Previous readings in this section describe how groups engender norms and "solve" social order problems, but remember that we defined social order as both coordination and cooperation, with the latter including the capacity to achieve optimal collective outcomes. Here we have what might be called a theory of "group failure" — what we want to explain is how is it that group's can "unintentionally" enforce norms that are suboptimal from individual perspectives? You should recall, in this connection, the
In "The Emperor’s Dilemma," authors Damon Centola, Robb Willer and Michael Macy discuss the popular enforcement of unpopular norms. Beginning with the example and metaphor of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the reader is introduced to the concept that people go along with things, and even enforce them, for the powerful reason that the thing’s popular, regardless of the fact that they personally and privately dislike it.
Although an emperor going around naked and everyone then complimenting his beautiful gown seems like a very absurd scenario, the authors argue that versions of this happen everyday. The phenomenon that occurs is pluralistic ignorance in which all participants privately reject the norm but publicly reinforce it, creating the illusion of support for the norm. People don’t like it or don’t believe it but are afraid of the consequences of going against the group.
The question becomes; why would anyone enforce a norm that they disagree with? The proposed explanation is that “true believers” who wish to expose the phonies of the group create a pressure for members to prove their sincerity by not only supporting the norm but also enforcing it on others. The illusion of transparency occurs in which the insincere supporters fear that their true feelings about the norm are apparent so they must hide them by accusing others of insincerity. This can be taken even further with the realization that these “true believers” may also be simply reacting to their own illusion of transparency. What emerges is a very witch-huntish phenomenon in which everyone accuses everyone else to hide their own insincerity, but no one even likes the norm they’re enforcing in the first place.
These scenarios explain why unpopular norms are self-reinforcing because people, regardless of personal feelings about norm, support and enforce it in order to protect their own status within the group. (CMcNaughton)
Schelling excerpt which talked about one particular kind of market failure in which market interactions produced a collective result that was different from what individuals preferred.
Authors
Willer is a professor at Stanford; Centola is on the faculty of Annenberg School of Communication at Penn; Macy is Goldwin Smith Professor of Arts and Sciences at Cornell.
THE EMPEROR'S DILEMMA
Damon Centola, Robb Willer, and Michael Macy, 2005
Naturally, the best proof of the sincerity of your confession was your naming others whom you had seen in the Devil company.
-Arthur Miller, 1996
THE POPULAR ENFORCEMENT OF UNPOPULAR NORMS
1 In "The Emperor's New Clothes" Hans Christian Andersen ([1837) 1998) tells the story of three rogues who sell a foolish monarch a nonexistent robe that they claim cannot be seen by those who are "unfit for office" or "incorrigibly stupid." Fear of exposure leads the emperor, and in turn, each of the citizens, to express admiration for the new clothes, which then reinforces the illusion of widespread support for the norm. The spell is broken when a child, innocent of the norm, laughs at the naked old man.
2 It is not hard to find everyday examples of this fable in the academic kingdom. We can all think of prestigious scholars who are widely proclaimed as having the most brilliant new ideas, yet privately, people find the work entirely incomprehensible. Some may worry that perhaps they are indeed inadequate-that those who cannot see these beautiful ideas must be "incorrigibly stupid." Others are quite certain that the emperor is naked but worry about being dismissed as an intellectual lightweight by enthusiasts who clearly seem to understand and appreciate every word. The safest course is to go along with the charade and admire the emperor-thereby reinforcing this same false belief among our colleagues.
3 The problem is not limited to faculty. Studies of campus attitudes toward drinking find that students anticipate negative social consequences for failing to participate in drinking rituals that celebrate intoxication as a symbol of group identity, especially in fraternities (Nagoshi et al. 1994; Perkins and Wechsler 1996; Baer 1994; for a review, see Borsari and Carey (2001)). Yet Prentice and Miller (1993) found that students were privately less comfortable with alcohol use than they (falsely) perceived other students to be. The study suggests that, contrary to campus legend, students are actually somewhat uncomfortable about excessive drinking, at least when they are sober.
4 According to Prentice and Miller (1993), students in their college drinking study are victims of "pluralistic ignorance," a term first coined by Allport (Katz and Allport 1931, p. 152). Pluralistic ignorance describes situations where a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it (see Miller and McFarland [1991] and O'Gorman [1986] for reviews). It is, in Krech and Crutchfield's (1948, pp. 388-89) words, the situation where "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes." The illusion of support is validated when it motivates widespread public compliance.
