Conformity and Obedience

Chapter VI

Learning outline:

What is conformity?What are the classic conformity and

obedience studies?What predicts conformity?

Why conform?Who conforms?

Do we ever want to be different?

What is Conformity?

A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.

Varieties of Conformity(Neil et al.,2000)

1. Compliance2. Obedience 3. Acceptance

Compliance Conformity that

involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing.

Obedience Acting in accord with a

direct order or command.

Acceptance Conformity that

involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.

Classic Conformity and Obedience studies

1. Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation2. Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

3. Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation

Participants in Sherif’s darkened-room autokinetic experiments faced an ambiguous reality.

Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation Suggestibility

Our views of reality are not ours alone.

“Chameleon effect”

• “When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”

—ERIC HOFFER, THE PASSIONATE BELIEVER, 1955

Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

Epistemological dilemma: “What is true? Is it what my peers tell me or what my eyes tell me?”

Ethical note: Professional ethics usually dictate explaining the experiment.

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

Milgram’s (1965, 1974) experiments tested what happens when the demands of authority clash with the demands of conscience.

These have become social psychology’s most famous and controversial experiments.

The experiment requires one of them to teach a list of word pairs to the other and to punish errors by delivering shocks of increasing intensity.

What Breeds Obedience?

Four factors that determined obedience were: 1.The victim’s emotional distance,

2. The authority’s closeness and legitimacy, 3. Whether or not the authority was part of a

respected institution, 4. The liberating effects of a disobedient

fellow participant.

Imagine you had the power to prevent either a tsunami that would kill 25,000 people on the planet’s other side, a crash that would kill 250 people at your local airport, or a car accident that would kill a close friend. Which would you prevent?

Victim’s distance When the victim was

remote and the “teachers” heard no complaints, nearly all obeyed calmly to the end.

“Distance negates responsibility.”

—GUY DAVENPORT

CLOSENESS AND LEGITIMACY OF THE AUTHORITY

The physical presence of the experimenter also affected obedience.

When the one making the command is physically close, compliance increases.

INSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY

• In everyday life, too, authorities backed by institutions wield social power.

THE LIBERATING EFFECTS OF GROUP INFLUENCE

• Perhaps you can recall a time you felt justifiably angry at an unfair teacher but you hesitated to object. Then one or two other students spoke up about the unfair practices, and you followed their example, which had a liberating effect.

BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES

Attitudes fail to determine behavior when external influences override inner convictions.

When responding alone, Asch’s participants nearly always gave the correct answer.

It was another matter when they stood alone against a group.

The most terrible evil evolves from a sequence of small evils.

Reflection on classical studies The United States

military now trains soldiers to disobey inappropriate, unlawful orders.

IS

Ervin Stuab (2003) “Human beings have the capacity to come to

experience killing other people as nothing extraordinary”.

But humans also have a capacity for heroism.

THE POWEROF THE SITUATION

Imagine violating some minor norms: 1. Standing up in the middle of a class;

2. Singing out loud in a restaurant3. Playing golf in a suit.

Summary of the Classic Conformity and Obedience Studies

Topic Researcher Method Real life example

Norm formation Sherif Assessing suggestibility regarding seeming movement of light.

Interpreting events differently after hearing from others.

Conformity Asch Agreement with others’ obviously wrong perceptual judgments.

Doing as others do.

Obedience Milgram Complying with the command to shock someone.

Soldiers or employees following questionable orders.

Next….

WHAT’S PREDICTS CONFORMITY?

1. Group size2. Unanimity3. Cohesion

4. Status5. Public Response

6. Prior Commitment

Group size

Unanimity

Cohesion

A “we feeling” ; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction for one another.

Status

Public Response

Prior Commitment Once they commit themselves to a position, people seldom yield to social pressure

WHY CONFORM?

Normative influence

Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others’ expectations, often to gain acceptance.

It is “going along with the crowd” It will lead to compliance especially for people

who have recently seen others ridiculed, or who are seeking to climb a status ladder.

Informational Influence

Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.

It leads people to privately accept others’ influence.

WHO CONFORMS?

Personality

Personality scores were poor predictors of individuals’ behavior.

It also predicts behavior better when social influences are weak.

Culture

Social Roles

Social roles allow some freedom of interpretation to those who act theme out, but some aspects of any role must be performed.

Roles have powerful effects. As you internalize the role, self-consciousness subsided. What felt awkward now feels genuine.

DO WE EVER WANT TO BE DIFFERENT?

Reactance

A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of actions.

The theory of psychological reactance– that people act to protect their sense of freedom– is supported by experiments showing that attempts to restrict a person’s freedom often produce an anti-conformity “boomerang effect”.

Asserting Uniqueness

Individual who have the highest “need for uniqueness” tend to be the least responsive to majority influence.

END!!!!!!!!