Normative Social Influence - Research

Research

Solomon Asch conducted his classic conformity experiments in an attempt to discover if people would still conform when the right answer was obvious. Using confederates, he created the illusion that an entire group of participants believed something that was obviously false. When in this situation, participants conformed about a third of the time on trials where the confederates gave obviously false answers. When asked to make the judgements in private, participants gave the right answer more than 98% of the time. Obviously, normative social influence played a role in the participants' decision making. Schultz (1999)found that households that received more normative messages in which described the frequency and amount of weekly recycling, began to have a direct impact on both the households frequency and amount of curbside recycling. The sudden change was due to the fact that "the other neighbors" recycling habits had a direct normative effect on the household to change theirs. Similar results were apparent in hotels where towel usage increased by 28% through normative messages.

While the above experiments clearly indicate that witnessing directly how others act can influence behavior, latter day research suggests that direct personal experience is not a necessity for normative tendency. Research shows that written communication instructing how people should behave or describing how most people act in a given situation can generate the same normative behavior in people. Also compare ‘informational social influence’ or social proof wherein people look to others to determine what the best course of action for a certain situation may be.