5 Pluralistic ignorance has been documented not only among groups that indulge but also among those that abstain. For example, in Schank's (1932) classic investigation, the members of a religious community were observed publicly endorsing norms against gambling, smoking, and drinking that they violated in private. More recently, Kitts (2003) found that students in five vegetarian housing cooperatives overestimated public support for dietary norms that were publicly enforced but privately violated. Kitts tested relational explanations ("selective exposure" and "selective disclosure") against social psychological theories of cognitive bias. Consistent with theories of pluralistic ignorance, he found greater support for the relational effects of differential access to information about others' compliance.
6 Other examples are more disturbing. O'Gorman found that American whites grossly exaggerated other whites' support for segregation in the late 1960s (1975; O'Gorman and Garry 1976). A similar pattern can be found in other repressive regimes. In his book Private Truths and Public Lies, Timur Kuran {1995b) points to widespread but illusory support for the communist regime in the former Soviet Union, based in part on fear of denunciation for revealing private opposition to neighbors whose apparent enthusiasm for the regime was in fact equally a charade, and for the same reason.
7 A similar dynamic is evident in witch hunts. As noted by Erikson (1966), witch hunts are caused not by an outbreak of deviance, but by an outbreak of enforcement. Witches are created by anxious neighbors seeking to affirm their status in the community by accusing others of deviance, thereby perpetuating the fear that fuels the need for affirmation. Those accused can then save themselves only by revealing the names of yet other neighbors. Perhaps no one in this population actually believes in the existence of witches. Yet a terrified public turns out to cheer at the executions, in public expiations of a collective anxiety that is of their own making. This self-reinforcing dynamic indeed casts a spell on the community as powerful as that of any witch.
8 We need not assume this dynamic is some historical relic of superstition. Witch hunts were highly publicized on both sides in the early years of the Cold War. Contemporary witches may also include gays assaulted by young thugs eager to affirm their manhood. A study by Adams, Wright, and Lohr (1996) found that homophobic men rated themselves as having lower levels of arousal than other men when shown videos of homosexual intercourse. However, physiological measures of sexual response were found at higher levels among the homophobic men. The results suggest that aggressive same-sex enforcement of heterosexual norms may be motivated by anxiety over the transparency of hidden deviation. Research on adolescent gangs (Willis 1977; Macleod 1995) shows how homophobic humor is used to ridicule group members who lack the requisite toughness and to affirm the status and loyalty of those who might otherwise become suspect themselves.
9 The willingness to feign support for a public lie has also been demonstrated under laboratory conditions. In a classic study, Asch (1951) showed that participants would conform to a consensus judgment they knew to be false rather than risk social isolation as a deviant. When participants were assured anonymity, the false compliance disappeared.
10 It is not difficult to find other familiar examples of compliance with, and enforcement of, privately unpopular norms:
- the exposure of the "politically incorrect" by the righteously indignant who thereby affirm their own moral integrity;
- gossiping about a social faux pas by snobs anxious to affirm their own cultural sophistication;
- public adoration of a bully by fearful schoolboys who do not want to become the next victim;
- "luxury fever" (Frank 2000) among status seekers who purchase $50 cigars, $17,000 wristwatches, and $3 million bras, in an arms race of conspicuous consumption and one-upmanship that leaves the contestants no happier but perhaps a bit less affluent.
11 Naked emperors are easy to find but hard to explain. It is easy to explain why people comply with unpopular norms-they fear social sanctions. And it is easy to explain why people pressure others to behave the way they want them to behave. But why pressure others to do the opposite? Why would people publicly enforce a norm that they secretly wish would go away?
12 One hypothesis is that very few would actually enforce the norm, but no one knows this. If people estimate the willingness to enforce based on the willingness to comply, and they comply based on the false belief that others will enforce, they become trapped in pluralistic ignorance-an equilibrium in which few people would actually enforce the norm but no one realizes this. However, this equilibrium can be extremely fragile. As in the Andersen story, all that is needed is a single child to laugh at the emperor and the spell will be broken.
THE ILLUSION OF SINCERITY
13 A more robust explanation is that most people really will enforce the norm, and for the same reason that they comply-social pressure from others in the group, for whom mere compliance is not enough. To the true believer, it is not sufficient that others go to the right art galleries, display the right body jewelry, purchase the right sports car, or support the right wing. They must do it for the right reason. Zealots believe that it is better not to comply at all than to do so simply to affirm social status (Kuran 1995a, p. 62). Such compliance lasts only so long as behavior can be monitored and social pressure is sufficient to induce acquiescence (Hechter 1987). Thus, true believers reserve special contempt for imposters. Those who comply for the wrong reason must worry about being exposed as
counterfeit.
