This document discusses social and cultural norms and how they influence behavior. It describes norms as rules based on shared cultural beliefs about appropriate behavior. Humans conform to norms to belong to social groups. Social learning theory holds that people learn behaviors by observing and imitating models. Factors like attention, retention, motivation, and rewards/punishment impact whether behaviors are learned. Studies show children imitate aggressive behaviors modeled by adults. Cultural dimensions also influence behavior, with individualist versus collectivist cultures and uncertainty avoidance impacting conformity. Cultural norms are passed down through generations and regulate behaviors within groups.

1. Sociocultural Level of Analysis
Social and Cultural Norms

2. Norms
• Norm: a set of rules based on socially or
culturally shared beliefs of how an individual
ought to behave
– Norms regulate the behavior within a group
• When individuals deviate from norms, they may
be punished, marginalized, stigmatized
– However: Could also be seen as creative, a leader, and
affecting change!
• Because humans are social animals, our need to
belong causes the desire to conform to group
norms

3. Social Learning Theory
• Albert Bandura
• Humans learn behavior through observational
learning
– People can learn by watching and imitating behavior
• Factors of Social Learning Theory:
– Attention: Person must pay attention to the model
– Retention: Observer must be able to remember the
behavior being observed
– Motor reproduction: Observer must be able to replicate
the action
– Motivation: Learners must want to demonstrate what they
have learned

4. Motivation
• Several factors can influence whether or not
the observer decides to imitate/learn:
– Consistency: if the model is always brave
– Identification: if the model is like ourselves
– Rewards/punishment: We see the consequences
of actions without having to carry them out
(vicarious reinforcement)
– Liking: if the model is warm and friendly we’re
more likely to learn behavior (Yarrow et al. 1970)

5. Bandura et al. (1961)
• Aim:
– See if children would imitate aggression modeled by
an adult
– See if children were more likely to imitate same-sex
models
• Method:
– Boys and girls from 3-6 y/o
– One group shown adult who modeled aggression with
a “Bobo” doll
– One group shown adult who was non-aggressive
– One group served as the control

6. Bandura et al. (1961)
• Results:
– Those shown the aggressive adult were significantly more
aggressive (physically and verbally)
– Children showed signs of observational learning
– More likely to imitate same-sex adult
• Girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression
• Boys more likely to imitate physical aggression
• Evaluation:
– Low ecological validity
– Does little to predict repeated exposure to aggression
– Aggression of adults was not standardized
– Children may have been affected by demand characteristics
– Ethics of showing and teaching violence to children!

7. Application of Social Learning Theory
• There is a chance that violence on television will lead to
more violent children
– Results of studies on effects of TV violence are consistent
• TV aggression:
– Kids learn how to be aggressive in new ways
– Draw conclusions on whether or not aggression will bring them
rewards or punishment
• Huesmann and Eron (1986): Longitudinal study found a
positive correlation between hours of violence watched
on TV as a child and aggression demonstrated as a
teenager
– Those who watched a lot at 8 y/o  more likely to be arrested

8. TV Violence
• Other considerations:
– Could there be another explanation to the correlation
between TV shows and aggression?
– Maybe children who watched violence on TV also lived in
families which facilitated violent behavior?
• Positive TV Influence:
– Sesame Street can help children learn positive behaviors
– Bandura’s “Let’s Go with the Times” in Tanzania led to
increase in safe sex, women’s status, and family planning

9. Evaluation of Social Learning Theory
• Helps explain why behaviors may be passed down in
a family or within a culture
– How children acquire behaviors without trial-and-error
learning
• Difficult to establish the connection 100%
– Child may learn something from a model and not exhibit
that behavior for some time
• Some people still never learn a behavior!
• This theory has evolved into social cognitive theory
and self-efficacy theory
– Focus is on beliefs and influence on behavior

