Descriptive social norms: Agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people think, feel, or do

Injunctive social norms: Agreed upon mental representations of what a group of people should think, feel, or do

Conformity: The convergence of individuals' thoughts, feelings or behavior toward a social norm.

Public conformity: Overt behavior consistent with social norms that are not privately accepted.

We usually expect others to see te world the way we do (false consensus effect).

If we believe that group norms reflect reality, then conforming to them satisfies our need for mastery.
Individuals who are strongly motivated to acquire a clear and accurate view of the world conform more to others.

Normative influence: The process by which groups norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain connectedness and a valued social identity

Because people are profoundly influenced by others' ideas and actions, interactions or communication causes group members' thoughts, feelings and behaviors to become more alike. Whether a judgement task is clear-cut or ambiguous, trival or important, individual members' views converge to form a socal norm. Norms reflect the group's generally accepted way of thinking, feeling, or acting. Descriptive social norms are what people think, feel, or do whereas injunctive norms specify what people should think, feel, or do.

Conformity is the convergence of induvidual responses toward group norms. Conformity occurs for two important reasons: because people believe that the group is right and because they want the group to accept and approve them. Most of the time people privately accept group norms as their own, believing them to be correct and appropriate. Sometimes, however, people publicly go along with norms they do not accept privately.

Private conformity comes about because we expect to see the world the same way similair others see it. In fact, we often assume that most other people share our own opinions and preferences. Agreement with others increases our confidence that our views are correct, whereas disagreement undermindes that cerainty.

Agreeing with others assures people that they are in contact with a common reality. When people privately conform because they believe a group's norms reflect reality, the group has informational influence.

Agreeing with others also gives people the feeling of belonging with others. A group has normative influence when members conform to it to attain a positive and valued social identity.

People expect to agree with those who share attributes relevant to the judgment at hand. In-groups often serve as reference groups, and people are much more influenced by in-group than out-group others. Other in-group members do not have to be present for conformity to occur, but having other group members present increases conformity even more. The more highly members identify wth the group, the greater the reference group's impact.

Reference group: Those people accepted as an appropriate source of information for a judgement because they share the attributes relevant for making that judgement.

Although particular circumstances can make one motive more important than another, agreeing with in-groups fulfills mastery, connectedness, and me and mine motives.

When a majority of group member inititally favor one side of the issue, communication and interaction usually move the group to an even more extreme position.

Group polarization: The process by which a group's initial average position becomes more extreme following group interaction.

When people process superficially, merely relying on others' positions can produce polarization of group norms as undecided or moderate group members move toward the group position and try to show that they are good group members. When people process systematically, both others' positions and arguments work together to polarize group norms. Majority arguments are more numerous, receive more discussion, seem more compelling, and are presented more persuasively. All these factors give majority views a persuasive advantage.

Systematic processing: Attending to both positions and arguments