14 The hypothesized anxiety is supported by research on the "illusion of transparency" (Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec 1998). This refers to a tendency to overestimate the ability of others to monitor our internal states. Savitsky, Epley, and Gilovich (2001) found that individuals tend to overestimate how harshly others will judge them for a public mishap. Across four experimental studies, actors anticipated being more harshly evaluated than was actually the case.
15 Applied to the emperor's dilemma, the "illusion of transparency" suggests that those who admire the emperor out of a desire for social approval fear that their posturing will be apparent to others. They then look for some way to confirm their sincerity. Enforcing the norm provides a low cost way to fake sincerity, to signal that one complies-not as an opportunist seeking approval-but as a true believer.
16 What better way to signal one's sincerity than to act in a way that encourages others to comply (Kuran 1995b, p. 61)? When one's moral, political, or professional "fitness for office" is challenged, people rarely turn the .tables on their inquisitors. If conformity is sanctioned, while enforcement is not, conformists may be suspected of posturing in order to gain social approval, but those who enforce conformity appear to be the genuine article. This use of enforcement to signal sincerity explains the apparent fanaticism of "new recruits" who must prove their loyalty to the established members of a cult or gang, and it also raises the possibility that the thought police may actually be imposters themselves, a defensive tactic Freud (1894) called "reaction formation" (Baumeister, Dale, and Sommer 1998).
17 In the college drinking example, insecure freshmen who worry about social acceptance may be tempted to drink-and to celebrate intoxication-in order to appear "cool." However, they must not appear to be motivated by this goal or they risk being scorned as a "poser." Thus, it is not enough to "party"- they must also express the belief that drinking is cool and act accordingly, thereby adding to the social pressure that leads others like them to join in.
18 Or consider those who pretend to appreciate some highly opaque scholar in order to affirm their erudition .. Privately, they have no clue what the writings mean (if anything), and they worry that true believers will see them as fakes (the illusion of transparency). The solution is easy: simply disparage those intellectually shallow scholars who fail to appreciate real genius. But when one does this, one adds yet another voice to the chorus of intimidation that induces the insecurity motivating the behavior in the first place. The norm becomes self-enforcing.
THE EMPEROR'S DILEMMA
Damon Centola, Robb Willer, and Michael Macy, 2005
Naturally, the best proof of the sincerity of your confession was your naming others whom you had seen in the Devil company.
-Arthur Miller, 1996
THE POPULAR ENFORCEMENT OF UNPOPULAR NORMS
1 Fear of exposure leads the emperor, and in turn, each of the citizens, to express admiration for the new clothes, which then reinforces the illusion of widespread support for the norm.
2 The safest course is to go along with the charade and admire the emperor-thereby reinforcing this same false belief among our colleagues.
3 Yet Prentice and Miller (1993) found that students were privately less comfortable with alcohol use than they (falsely) perceived other students to be.
4 Pluralistic ignorance describes situations where a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it … "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes." The illusion of support is validated when it motivates widespread public compliance.
5 Pluralistic ignorance has been documented not only among groups that indulge but also among those that abstain.
6 fear of denunciation for revealing private opposition to neighbors whose apparent enthusiasm for the regime was in fact equally a charade, and for the same reason.
7 Witches are created by anxious neighbors seeking to affirm their status in the community by accusing others of deviance, thereby perpetuating the fear that fuels the need for affirmation.
8 Contemporary witches may also include gays assaulted by young thugs eager to affirm their manhood.
aggressive same-sex enforcement of heterosexual norms may be motivated by anxiety over the transparency of hidden deviation.
9 participants would conform to a consensus judgment they knew to be false rather than risk social isolation as a deviant.
10 familiar examples of compliance with, and enforcement of, privately unpopular norms:
- "politically incorrect" by the righteously indignant who thereby affirm their own moral integrity;
- gossiping … to affirm their own cultural sophistication;
- adoration of a bully by fearful schoolboys
- "luxury fever" (Frank 2000) among status seekers …conspicuous consumption and one-upmanship that leaves the contestants no happier but perhaps a bit less affluent.
11 Naked emperors are easy to find but hard to explain.
Why would people publicly enforce a norm that they secretly wish would go away?
12 If people estimate the willingness to enforce based on the willingness to comply, and they comply based on the false belief that others will enforce, they become trapped in pluralistic ignorance-an equilibrium in which few people would actually enforce the norm but no one realizes this.
THE ILLUSION OF SINCERITY
13 They must do it for the right reason. Zealots believe that it is better not to comply at all than to do so simply to affirm social status (Kuran 1995a, p. 62). Such compliance lasts only so long as behavior can be monitored and social pressure is sufficient to induce acquiescence (Hechter 1987).
