”
Social pressure
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Oscar Meyer example
Social pressure
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What is happening in the Oscar Meyer
commercial?
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Information – everyone things these
hotdogs are great
Social pressure
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Deviant receives sanctions (glares from the
other kids and a lousy future assignment)
What happens when someone
is a deviant?

Show Stan Schachter experiment
What happens when someone
is a deviant?
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In Schachter experiment:
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Deviant received initial attention
Deviant was ultimately rejected (ostracized
from the group)
What is it liked to be
ostracized from the group?
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Show Kip Williams experiment
What does it feel like to be
ostracized?
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Painful
The threat of ostracism and the
withdrawal of social approval is a major
factor in why social consensus induces
social pressures.
Social pressure: Individual
responses
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Do not underestimate the power of
social pressure.
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Most people believe that they can stand up
to the group; most research studies find
that they can’t.
Best coping response: Get out of the
situation and think what is the best the
response to make.
The inherent drama of the
Asch experiment
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The Asch experiment pits two social
motives against each other:
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The desire to be right vs. the desire to be
approved by others
Merit vs. loyalty
Achievement vs. social approval
Real Managers: Successful and
effective
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Fred Luthans et al. collected data on 457
middle managers in multiple organizations
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Managerial activities: planning, decision making,
communication, motivating employees, managing
conflict, networking (socializing, politicking,
interacting with one’s boss)
Success: rate of promotion
Effectiveness: organization productivity and
quality of performance; subordinate satisfaction
and commitment to work
Real managers results
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Managers were either successful or effective; less
than 10% were both
Successful managers (ones receiving promotions):
high levels of networking, socializing, and politicking;
pleasing superiors
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Willy Loman’s “well liked.”
Effective managers (ones who got things done): high
levels of communication on how to do the job; time
spent in conflict management and human resource
development; management behaviors such as
controlling production and planning.
Dilbert and real managers
Real managers replicates Asch
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In these organizations, successful
managers valued “desire for approval”
over “desire to be right”
Selecting “social approval” makes sense
for one’s career
Selecting “social approval” can destroy
an organization when social consensus
is not correlated with being correct.
Other “real managers”
examples
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The strength of weak ties
Tipping at restaurants is not related to quality of service, but is
related to size of check (15%), group size (larger parties tip a
lower percent) and social attraction cues (smiley face, personal
note, compliments)
Alex Bavelas implemented “participatory management” in a toy
company that increased productivity of one group. The
intervention was discontinued because other groups were
embarrassed.
Teacher evaluations focus on “student evaluations” (liking for
the course) as opposed to student accomplishment

In evaluating a grad school ask: Where do the students get jobs
after they graduate?
Real managers in elections
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“I like Ike” DVD
Eisenhower was also an effective leader
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Led largest invasion in history
Allied Supreme Commander
“Eisenhower answers America” ads
12th greatest President (from Washington
to Carter)
Real managers in election
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Single best predictor of vote
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Mark Penn’s impressionable elites
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Before 1960: voter’s party
After 1960: the voter’s image of the candidate and how
much that voter likes (positive affect) the candidate
Competency of the candidate is not an issue
Elites (academics, news media, college educated, high
status) are more likely to vote on the bases of candidate
image (since 1980)
Lower income voters vote on issues
Realistic politics (attempting to obtain what one
needs) vs. status or identity politics (finding a
positive social status)
Responses to real managers in
elections
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Realistic job interview of candidates
Press as watchdog
Campaign spending reform
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Deliberative polling
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Citizen conventions that discuss issues with experts as a
resource
Involvement devices
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France outlawed image-based political ads
Tax statements that state how much of your money is spent
where
Restructure media presentation of issues consistent
with guidelines in decision making lecture