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Psychology > Conform and Obey! > Flashcards

Conform and Obey! Flashcards

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1
Q

Conformity definition

A

Changing behaviour or beliefs in order to come into line with others in a group in response to social pressure

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2
Q

3 Types of conformity:

A
  • Compliance
  • Identification
  • Internalisation
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3
Q

Compliance:

A
  • A change in behaviour but not personal belief as a result of following rules
  • Pretending to agree with a group
  • Eg: Wearing a school uniform despite not wanting to
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4
Q

Identification:

A
  • A change of behaviour/opinion to identify with a group in public but not in private
  • If they leave the group, the opinion will change again
  • Eg: Supporting a new sports team in a new country/school
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5
Q

Internalisation:

A
  • A group has such a huge impact on a person that they permanently change their behaviour and beliefs and continue this even after leaving the group
  • Eg: Joining a religion/cult
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6
Q

Factors affecting conformity:

A
  • Informational Social Influence
  • Normative Social Influence
  • Individual Factors
  • Situational Factors
  • Cultural Factors
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7
Q

Factors affecting conformity: Informational Social Influence

A
  • Uncertainty leads to a person adopting the behaviour of others because they want to do the right thing in the situation
  • We treat the people around us as informational resources for how to behave because we assume they have better knowledge than us
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8
Q

Jennes Experiment (1932) (ISI)

A
  • Participants shown a jar full of beans and asked to guess how many there were
  • Then they were put into groups and asked to determine an estimate as the group
  • Participants were allowed to change their original guess and most moved it closer to the group average
  • People are influenced by a peer group even though there is no reason why the group’s guess would be more accurate
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9
Q

Factors affecting conformity: Normative Social Influence

A
  • The ability that others have to influence an individual to conform to the social norms
  • People want to be accepted and have a need for social approval
  • Don’t have to agree to the norms to comply to them and be accepted (compliance)
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10
Q

Factors affecting conformity: Individual Factors

A
  • Personality
  • Age
  • Sex (women conform more than men do)
  • Self esteem
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11
Q

Factors affecting conformity: Situational Factors

A
  • Group size
  • Group unanimity
  • Task difficulty
  • If the people in the group know each other
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12
Q

Factors affecting conformity: Cultural Factors

A
  • In some cultures (Japan) group consensus is valued over individual opinion, but in the west individual thinkers are valued
  • Collectivist Vs Individualist societies
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13
Q

Obedience definition: (when good, when bad)

A
  • The willingness to follow orders from someone in a position of authority
  • Can be Good as it helps society to function properly
  • Can be Bad if an authority figure gives harmful instructions
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14
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience:

A
  • Perceived Legitimate Authority
  • Socialisation
  • Authoritarian Parenting
  • Autonomous and Agentic levels of Behaviour
  • Situational Factors
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15
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience: Perceived Legitimate Authority

A
  • If we think someone has the right to tell us what to do, we will usually obey
  • Eg: The police, a teacher, a manager
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16
Q

Perceived Legitimate Authority: Hofling (1966)

A
  • 22 nurses were asked if they would administer medicine in this scenario:
    “A drug is left in a ward, on the label it says its max dose is 10ml. A doctor phones them and tells them to administer 20ml of this medicine to a patient Mr Jones”
  • 21/22 nurses said they would not administer the medication in this scenario,
  • 21/22 had to be stopped from administering the medication
    Strengths: *High mundane realism *High ecological validity
  • Weaknesses: *Not ethical for the nurses’ mental health *Took place in 1960s USA, not generalisable for all countries/cultures or the modern day
17
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience: Socialisation

A
  • The effect of childhood experiences on our behaviour and relation to social norms
  • Result of pressures from the likes of teachers, family and peers
18
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience: Authoritarian Parenting

A
  • Parenting style affects a child’s level of obedience
  • Democratic Parenting: Children are encouraged to think for themselves and make rational choices and negotiate boundaries
  • Authoritarian Parenting: Obedience and respect to authority figures is top priority. Rules should be obeyed and not negotiated/challenged
19
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience: Autonomous and Agentic Levels of Behaviour

A
  • According to Milgram, people’s decision to obey or not to obey an authority figure depends on their mental state
  • Autonomous state: Seeing yourself as in control, acting on your own wishes and morals
  • Agentic state: Seeing someone else as being in control, you’re acting on their commands/principles not yours
20
Q

Factors Affecting Obedience: Situational Factors: Proximity:

A
  • In a variation of Milgram’s experiment, after the experimenter gave the initial instructions they would leave the room, all subsequent prods were given over the telephone
  • Participants were more likely to quit early, only 21% gave the full 450V
21
Q

Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience: Participants:

A
  • 40 American men between the ages of 20-50
22
Q

Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience: Method:

A
  • Participant taken into a room with another ‘volunteer’, actually a confederate
  • They were told that the effect of punishment on learning was being studied
  • The participant’s ‘teacher’ role was to help the ‘learner’ remember a list of words by giving them an increased voltage of electric shock every time they gave an incorrect answer
  • The participant watched the ‘learner’ be strapped into a chair and have electrodes attached to their body
  • The participants had a shock generator in front of them with switches labelled from 15V to 450V, each switch had a label under it from ‘mild shock’ to ‘moderate shock’ and the highest voltages were labelled XXX, indicating death.
  • At 75V, prerecorded noises come from the room next door containing the ‘learner’
  • If the participant questioned the instructions then the experimenter would say one of a list of ‘prods’ to encourage the participant to continue, despite the learner’s ‘heart condition’.
23
Q

What were the 4 prods in Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural study of Obedience?

A
  • Please continue
  • The experiment requires that you continue
  • It is absolutely essential that you continue
  • You have no other choice but to continue
24
Q

Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience: Results:

A
  • Every single participant administered shocks up to 300V
  • At 300V, 12.5% stopped
  • 65% of participants administered the 450V shock, knowing that it would result in the death of the learner
25
Q

Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience: Conclusion:

A
  • When orders are given by an** authority figure**, we are likely to obey
  • The** ‘I was just obeying orders’** excuse given by those who have harmed others is explained by the results of this study
  • It can be concluded that people are in an **agentic ** state when they follow orders given by an authourity figure
26
Q

Milgram’s (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience: Evaluation:

A
  • Milgram’s research was unethical because participants were decieved
  • However the participants were all debriefed following the study.
  • Milgram did not take adequete measures to protect his participants from psychological distress and emotional conlfict.
  • The lab setting of the study means that there was low mundane realism and ecological validity
  • However it makes the results of the study more valid as there was a high level of control over variables
  • The participants were self-selected from a newspaper article, meaning that the participants involved were only the type of people who would volunteer for a study about memory
  • participants were also paid, which increases the feeling of obligation to fiinish the task, despite being told they could leave at any time.
  • All participants involved were male, so the research cannot be applied to females.
  • Several cross-cultural studies have been completed which show similar results to Milgram (1963) which increases the reliability of his results.
  • Meeus and Raajmakers (1986) found 92% obedience in the Netherlands, with insults rather than electric shocks.
  • Burger (2009) found similar results to Milgram but his shocks only went up to 150V for ethical reasons.

Psychology (3 decks)

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