Psychology 2100: Introduction to Social Psychology

Warren Thorngate, Professor
Psychology Department, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6
Canada
e-mail = warren_thorngate@carleton.ca

copyright 1999-2006 by Warren Thorngate, all rights reserved

Lecture 6: Social comparison processes

Two skill-testing questions 

Question 1: What is the population of Peru?

Question 2: In what year was the Prophet Mohammad born? 

1. Note how private judgements show more variability
2. Note how public judgements tend to converge over time
3. Example: What is the population of Iceland? (correct estimate = 275,000)

The narrowing of judgements indicates that people are influencing each other

Public judgements are not necessarily better (or worse) than private judgements.  For example, the red-line public estimate shown in the chart above is converging on an estimated Iceland population of about 1.2 million, but the true value is about 275,000. 

As we will see, the judgements converge on what we call a social norm. And they converge as the result of social influence.

 Types of social influence: Three loose categories 

• informational influence: social comparison and cognition
• normative influence: social pressure and emotional reactions
• fate control: social power and punishment

Leon Festinger's (1954) Theory of Social Comparison: two of several axoms

1. Judgements we make can be based on 

• information intrinsic (internal) to the object, person, behaviour being judged: size, colour, shape, number, speed, etc.
• information extrinsic (external) to the object, person, behaviour being judged: context in space and time, judgements of others, etc. 

2. To the extent that we lack intrinsic information to make a judgement, we will be influenced by extrinsic information 

• when the extrinsic information includes the judgements of others, then we will be influenced by these judgements

Some examples of judgements based mostly on extrinsic information: 

• who we are: "the looking glass self"
• what we wear, how we speak, when we yawn or laugh
• what we believe is normal, beautiful, valuable, good
• who we vote forhow raise our children

An example from the laboratory: Schacter and Singer's (1962) study testing James-Lange theory of emotion ("I am sad because I am crying" not "I am crying because I am sad") 

• Injected male volunteers either with saline solution (salt water) or epinephrene (causing general arousal), presumably to study "visual acuity"
• Told some of each group they would feel something, or told them nothing
• Asked each to sit in a room for 20-30 minutes until drug took effect, and to complete some background questionnaires in the room
• met another person in the room, actually an employee of Schacter posing as a second subject.
• the 2nd person acted either euphoric or angry
• Schacter & Singer assessed the resulting mood of the real subject, then debriefed the subject Results:
• Subjects who were given saline solution and subjects who were given arousing drug but told of its effects did not mimic the other person in the room
• Subjects who were injected with arousing drug, who were not told of its effect and who faced a euphoric other tended to show euphoria and to report it
• Subjects who were injected with arousing drug, who were not told of its effect and who faced an angry other tended to show anger and to report it
• Results support Festinger's notion that when intrinsic cues are unavailable, extrinsic cues (the behaviour of the other person in the room) will be used to judge one's own emotion

Examples from life? 

• "I made you look!"
• Paths in the snow
• Crowd behaviour and panic reactions
• Religious revival meetings and emotional conversions
• Music preferences at rock concerts

Individual differences in importance of social comparison 

• inner-directed vs. other-directed (from The Lonely Crowd)
• high vs. low self-monitors
• Anton Mesmer's test for hypnotic susceptability, and Rod & Frame test for field dependence
• Studies of obesity (obese people tend to salt food before tasting and to eat all of what is in front of them regardless of when they have eaten before)
• developmental differences: 
• patty-cake and mimicing of very young: evolutionary advantage
• hyper-susceptability of teens: rebellion against parents, group affiliation, peer pressures, and the irony of conforming rebels
• political socialization of youth: voting like parents
• gradual decline with age

Social comparison and the development of norms

What is a norm? 

• descriptive definition: what people do
• prescriptive definition: what people should do
• proscriptive definition: what people should not do

Social comparison -> development of norms (descriptive definition) -> expectation of norm (prescriptive and proscriptive definitions)

Many norms are useful for individuals and groups 

• the basis of common meanings for signs and symbols = the foundation of communication
• the basis of coordination of behaviours: 
• time and clocks
• driving regulations
• common definitions of weights and measures and the rise of the International Standards Organization (ISO)
• The foundation of social ethics: 
• A common conceptions of what is right and wrong 
• The development of law

And many norms are maladaptive or silly 

• dress codes: miniskirts in Edmonton winters
• QWERTY keyboard
• spelling of English words (e.g., = exempli gratia = "though, thorough, tough")
• "God bless you" after sneezing
• conventional armies fighting guerilla wars

More commonly, some norms help some people and hurt others 

• taxation norms helping the rich
• contest rules helping the lucky or the corrupt
• rules for covering or uncovering the body (e.g., debates about the hejab)

Norms constrain variety -- by definition. Such constraint is easy for people "in the middle" and harder for people "on the edge". Thus, norms stimulate debate from those on the edge about their necessity and justification, and about the balance between individual and group rights and obligations.