10. Social Influence: Compliance
• Conformity: Occurs when the situation does
not exert direct pressure to follow the
majority, but individuals perceive pressure and
it influences their behavior
• Compliance: The result of direct pressure to
respond to a request, even though the direct
pressure may not be apparent to the
individual
– i.e. buying certain products

11. Compliance Techniques
• Robert Cialdini and psychology of persuasion
– Ways in which individuals are influenced to comply
with the demands/desires of others
• Six factors that influence compliance:
– Authority: Using famous people in adverts
– Commitment: Have people agree to one thing so later
on they will comply with similar requests
– Liking: They’ll listen to people they like!
– Reciprocity: Feel they need to “return a favor”
– Scarcity: Limited Time offer/less readily available
– Social Proof: See others doing it

12. Reciprocity
• Compliance technique outlined previously
• Reciprocity Principle: Social norm that we should
treat others the way they treat us
– Person must try to repay what another has provided
• Reciprocity is one of the most widespread and basic
norms of human culture
• What is given to another is not lost, but rather a sign
of future obligation
– Enables the development of various relationships and
exchanges

13. Reciprocity
• Feelings of guilt play a key role in reciprocity
• Lynn and McCall (1998): Customers given a
mint or treat with bill leave higher tips
• Reciprocity can also be caused by the feeling
that because the other person has already
compromised, this compromise should be
acknowledged with some behavior

14. Door-in-the-Face Technique
• A request is made which will surely be turned
down
• Second request is made which asks for less
• People are more likely to accept this second
request because they feel the person has
already lowered the request to accommodate
them

15. Cialdini et al. (1975)
• Demonstrates Door-in-the-face Technique
• University students asked to chaperone juvenile
delinquents on a zoo day-trip
– 83% refused
• Asked to work 2 hours per week as a counselor
for 2+ years
– 100% refused
• Asked this second group to chaperone the zoo
trip after this extreme request
– Only 50% refused!

16. Commitment
• Commitment: Being consistent with previous
behavior
• Once people make a choice or take a
stand, they will encounter personal and
interpersonal pressures to behave consistently
with that commitment
• Goal gradients: Longer a person commits
themselves to something, less likely they are
to abandon the goal

17. Foot-in-the-Door Technique
• Get a person to commit to something small
• Persuade them to agree to something larger
• Dickerson et al. (1992)
– University students asked to sign a poster about
taking shorter showers
– Measured shower times were significantly shorter
than normal shower times of the university
• Could be that the people signed the poster because
they already showered quickly beforehand!

18. Low-Balling
• Cialdini et al. (1974)
• Asked college students interested in
psychology to meet up
– One group was told up front it would meet at 7AM
• Only 24% were willing
– Other group not told time
• 56% were willing
– When later told it was at 7AM no one backed out
(even when given the option)
– 95% showed up as promised!

19. Hazing
• Shows power of compliance techniques
• Hazing: Series of initiation rites in order to join an
exclusive group
– Potentially dangerous and humiliating
– Still used in African societies for passage into manhood
and military boot camp training!
• Individual must choose to join the group, knowing
hazing initiation will be necessary
• Must rationalize “this is worth it”
• Gives a sense of accomplishment; proven loyalty

20. Aronson and Mills (1959)
• Two groups of female college students
– First group had to go through a severely
embarrassing initiation
– Second group did not
• Both placed in a boring/uninteresting meeting
• Those who had been hazed (Group 1) found
the meeting “extremely valuable”
• Those who had not been hazed (Group 2)
found it “worthless and uninteresting”

21. Social Influence: Conformity
• Conformity: Tendency to adjust one’s
thoughts, feelings, or behavior in ways that
are in agreement with those of a particular
individual or group, or with expectations
(social norms)
– An indirect form of social influence that passes
down society’s values and behaviors
– i.e. “Peer pressure”

22. Asch (1951) Line Test
• Conforming to an incorrect answer
on a test if the response from the
other group members was
unanimous
– See if confederates could influence the
participant’s answers when visually
comparing lines
– Even when their answers were
obviously incorrect
• 75% agreed with incorrect
confederates at least once
• 32% agreed with incorrect
confederates in at least half of the
trials

