 This is part two of Lecture 8. So in the first part we talked about informational social influence and that means that we sometimes rely on others, on others' behavior, to in order to understand what we are supposed to be doing. But we are not always conforming because we believe that others have more information or we are not sure what to do or what the correct response is. Oftentimes we also conform simply because we want to be liked, because we want to fit into the group. That's also a very strong pressure. And if this happens, it's called normative social influence. And that's something that we'll be discussing in this part of the lecture. So an example of this is that my nine-year-old son only had one desire, one big wish for his birthday. And that was a very fancy and super expensive water bottle called air up. And this air up uses a pot that gives the water a certain sense. And that is actually great because you're drinking water and because you're smelling something it seems like you're drinking lemonade or something or at least some sort of flavor in the water. So it helps you to drink more water, which is of course healthy. Obviously that was not the reason why my son desired this water bottle. Of course, he doesn't really care about how much water he drinks during the day. And no, he wanted it because all his cool classmates already had an air up. So he wanted to have this bottle basically to fit in. And we went along with it and he now has this water bottle and he's actually drinking loads, loads more water. So I think it's working for both of us. So if something like this happens, some sort of trend, and especially if it's a trend like this, I believe it's pretty harmless. But that's not always the case. And we saw this happening in 2012, for those of you who remember, it's quite some time ago, but still there was a certain challenge that went viral on YouTube and also social media. And it was called the cinnamon challenge. And the challenge was that you had to, or had to, if you want to go along with this, with this trend, eat a spoonful of cinnamon and if you try to do so, it's nearly impossible to do it. And if you film this, then it looks very funny because people are, you know, they're trying this, they're scared about it and they try to do it. You can Google it, you know, cinnamon challenge and you'll see all these videos pop up. But actually it was not harmless at all. A lot of people, especially younger kids, ended up in the hospital because if you're inhaling cinnamon, this can actually really irritate the lungs up to a point that you can actually get Pneumonia. So lung inflammation and really lung infection because of this challenge. And especially if you're already suffering from, for example, asthma, then this can be very, very dangerous. So engaging in trends like this, following the leads and following sort of going along with viral trends like this can also really be harmful. And it's also pretty weird because why would you eat cinnamon if you know this is going to be, you know, potentially dangerous and it's also very unpleasant to do. Well, if we do stuff like this, so if we buy a fancy water bottle because we want to fit in or we engage in a cinnamon challenge, we do so because of normative social influence. So we follow the leads of others simply because we want to be liked. We want to be accepted by the group. And this is especially the case if it's a group that we really desperately want to be part of and we really want to fit into that group. So also sometimes we expect that if we don't follow the group, we might be bullied or we might, you know, be ignored, be excluded, made fun of. So we want to do so to keep up appearances and especially in kids we see this, but also in adults we are definitely also still prone to normative social influence when we're growing up and we'll see plenty of examples of that later on. So if, in cases like this, what usually happens is that we don't follow others because we privately accept what they're doing. So we saw that with informational social influence, we're following others because we really believe that they are doing something that is correct and we just buy it and we just follow along because we think they are giving us more information. It's different with normative social influence. We are publicly complying, so we're publicly going along with what others are doing and at the same time in our brain we're thinking to ourselves, this is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I want to fit in. And this is a very, very strong urge for people and it's also causing some discomfort often. So we see, especially if it's very clear that what you're doing is pretty stupid, but everybody else is doing it, you see the discomfort in, you know, the behavior of the people that feel this really strong urge to conform to the group. And this was first discovered in the ASH experiment, also a very famous study in social psychology. And this is a study that was sold as a study on the perception of lines. And the participants were asked, basically, they saw a certain line in the screen and they were asked to match this line. So you see a line here on the screen and then you have three other lines. So what is the same, which line has the same length as the line that you see depicted on the screen? It's a very easy task. The correct response is super straightforward. So it's actually not a visual perception task at all. It's a task on studying normative influence. And you'll see now for yourself how this task played out and what the ASH experiment told us actually about following the lead. The ASH experiment is one of psychology's oldest and most popular pieces of research. A volunteer is told that he's taking part in a visual perception test. What he doesn't know is that the other participants are actors and he's the only person taking part in the real test, which is actually about group conformity. The experiment you will be taking part in today involves the perception of line length. Your task will be simply to look at the line here on the left and indicate which of the three lines on the right is equal to it in length. So, for example, the actors have been told to match the wrong lines. The volunteer will be monitored to see if he gives the correct answer or if he goes along with the opinion of the group and gives the wrong answer. In the first test, the correct answer is two. One, one, one, two, one. Once again, the correct answer is two. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. The ASH experiment has been repeated many times and the results have been supported again and again. We will conform to the group. Again, we're very social creatures. We're very much aware of what the people around us think. We want to be liked. We don't want to be seen to rock the boat. So, we will go along with the group. Even if we don't believe what people are saying, we'll still go along. One, one, one, one. Group dynamics is one of the most powerful forces in human psychology. So, the ASH experiment really made a big impact in the field. So, now we really know how prone people are to conforming their behaviors to others. And here you see basically the results of the ASH experiment. And what you see here is the number of trials in which participants conform to others. And in total, 76% of participants conformed on at least one of the trials. So, actually, most people conformed one to three times to, so gave the incorrect response when others were also giving the incorrect response. And only 24% of the participants, so one out of four, never conformed at all. So, sometimes people really made sure that they gave the correct response, basically ignoring all the false responses that were giving out by the actors, also present in the room. But still, with these participants, you see the discomfort. You see that they really try to make sense of what's going on. Why is everybody messing up this very, very simple task? And this ASH experiment is really replicated many, many times. It's a very strong effect in social psychology with different variations. And it really turned out that this effect is almost impossible to wipe out. So, it's really, really hard for people to give out correct responses when everybody else is giving incorrect responses. And it really made quite an impact in the field. Also, a lot of models tried to explain the ASH experiment and people's desire to conform. One of these models is the social impact theory. Trying to explain group conformity and also seeing which aspects or components of the group influences conformity. And there's basically three major aspects that really have an impact on people's desire or need to conform. First of all, it's the strength of the group. And strength refers to how important the group is for you. So, as I mentioned, if it's a group that you really desperately want to be part of, if it's a group of your friends or classmates, then you really have this strong tendency to conform. Even though you know what they're doing is incorrect, you want to do the same because you want to fit in. So, the strength of the group is important. The immediacy of the group is important. That means how close they are, literally. So, are they in the same room? Are you seeing them show that certain behavior? Then it's also harder to resist the urge to conform. And finally, the size of the group matters. And you would think that it's simply, you know, the bigger the group, the stronger our urge to conform. And that's not really the case. Here you see the effect of group size. So, here you see that if there's more people present in the group, more people that are showing us a certain type of behavior, we become more likely to conform. But there's a ceiling effect here. And this is what psychologists or scientists, generally, refer to if a trend is up to a certain point and it doesn't really go further, then it's apparently the ceiling of the effect. So, and that happens around four to five people. Then adding more people does not lead to stronger tendencies to conform. So, if you already have a group of four or five people, that's enough. That's enough people to create this very strong tendency for people to conform their behavior to that group of others. And adding more people doesn't really help in that regard. So, there are more factors important than only the three aspects described in the social impact theory. So, let me walk you through it. Also, with the many replications of the ash experiment, we now know this. So, what also is key is that people need to give a public response. So, one of the variations of the ash experiments, people could give their response anonymously, just writing it down on a little letter. And then, they were way less likely to conform. So, if they could just privately write down the answer, they gave the correct answer. So, first of all, they knew it, but we knew this already. And secondly, it's really a behavior we show for others in order to publicly fit in. So, a public response really increases this tendency to conform. Also, the expertise. So, if we believe that others are better in this task for whatever reason, and we're also more likely to conform in one of the variations of the ash experiment, the participants were told that the other people in the room were visual experts that really had a very, very good eyesight. And if they were told that, then the tendency to conform even increased further. This is actually leaning a bit towards informational social influence because if this happens, then we feel like others have more information than we do, right? Culture also matters. So, it really matters in which part of the world you're conducting this experiment. So, you have individualistic cultures, collectivistic cultures. And where do you think there's a higher tendency to conform? It is in collectivistic cultures. So, that means in cultures in which people are already really preoccupied with the group and the well-being of the group, and they're not so focused on themselves. So, people in the Western world, in the United States, in the Netherlands, in other parts of Europe, we are a little bit less likely to conform than in more collectivistic countries. And finally, and maybe even most importantly, unanimity. And that means that if everybody else is doing it, then we follow along. But if only one person speaks up, and only one person in this group, for example, with the ash experiment, gives the correct response, then we are really relieved, and then we happily give out the correct response as well. And I think this is so key. And again, this is telling us that as an individual, you still have power, even if you feel powerless in a group. So, you actually only need one person to speak up, to stay true to his or her beliefs, to change the whole group dynamics. And we've also witnessed this in very much more serious examples in the world when it comes to minority influence. We sometimes just need one or a couple of very brave individuals to speak their minds, to stay true to their beliefs, to eventually change the system. And then when it comes to minority influence, we refer to when a minority of group members or sometimes even only one person basically influences the behavior of the entire group. Because that can happen. And what is really key here is consistency. So, you don't, you have to be consistent and stay loyal to your beliefs and keep showing a certain behavior that is not in line with what the group is doing, but what is true to your beliefs. And if you consistently do so, you can actually change the behavior of that entire group. And sometimes even of an entire culture and of the law. And that's sometimes what would happen in history, luckily. So, yeah, speaking up, and not conforming is really how change eventually happens. Something to keep in mind.