Obedience and Conformity

Obedience and Conformity

• Rock musician, Peter Gabriel, showed his admiration for Stanley Milgram in his album, "So," (1986), which includes a piece titled, "We do what we're told-Milgram's 37."

• What does the "37" refer to?

Summary of Milgram Studies%

Obeying• Teacher does not deliver shock, but helped out.

93%• Victim pounds on wall then becomes silent 65%• Victim heard protesting (movie version)

50%• Victim in same room

40%• Teacher has to put victim's hand on shock plate 30%• Victim says at outset that he will do study

only if he is let out when he wants to be40%

• Study done in Bridgeport, CT 48%• Experimenter in remote location

19%• Teacher told to select the level of shock

(experimenter legitimizes all levels) 3%

Milgram’s 37

• Represents the number of fully obedient subjects when the naïve subject helped out a confederate who actually administered the shocks. 37 out of 40 people (93%) continued to the end, the highest obedience rate in any of Milgram’s studies.

• Experiment 18 “A peer administers shocks” in Milgram’s book Obedience to authority: An experimental view (pp. 121-122).

Personalizing the victim

• Markedly reduces obedience

Gender

• Are men or women more obedient in Milgram’s paradigm? Or are they equally obedient?

Other replications

Hofling et al. (1966)

• Unknown doctor called nurses and asked them to administer 20 milligrams of the drug "Astroten" to a patient on the ward. Violated hospital policy. (Labeled dosage 10 milligrams)

• 21/22 (95%) of the nurses were about to administer the drug, before being stopped and debriefed by one of the researchers

How well can people predict their own obedience?

• The researchers told a group of nurses and nursing students about the study and asked them how they would react.

• Nearly all said they would not have given the medication as ordered.

Another replication

Sheridan & King (1972)• Replicated Milgram exactly, except that (a)

participants were male & female college students, (b) victim was a "cute, fluffy, puppy," and (c) the shocks were real.

• Participants instructed to deliver a shock each time the puppy failed to learn a discrimination task, which was actually unsolvable

• Percent delivering the maximum amount of shock similar to percent in Milgram’s studies.

Would Milgram find less obedience if he conducted his experiments today?

• Thomas Blass– Examined Milgram studies and replications

during a 25-year period from 1961 to 1985. Correlated year of publication and the amount of obedience. No significant correlation.

Relevance of the FAE

• How is the fundamental attribution error relevant to Milgram’s research?

Historical insights

• How might Milgram’s research offer insights into historical events such as the Holocaust and the My Lai massacre?– People need not be unusually cruel to obey

orders to harm someone else– Situational pressures can be powerful

determinants of behavior– Does not mean that people are not

responsible for their actions

Conformity

• Conformity: A change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people.

• Unlike obedience, conformity does not require commands or coercion by an authority.

Normative Social Influence

• Conformity and Social Approval: The Asch Line Judgment Studies

Asch (1951, 1956) tested whether people would conform in situations in which the group’s judgments were obviously incorrect.

Participants in the Asch line study showed a high level of conformity, given how obvious it was that the group was wrong in its judgments.





• 76% conformed on at least one of the trials

Asch studies of conformity

• What was the role of…– Public versus private conformity? – Unanimity of the group?– Normative influence? (don’t want to look silly)

Private vs. Public conformity

• Private conformity: change of beliefs that occurs when a person privately accepts the position taken by others.

• Public conformity: superficial change in overt behavior, without a corresponding change of opinion, produced by real or imagined group pressure.

• Asch studies demonstrate PUBLIC conformity

Normative social influence

• Normative influence: Conformity occurs when a person fears the negative consequences of appearing deviant.

• If write answers privately, conformity drops markedly.

Unanimous group

• When the group’s position is unanimous, conformity is greater.

• If one person dissents (an ally), conformity drops.


• When Will People Conform to Normative Social Influence?

Asch’s research shows that conformity does not increase much after group size reaches 4 or 5 other people.

Social Norm group exercise


• Resisting Normative Social Influence

The first step in resisting normative social influence is to become aware that we are doing it. The second step is to find an ally who thinks like we do.


• Resisting Normative Social Influence

Additionally, if you conform to group norms most of the time, you earn idiosyncracy credits that give you the right to deviate occasionally without serious consequences.


• Minority Influence: When the Few Influence the Many

Moscovici (1985) argues that a minority can affect change in the majority. The key to this is consistency over time and consistent unanimity among members of the minority.

Obedience and Conformity in Everyday Life

• Candid Camera Video (For each episode, think about why people might be conforming and what kinds of social influence strategies might be operating.)

• Face the Rear: Why are people conforming?

• Influence Tactics (kids and ice cream)• Picketing against everything with nothing:• Delaware closed today:

Who is most likely to conform?

• Adolescents• Women are slightly more likely than men, but the

difference is very small and depends on the specific type of situation.

• Cultures valuing interpersonal harmony (e.g., some cultures in Asia, Africa, and South America)

• People with low self-esteem are more likely to conform than those with high self-esteem.

Age and Conformity

• Adolescents are most likely to conform.• Berndt (1979): Students in grades 3, 6, 9,

and 12 reported on how they would react if their friends tried to get them to see a movie, help a new kid on the block, cheat on a test, soap windows on Halloween, or do other things. Conformity increases from 3 to 6th and peaks at 9th grade. A little lower by 11-12th grade (but not much)

Gender and conformity

• Gender: Might think women would be more easily influenced than men. But it turns out that whether gender differences occur depends on how comfortable men OR women are with the task.

• More masculine content, women conform more.

More feminine content, men conform more.

Compliance

• Mindlessness/Automatic Pilot• Langer & colleagues (1978):

• IV: How phrased request:– Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the

xerox machine? (No reason) (60%)– ....because I’m in a rush. (real reason) (94%)– ...because I have to make some copies (illusion of

a reason) (93%)

• DV: Percent agreeing to request

Compliance

• Regan (1971) Norm of reciprocity• IV: Confederate acts likable or dislikable• IV: Confederate buys P a Coke without being

asked OR does not buy P a Coke OR E buys P a Coke

• DV: Whether or not Ps buy raffle tickets and amount spent on them

• Results: Ps bought more raffle tickets when confed did a favor, regardless of whether confed was likable or dislikable.

Documents

Obedience and Conformity