23. Asch (1951) Line Test
• Participants reported feeling self-doubt
• Conformers knew their responses were
incorrect, but went along with it anyway
• Why?
– Didn’t want to ruin the results
– The human need to belong!
• The desire to be part of the group > desire to give the
correct answer
• Known as Asch paradigm

24. Asch Paradigm
• Asch’s study has been repeated with different factors
• Group Size: (Asch 1955) More likely to conform in groups
with 3 confederates than with 1 or 2.
– Groups larger than this did not increase the rate of conformity
• Unanimity: (Asch 1956) Conformity was most likely when
all confederates agreed
• Confidence: (Perrin and Spencer 1988) Individuals who
felt more competent to make a decision in that field of
expertise are less likely to conform
• Self-esteem: (Stang 1973) High self-esteem = less likely to
conform with incorrect responses

25. Asch Paradigm
• Question of artificiality and ecological validity
– Accurate representation of real life situations?
• Demand characteristics
– Participants may act in a way that they feel is required by
the experiment
• Culture could also limit the validity of the study (not
multicultural!)
• Ethical considerations
– Use of deception
– Felt anxiety about their performance
• Friend et al. (1990) would rather figure out why some
people didn’t conform than why some did

26. Asch Paradigm: Minorities
• Moscovici argues: When a minority maintains
a consistent view, it is able to influence the
majority
• Moscovici and Lage (1976)
• 4 participants and 2 confederates
– Confederates describe a blue-green color as green
– Able to influence 32% of participants at least once
to give the wrong answer
• Participants continued to give incorrect responses even
after the confederates left!

27. Minority Opinions
• How can minorities influence majorities?
• Hogg and Vaughan (1995)’s reasons:
– Dissenting opinions produce uncertainty and
doubt
– Such opinions show alternatives exist
– Consistency shows there is a commitment to the
alternative view
• i.e. the Civil Right’s Movement!

28. Groupthink
• Groupthink: Group members having a unanimous
opinion on an issue, and they do not seek out
alternative or dissenting opinions
– Described by Irving Janis
– Why minority opinions are important!
• When someone suggests an idea and everyone
accepts it without considering other options
– Group is often blinded by optimism and is certain they
will be successful
– Individuals doubt their own self-reservations and
refrain from voicing dissenting opinions

29. Why do people conform?
• Deutsch and Gerard (1955):
• Conformity is a result of informational social
influence and normative social influence

30. Informational Social Influence
• Based on the way people cognitively process
information/social comparison
• When we see others behaving differently than
ourselves it causes cognitive dissonance
– Anxiety when you realize you don’t conform
• Response 1: Conform (or at least try to)
• Response 2: Rationalize and accept your own opinion

31. Normative Social Influence
• Based on our nature as social animals
– People have a need to be accepted and belong
• May conform to avoid rejection and to gain
social approval
• If a dissenting opinion stands in the way of
having friends, the need to belong to that
group and have their friendship is more
important

32. Cultural Aspects of Conformity
• Asians value and partake in conformity more than
Americans do
• Americans often see conformity as negative
– Even though its still a big part of being an American!
• Don’t slice the world into East versus West
• Italians also have high levels of conformity
• (Burgos and Dias-Perez 1986) Puerto Ricans like their
children to conform and be obedient

33. Smith and Bond (1993)
• Review of 31 conformity studies
• Average level of conformity is 31.2%
• Conformity was lower among individualist
cultures
– i.e. North America, north-west Europe
• Than from collectivist cultures
– i.e. Africa, Asia, Oceania, South America

34. Berry (1967)
• Conformity of Temne people of Sierra Leone
vs. Inuit people of Canada
– Temne conformed significantly more
• Can be explained by their economic practices
– Temne have to survive on a single crop harvested
by the entire community
• Requires cooperation, coordination of effort,
consensus, agreement
– Inuit economy is based on hunting and gathering
on an individual level

