Chapter 6: Conformity Flashcards
Conformity
- A change in behavior or belief in accordance with others
- Distinct from just acting in accordance with others
Conformity: Connotations
- Members of individualist cultures view this negatively, except when showing solidarity
- Collectivist members see conformity positively
Conformity: How to tell
Would you do this if you were the only person around?
Compliance
Insincere outward conformity for the purpose of reward or avoiding punishment
Obedience
Compliance to a specific command
Acceptance
- Sincere inner acceptance of conforming behaviors or attitudes
- Might not always happen right away
The 3 Classic Conformity & Obedience Studies
- Sherif’s norm formation studies
- Ashc’s studies of group pressure
- Milgram’s obedience studies
Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation
- Ambiguous test with no true answer somehow led to all participants giving the same answer (norm) when continually exposed to each other’s answers
- Participants gave this norm answer when tested alone later
Sherif’s Study: Autokinetic Phenomenon
Optical illusion of a stationary light appearing to move in the dark which is actually due to the viewer’s movement
Sherif’s Study: Confederate
In a later test, Jacobs and Campbell used a confederate who initially gave an inflated answer that affected the following answers significantly
Sherif’s Study: Real-Life Suggestibility
- Yawning, laughing, coughing
- People within social networks follow similar moods and life patterns
- We unconsciously mirror others’ actions, which leads us to feel what they feel
Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure
- When given an obvious test, 37% of people conformed to give the wrong answer when the confederates gave a wrong answer
- No pressure to conform other than simply to agree
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
- Most people were willing to “severely harm” others when prompted by a “researcher”
- Criticized for lack of consistent tests and lack of obedience
Milgram’s Obedience Studies: Ethics
- Results not worth the stress on participants
- Of the 1/4 of participants debriefed, none reported long-term effects
Milgram’s Studies: What Breeds Obedience
- Victim’s Distance
- Authority’s closeness and legitimacy
- Authority’s credentials
- Liberating effect of a disobedient participant
Milgram’s Studies: Victim’s Distance
- Obedience is negatively correlated with closeness
- Explains the tendency to depersonalize killing
Milgram’s Studies: Authority Closeness and Legitness
- Closeness is correlated with obedience
- When a less legitimate experimenter decided on the procedure, obedience dropped
Milgram’s Studies: Institutional Authority
Compliance dropped when a less credible institution was used
Milgram’s Studies: Liberation Through Group Influence
90% refused when 2 confederates first did
Classic Studies: Behavior and Attitudes
- Relationship is weak when external influences are overwhelming
- Overjustification effect
Classic Studies: Power of Situation
Trying to break from social constraints shows us how powerful they are
Classic Studies: Avoiding FAE
- Milgram’s participants were ordinary people
- There’s nothing wrong with them
- We want to attribute their actions to violent dispositions
Predicting Conformity: Group Size
- 5 or more people will have the same effect
- 1 has some effect
- 3 people is when it gets real
Predicting Conformity: Unanimity
- It is easier to stand up when there are others standing up with you
- Unanimity allows one to fit in with a group and lose some anonimity
Predicting Concformity: Cohesion
Working together works good
Predicting Conformity: Status
- When someone has high status, we want to conform with them
Predicting Conformity: Public Response
- We follow the norms of the people around us
- Getting in a line, public drinking
Predicting Conformity: No Prior Commitment
We tend to follow norms when we have no personal agenda in a situation
Cause of Conformity: Normative Influence
- We tend to go along with a crowd in order to be liked and gain approval from others
- This leads to public compliance
Cause of Conformity: Informational Influence (Right)
- Conforming when we feel a situation is ambiguous
- We trust the crowd to be right (Fallacy)
- Leads to private acceptance
Why Conform?
Conformity is greatest when:
1: People respond after the group (Asch’s study)
2: People feel incompetent, especially at a difficult task, especially when they care about “being right”
Who Conforms? Personality
- Personality can predict conformity, especially when social influences are weak
Who Conforms? Culture
- Culture: collectivist cultures are more likely to conform, respect for social norms is common, cultures with history of disease are more conformist, Working class people like to be similar to others compared to middle class ones
Who Conforms? Gender
- Women were more likely to conform when they could see the behavior of others
- This difference may be a “confound effect” since male researchers led to greater conformity in women, suggesting that their experimental topics were male-oriented
Who Conforms? Social Roles
- Most roles have certain required actions that one must conform to
- Roles are defined by clusters of norms (jobs, relationships)
- Accepting of these roles as seen as conformity, since we do not choose them and they are expected of us
Do we Want to be Different? Reactance
A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom, especially when our agency feels threatened
Do we Wanna be Different? Asserting Uniqueness
We have a preference for being moderately unique, within the roles that we perform
