Chapter 6 Flashcards
A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.
Conformity
Types of Conformity
Acceptance
Compliance
Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.
Acceptance
It occurs when you genuinely believe in what the group has persuaded you to do—you inwardly and sincerely believe that the group’s actions are right.
Acceptance
It involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing.
Compliance
It is complying with a direct command.
Obedience
True or False.
The shorter-lived memories that underlie public compliance have a different neural basis than the memories that underlie longer-term private acceptance.
True
WHAT ARE THE CLASSIC CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE STUDIES?
Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation
Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
He conducted groundbreaking experiments in the 1930’s to understand how social norms develop and influence individual behavior.
Who is it and What study?
Muzafer Sherif.
Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation
The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.
Autokinetic phenomenon
Suggestibility to problems that spread throughout a large group of people.
Mass Hysteria
Mimicking someone else’s behavior.
Chameleon effect
In a this study, four subjects are arranged in a row. Three are accomplices, and there is only one true subject. Participants assessed which of the three comparison lines closest matched the standard. The subject felt uneasy and conflicted after hearing others respond incorrectly before him.
Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure
It investigates the extent to which individuals would obey orders from an authority figure, even if those orders conflicted with their personal beliefs.
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
Four Factors determined obedience according to Milgram:
- The Victim’s Emotional Distance
- The Authority’s closeness and legitimacy
- Whether or not the authority was part of a respected institution
- The liberating Effect of a disobedient fellow participant
When the victim was remote and the “teachers” heard no complaints, nearly all obeyed calmly to theend.
The Victim’s Emotional Distance
The physical presence of the experimenter also affected obedience.
The Authority’s closeness and legitimacy
The experiment showed that people are more likely to obey orders if they come from a prestigious institution.
Whether or not the authority was part of a respected institution
These classic experiments give us a negative view of conformity. But conformity can also be constructive. People are more likely to disobey orders if they see others doing the same.
The liberating Effect of a disobedient fellow participant
The common response to Milgram’s results is to note their counterparts in the “____”
“I was only following orders.”
It is explicitly commanded.
Obedience
A powerful social pressure (the experimenter’s commands) overcame a weaker one (the remote victim’s pleas).
Obedience experiment
WHAT PREDICTS CONFORMITY?
People conform most when three or more people, or groups, model the behavior or belief.
Group Size
The support of one comrade greatly increases a person’s social courage.
Unanimity
the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction to one another.
Cohesion
The higher the status of those modeling the behavior or belief, the greater likelihood of conformity.
Status
People conform more when they must respond in front of others rather than writing their answers privately.
Public Response
Commitment to a certain behavior or belief increases the likelihood that a person will stick with that commitment rather than conform.
Prior commitment
Forms of Social Influence
Normative Influence
Informational Influence
Leads to compliance, especially for people who have recently seen others ridiculed or who are seeking to climb a status ladder (Hollander, 1958; Janes & Olson, 2000).
Normative influence
Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others’ expectations, often to gain acceptance.
Normative Influence
Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.
Informational Influence
It suggest that conformity may genuinely shape perceptions—people may conform because they are afraid of being wrong.
Informational Influence
Personality of people who are likely to conform.
-Higher agreeableness and conscientiousness
-Who wants to please others.
-Who favors smooth social experiences over disagreements, follows the rules, has traditional beliefs, and doubts the existence of free will.
People who are less likely to conform
-High openness to experience
-Novelty seekers
-With strong belief in their own free will and personal control.
True or False.
Different cultures socialize people to be more or less socially responsive.
People from different cultures have different levels of conformity.
True
It allow some freedom of interpretation to those who act them out, but some aspects of any role must be performed.
Social roles
By intentionally playing a new role and conforming to its expectations, people sometimes change themselves or empathize with people whose roles differ from their own.
Role reversal
Two Resisting Social Pressure
-Reactance
-Asserting Uniqueness
A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom.
Reactance
Attempts to restrict a person’s freedom often produce an anticonformity “boomerang effect”
Reactance
People feel better when they see themselves as moderately unique and act in ways that will assert their individuality.
Asserting Uniqueness