35. Cultural Norms
• Culture: Complex concept that is used in many
different ways
– Food, clothing, rituals, communication, religion, st
atus, behaviors and habits
• “Surface Culture”: what is easily
visible/apparent
• “Deep Culture”: related to
beliefs/attitudes/values that underpin cultural
manifestations

36. Cultural Norms
• Kuschel claims culture should not be used as
an explanation of behavior
– It’ll just lead to circular arguments
• Descriptions of cultural factors can be used to:
– Understand how people have survived in the
environment
– How they have organized life into social groups
– What beliefs, attitudes, norms etc influence
behavior

37. Definitions of Culture
• Lonner (1995): Common rules that regulate
interactions and behavior within a group, and
a number of shared values and attitudes in
the group
• Hofstede (2002): “Mental software”: cultural
schemas that have been internalized so that
they influence thinking, emotions, and
behavior

38. The Role of Culture
• Understanding the role of culture is essential in a
diverse, multicultural world!
• Etic Approach: Cross-cultural psychology where
behavior is compared across specific cultures
– Drawing on notion of universal properties of cultures
• Emic Approach: Looks at behaviors that are
culturally specific
– Challenged psychologists to re-examine their ideas of
“truth” with regard to culture

39. Matsumoto (2004)
• Defined culture as a dynamic system of rules
(explicit and implicit) established by groups in
order to ensure their survival, involving
attitudes, beliefs, norms, and behaviors
• Dynamic because it changes over times and
exists on many levels

40. Cultural Norms
• Cultural Norms: Behavior patterns that are
typical of specific groups
• Often passed down from generation to
generation by observational learning by the
group’s gatekeepers
– Gatekeepers: parents, teachers, leaders, peers
• Cultural norms include:
– How marriage partners are chosen
– Attitudes toward alcohol
– Acceptance/rejection of physical punishment

41. Cultural Dimensions of Behavior
• Dimensions: Perspectives of a culture based
on values and cultural norms
• Understanding these dimensions will help
facilitate communication between cultures
• Dimensions:
– Individualism vs. collectivism
– Uncertainty vs. avoidance

42. Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Individualist societies: Ties between
individuals are loose; people look after
themselves and immediate family
• Collectivist societies: People are integrated
from the beginning into strong in-groups (like
extended families) that provide support and
protection

43. Uncertainty vs. Avoidance
• Deals with a society’s tolerance for
uncertainty and ambiguity
• To what extent does a culture program its
members to feel either uncomfortable or
comfortable in unstructured situations?
• Avoidant cultures construct laws, rules, safety
measures, beliefs about absolute truths to
remove chances of ambiguities/surprises

44. Confucian Work Dynamism
• Bond (1988) argues Chinese culture replaces
the uncertainty vs. avoidance dimension with
Confucian work dynamism
– Doesn’t focus on truth; focuses on virtue

45. Orientation
• Long-Term Orientation: China & other Asian
cultures value loyalty, persistence,
trustworthiness
– Relationships are based on status
– They have a need to “save face” and respect tradition
• Short-Term Orientation: Value personal
steadiness and stability
– Focus on the future instead of the past
– Innovation is highly valued

46. Ecological Fallacy
• Hoefstede warns against the ecological fallacy
• When one looks at two different cultures, it
should not be assumed that members from
different cultures must be different
– A single member of a culture will not always
demonstrate dimensions that are the norms of
that culture
• These are just generalizations that allow
discussions on the role of culture

47. Edward T. Hall (1966)
• Proxemic Theory: Culture’s need for “personal
space”
– Different cultures have different perceptions of
comfortable personal space distances
• Time Consciousness:
– Monochronic cultures focus on 1 thing at a time
• High degree of scheduling, punctuality, deadlines
– Polychronic cultures have many things happening at
once
• Focus more on relationships, interactions, interruptions are
expected, little frustration over tardiness/postponing