14 a tendency to overestimate the ability of others to monitor our internal states
15 Applied to the emperor's dilemma, the "illusion of transparency" suggests that those who admire the emperor out of a desire for social approval fear that their posturing will be apparent to others.
16 If conformity is sanctioned, while enforcement is not, conformists may be suspected of posturing in order to gain social approval, but those who enforce conformity appear to be the genuine article.
17 Thus, it is not enough to "party"- they must also express the belief that drinking is cool and act accordingly, thereby adding to the social pressure that leads others like them to join in.
18 The norm becomes self-enforcing.
THE EMPEROR'S DILEMMA
Damon Centola, Robb Willer, and Michael Macy, 2005
Naturally, the best proof of the sincerity of your confession was your naming others whom you had seen in the Devil company.
-Arthur Miller, 1996
THE POPULAR ENFORCEMENT OF UNPOPULAR NORMS
1 General fear of exposure leads to a reinforcement of the illusion of widespread support of a norm.
2 SOme people worry that they are either inadequate or stupid and therefore they take the safest course of action to agree with the majority and reinforce the false belief.
You may not always see things the way others see it but is best to go with popular thought.
3 Many students are innately uncomfortable with excessive alcohol use but indulge due to fear of negative social consequences.
Students drink because they anticipate negative social consequences but most privately feel uncomfortable with drinking.
4 Pluralistic ignorance reinforces the legitimacy of a norm that no one believes but every one thinks falsely that everyone believes.
5 Pluralistic ignorance occurs whether or not they indulge or abstain. People often violate norms that they publicly endorse.
6 People act according to what they expect others around them to do for fear of breaking social norms which allows repressive regimes to continue.
7 Witch hunts happen because people fear being accused themselves and so must prove how non-witchy they are by accusing their neighbors which reinforces the anxiety.
8 Those who persecute others may be doing it to hide their likeness to the group they are persecuting.
Aggressive enforcement of norms may be the result of enforcers feeling as if others can tell they are deviating from the norms.
9 Risk of social isolation leads to public conformity.
10 Examples of unpopular norms include people acting "politically correct," gossiping to be on a pedestal, praising bullies because of fear, and spending money to be happy.
11 It makes sense that people would enforce norms they do agree with and that they would comply via social pressure but why would they enforce a norm they don't agree with?
12 THe system of enforcement is fragile and complex; there are very few people who will actually follow through and enforce social and cultural norms; people assume that others will step up and enforce norms when violated but all it takes is a single individual to break the system due to ignorance.
THE ILLUSION OF SINCERITY
13 Zealots will enforce the norm when and where they can so compliance must be exhibited in the correct way or risk being exposed as an imposter.
People comply only if they are being watched by others; there is a desire to be a part of the group.
14 Experimental studies have shown that people expect to be judged more harshly for their mistakes than they actually are supporting the idea of the illusion of transparency.
15 The illusion of transparency suggests that people who follow along only do so out of fear and sincerity.
16 Those who police the norms are probably faking it too.
17 Lack of joining in would be punished by scorning and exclusion which causes mass social pressure as more people feel threatened by these consequences and join the activity.
18 The fear of social rejection in one's head for not conforming reinforces the desires of others to conform to a norm.
1.What's the "emperor" metaphor all about here? What is the counterinuitive finding that needs an explanation?
276.4 In emperor's new clothes, unpopular norm reinforced: town pretends to see clothes on naked emperor in attempt at sophistication
The authors call it "the popular enforcement of an unpopular norm" — members of a group participate in the maintenance of a norm that they do not, as individuals, subscribe to.
2.Terms to take away: pluralistic ignorance (277.2);
pluralistic ignorance (277.2): group members privately reject a norm but incorrectly assume everyone else accepts it
276.2 a metaphor for reinforcement of unpopular norms, in new clothes story, even those who see through facade won't diverge (caitmcn)
276.9 people pretend to like something b/c it's popular, reinforcing its popularity, when in reality no one really likes it. (caitmcn)
277.2 pluralistic ignorance ensues: group members privately reject a norm but are all perpetuators of the illusion of support (caitmcn)
277.5 Pluralistic ignorance has been responsible for the seemingly strong but truly hollow support for some political ideas (caitmcn)
3. How are witch hunts connected here?
277.7 witch hunts follow same dynamic: no one actually believes in witches but fear of accusation fuels other accusations,ect. (caitmcn)
277.9 witch hunt mania repeats in history- "red scare", homophobia, and countless others. (caitmcn)
