Exam 2 Chapter 6

Front 1

Conformity

Back 1

Change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure

Front 2

Two types of Conformity

Back 2

•Compliance

•Acceptance

Front 3

Compliance

Back 3

•Conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or saying.

•Obedience

°Acting in accord with a direct order or command

Front 4

Acceptance

Back 4

•Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right.

Front 5

Muzafer Sherif (1935, 1937)

Back 5

•Used autokinetic phenomenon then asked groups of men to determine how much the point of light had moved

•First trial - alone

•Rest of trials with others

Front 6

Solomon Asch (1951, 1956)

Back 6

•A group of 7 to 9 men, all college students

•Psychological experiment on

"visual judgment"

•12 out of 18 trials, confederates provided wrong answers

•If the subjects showed suspicion, the experiment was stopped

Front 7

Solomon Asch (1951, 1956)

Back 7

Procedure:

•Had participants geuss which line in the right box is the same length as the line on the left

•Almost everyone easily gets this right -when alone

Front 8

What was found during Asch's study

Back 8

•75% of the participants conformed on at least one trial

•There was no tipping point

•Conformity even worked when there was a difference of 7 inches

Front 9

Results of Asch's Study

Back 9

• When surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (32%).

•Reported Reasons for Conformity

° I am wrong they are right

° Not to spoil your results

° "Perhaps there is something wrong with me - but don't let them know"

Front 10

Results of Asch's Study

Back 10

•25% of the participants never conformed

°I am right, I can overcome my doubt with confidence

°"The others might be right - but I'm going to call it as I see it"

Front 11

Obedience

Back 11

•Is a social norm valued in most cultures

•We internalize the social norm of obedience

•People will obey the orders of an authority figure to hurt or even kill others

°Holocaust, My Lai

Front 12

Stanley Milgram's Study of Obedience

Back 12

•40 males from community

°Told participanting in a learning and memory experiment

°Assigned "teacher" role

-Required to move up a lever with each wrong answer.

Front 13

Stanley Milgram's Study of Obedience

Back 13

•No actual shock

°Required to announce the voltage level

•Dependent Variable

°Highest voltage administered

°Observations of tension

Front 14

Milgram's Study of Obedience: Results

Back 14

•26/40 administered lethal shock

°14 defied the experiment

•All went to shock level where clients kicks on the wall and stops providing answers

•All subjects reported they thought the experiment conditions were real

Front 15

Milgram's Study of Obedience

(Ethics)

Back 15

•Critics said the Milligrams experiment stressed the participants against their will

•They argued that the participants self-esteem may have been altered

Front 16

Milgram stated that the critic's controversy "terribly overblown"

Back 16

•84% we're glad they participated

•1% regretted

•40 years later, no harm done

Front 17

Breeds Obedience

Back 17

•Victim's distance or depersonalization

°Implications for abuse, war, gas champers

•Closeness and legitimacy of the authority

°Medical Docs

-Rear vs Rear

Front 18

Breeds Obedience

Back 18

•Institutional authority

°45% vs 65%

•Liberating effects of group influence

Front 19

Why Conform

Back 19

•Social Norms

°Rules for social behavior

-Elevator Rules

•Informational Social Influence

°Occuring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people

•Most likely to use when:

°Other information is not available

°The situation is ambiguous

°The situation is a crisis

°Other people are experts

Front 20

Normative Social Influence

Back 20

•Based on a person's desire to fulfill others expectations, often to gain acceptance

Front 21

Classic Studies of Conformity and Obedience

Back 21

•Reflections on the Classic Studies

°Behavior and attitudes are up mutually reinforcing

-A small act of evil to foster the attitude that leads to a larger evil act.

•Power of the situation

°Herosim can occur as well as evil

Front 22

Researcher: Sherif

Back 22

Topic: Norm Formation

Method: Assessing suggestibility regarding seeming movement of light

Front 23

Researcher: Asch

Back 23

Topic: Conformity

Method: Agreement with others obviously wrong perceptual judgments

Front 24

Researcher: Milgram

Back 24

Topic: Obedience

Method: Complying with commands to shock another

Front 25

Is Conformity Good or Bad?

Back 25

•Obedience and Conformity research creates undertones of moral judgment

•Asch and Milgram's work suggest Conformity is wrong b/c it leads to error

Front 26

Is Conformity Good or Bad?

Back 26

•Crimes of Obedience

°Should a physician perform an abortion if one is requested

Front 27

Nonconformity

Back 27

•Walking on the "wrong" (left) side of the sidewalk or staircase

Front 28

What Predicts Conformity

Back 28

•Group Size

•3 to 5 people will elicit more conformity than just 1 or 2

Front 29

Unanimity

Back 29

•Observing another's dissent can increase our own independence

°Application: Juries, public committees

Front 30

What Predicts Conformity?

Back 30

•Status

°Higher-status people tend to have more impact

Front 31

What Predicts Conformity?

Cohesion

Back 31

•"We feeling" extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction for one another

•The more cohesive a group is, the more power it gains over its members

•Music Preference

Front 32

What Predicts Conformity?

Public Response

Back 32

•People conform more when they must respond in front of others rather than writing their answers privately

Front 33

What Predicts Conformity?

No Prior Commitment

Back 33

•Most people having made a public commitment stick to it

°Teens virginity until marriage pledge

°Referees and Umps rarely reverse their calls

Front 34

Normative Social Influence

Back 34

•Based on a person's desire to fulfill others expectations, often gain acceptance

°Produced by social image

Front 35

Why Conform?

Brain Research

Back 35

•Areas associated with negative emotion light up when disagreeing with the group.

Front 36

Informational Social Influence

Back 36

•Occuring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people

°Produced by desire to be correct

Front 37

Why Conform?

Back 37

•Informative and Normative Influence often go together

•Sometimes can lead us to be quite wrong

Front 38

Who Conforms?

Back 38

•Personality

• Is a poor predictor of conformity

• Situations are better

Front 39

Who Conforms?

Back 39

•Social Roles

°Conforming to expectations is an important task when taking on a new social role

Front 40

Who Conforms?

Back 40

•Culture

°Different cultures socialize people to be more or less socially responsive

•Individualistic vs Collectivistic

Front 41

Reactance

Back 41

•Motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom

-Can produce boomerang effect

Front 42

Reactance and the Romeo and Juliet Effect

Back 42

•Driscoll, David, and Lipitz (1972)

°140 Colorado Couples

°More parental inference - romantic love

°Reactance: desire to protect one's sense of freedom

Front 43

Asserting Uniqueness

Back 43

•We act in ways that perserve our sense of individuality