4. How does "pluralistic ignorance" work — according to one hypothesis (278.7).
"…very few would actually enforce the norm, but no one knowns this. If people estimate the willingness to enforce based on the willingness to comply, and they comply based on the false belief that others will enforce, they become trapped in pluralistic ignorance — an equilibrium in which few people would actually enforce the norm but no one realizes this" (278.7)
278.2 In Asch experiment, people discontinue false compliance with anonymity, proving relation of false compliance & social pressure (caitmcn)
278.5 "why do people publicly enforce a norm that they privately wish would go away?" (caitmcn)
278.6 possible answer is that no one actually would enforce the norm but they assume others would b/c of widespread compliance (caitmcn)
5. And how about an alternative hypothesis? (278.8)
People will enforce the norm because of social pressure from group — specifically from "true believers" who are not doing it only because of pressure (278.8). Note that "true believers" would fall into our previously discussed categories of folks who had actually internalized particular values.
6. What is "the illusion of transparency"?
Finding that people tend to overestimate the degree to which others can see and monitor our internal states — that others know what we are thinking/feeling and more specifically, we overestimate how harshly others will react to our actions (279.2)
7. What is the "illusion of sincerity"? (278.5)
Those who admire the emperor (that is, who uphold a norm they don't actually believe in), do not want to look like they are only doing it to avoid sanction. To signal otherwise, they participate in norm enforcement to signal that they are, in fact, true believers.
278.8 another explanation is that people enforce because simple compliance is not enough to prove dedication to true believers (caitmcn)
279.1 "true believers" will expose those who only comply for status, pressuring false believers to enforce and prove sincerity (caitmcn)
279.5 enforcing to hide lack of sincerity raises possibility that true believers are also phonies (caitmcn)
8.Review the examples of college drinking and scholars who promote an incomprehensible writer to show what the authors mean by saying "norms are self-reinforcing" (279.9)
279.9 norms are self reinforcing: fear of illusion of transparency causes false compliance. But this sustains unideal result. (caitmcn)
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Q237. In "The Emperor's Dilemma," Centola, Willer, and Macy talk about “the popular enforcement of unpopular norms.” What does that mean? Why is it a puzzle? What is (are) the mechanism(s) that they think explains it?
Centola, Willer, and Macy “The Emperor's Dilemma"
“Naked emperors are easy to find but hard to explain. It is easy to explain why people comply with unpopular norms—they fear social sanctions. And it is easy to explain why people pressure others to behave the way they want them to behave. But why pressure others to do the opposite? Why would people publicly enforce a norm that they secretly wish would go away? (278)
“One hypothesis is that very few would actually enforce the norm, but no one knows this. If people estimate the willingness to enforce based on the willingness to comply, and they comply based on the false belief that others will enforce, they become trapped in pluralistic ignorance—an equilibrium in which few people would actually enforce the norm but no one realizes this. However, this equilibrium can be extremely fragile. As in the Andersen story [The Emperor’s New Clothes], all that is needed is a single child to laugh at the emperor and the spell will be broken (278).
“A more robust explanation is that most people really will enforce the norm, and for the same reason that they comply—social pressure from others in the group, for whom mere compliance is not enough. To the true believer, it is not sufficient that others go to the right art galleries, display the right body jewelry, purchase the right sports car, or support the right wing. They must do it for the right reason. Zealots believe that it is better not to comply at all than to do so simply to affirm social status (Kuran 1995a, p. 62). Such compliance lasts only so long as behavior can be monitored and social pressure is sufficient to induce acquiescence (Hechter 1987). Thus, true believers reserve special contempt for imposters. Those who comply for the wrong reason must worry about being exposed as counterfeit (278-9).
“The hypothesized anxiety is supported by research on the ‘illusion of transparency’ (Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec 1998). This refers to a tendency to overestimate the ability of others to monitor our internal states… (279).
“Applied to the emperor’s dilemma, the ‘illusion of transparency’ suggests that those who admire the emperor out of a desire for social approval fear that their posturing will be apparent to others. They then look for some way to confirm their sincerity. Enforcing the norm provides a low cost way to fake sincerity, to signal that one complies—not as an opportunist seeking approval—but as a true believer” (279).
Q450. Centola, et al. describe a process whereby people collectively "produce" something that is contrary to their individual beliefs/interests/preferences. Thomas Schelling, similarly, described a process whereby socially irrational results emerged from individually rational action. Identify points of similarity and difference, using it as an opportunity to show what you know about the two thinkers' ideas as well as your ability to compare markets and groups as generators of social order.
Q451. If the phenomenon described by Centola et al. is common, what are the implications for Schelling's critical mass and tipping models?