Conformity And Obedience

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behaviour in order to adhere to social norms.
It can be simply defined as “yielding to group pressures” (Crutchfield, 1955)

Question 2

What three types of conformity are there?

Answer 2

Kelman (1958) identified three different type of conformity: compliance, internalisation and identification.

Question 3

What is compliance?

Answer 3

When an individual accepts influence because he hopes to achieve favourable reaction from another person or group. Compliance is not a privately believed and stops when there is no group pressure to conform

Question 4

What research supports compliance?

Answer 4

Asch (1951) used 50 male university participants to take part in what they beloved was a “vision test”. Using a line length judgement task participants had to decide whether the presented line matched line a, b or c. There was only one actual participants (naive participant) in each trial as the other seven participants were confederates and had agreed beforehand to choose the wrong answer. The correct answer was always obvious but all confederates gave the wrong answer with the naive participants answering last. On average about 32% of participants conformed to the majority view during these trials. Over 12 trials 75% of participants conformed at least once.

Question 5

Critical evaluation of Asch?

Answer 5

• biased sample, male and similar age
• artificial task, low ecological validity
• may reflect more the era of 1950’s America, as everyone was very conservative and anti-communist, acting differently/going against the norm was not likely to happen. This is supported by lower levels of conformity in replicas in the 70’s and 80’s (Perrin & Spencer, 1980)
  Ethical issues:
• Back et al, 1963, suggests the Asch -type situation is extremely stressful/emotional for participants and may cause harm
• deception

Question 6

What is internalisation?

Answer 6

When an individual accepts influence because the content of the induced behaviour is intrinsically rewarding. He adopts the behaviour because it is actually in line with his value system.

Question 7

What evidence supports internalisation?

Answer 7

Sherif (1935) use the autokinetic effect (where a small spot of light projected onto a screen will appear to mov fen though it is still). Participants were asked to estimate how far the light had moved… When participants were individually tested their answered varied and estimated 20cm - 80cm. In groups of three, where two had estimated similarly in the previous trial and the other very differently, each person was asked to give their answer/estimate aloud. Over numerous trials the estimate for the movement of the light converged to a common estimate.

Question 8

Critical evaluation of Sherif?

Answer 8

• group consisted of three people, may not have considered themselves a group
• no right or wrong answer but an ambiguous task
  (McLeod, 2008)

Question 9

What is identification?

Answer 9

When an individual accepts influence because he wants to establish or maintain a satisfying self-defining relationship to another person/group. Conform to expectations of social role (nurses, police etc.)

Question 10

What evidence supports identification?

Answer 10

Zimbardo (1973) assigned a group of 24 male participants to play a role in a mock prison, either a prisoner or prison guard. They then had to fit their roles including wearing uniforms and found within a very short time both guards and prisoners were conforming to their roles, with guards beginning to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, beginning to dehumanise the prisoners. This research is thought to shows how readily people Conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if those roles are heavily stereotyped.

Question 11

Who is likely to Conform?

Answer 11

Under the individual differences perspective those more likely to conform are those: that have low self-esteem, a low IQ, high anxiety, a need for self-control, feelings of inferiority, low status in a group and an authoritarian personality.

Question 11

Why are women more likely to conform than men?

Answer 11

Santee & Jackson (1982) females assess conformity as a positive, self-defining act and are more sensitive to others and see conformity as keeping a state of peace. Males however interpret their actions as enhancing their self image and deviating from the normal behaviour attracts attention (Eagley, et al, 1981)

Question 12

However gender conformity can depend on…

Answer 12

The situation presented! Sistrunk & McDavid (1971) found that women conformed more on masculine items (type of wrench), however men conformed more on feminine items (types of needlework) and they conformed equal amounts on neutral items (popular rock stars)!

Question 14

What are the main predictors of conformity?

Answer 14

Situational factors that predict conformity are: group size, unanimity and task difficulty.

Question 15

Explain group size?

Answer 15

Conformity increases with group size, but levels out at three people and doesn’t increase further. This was found during variations in Asch’s original study where he altered the number of confederates. Asch (1952) found With two confederates the minority participants errors rose to 13.6%, with three this then jumped to 31.8%. With larger groups Asch suggested participants become resistant to conformity and suspect the majority of working together on purpose.

Question 16

Explain unanimity?

Answer 16

The introduction of social support to Asch’s study by introducing another naive participant or a confederate meant to disagree with the other confederate. The presence of this supporter reduced errors from 55% to 35%. The other supporter did not need to agree with the naive participant but just breaking the group unanimity was the main factor in reducing conformity.

Question 17

Explain task difficulty?

Answer 17

When the lines used in Asch were made to be more similar to each other conformity to the incorrect response rose significantly. This is thought to be due to increased uncertainty in the correct answer and the belief they might be wrong.

Question 18

What is obedience?

Answer 18

A type of social influence in which one person simply orders one or me others to perform some actions. Research first began to consider obedience after the Second World War due to the unwavering obedience shown by nazi soldiers during the holocaust and their claims that they were only following orders.

Question 19

Explain obedience study 1…

Answer 19

Milgram (1963) used 40 males (20-50) with a wide range of jobs. They were introduced to a “second” pts who was actually and confederate. They drew straws to determine who was the teacher and leaner however this was fixed and the confederate was always the learner. The teacher (actual participants) was taken to a separate room from the learner and told he was connected to electrodes and that the teacher must ask him questions and each time he got one wrong he must administer and electric shock, increasing every time a question was answered wrongly. He could not see the learner participants but could speak/hear him. 65% of participants continued to the highest level (450 volts), and 100% continued to 300 volts.

Question 20

Critical evaluation of Milgram (1963)?

Answer 20

• Orne and Holland (1968) - lacks experimental realism, pts might not believe the experimental setting they were in.
• All male
• self selected sample, possibly means this is not a good representative of the American population, may have a volunteer personality.
• however findings have often been replicated! Which is good, BUT Smith & Bond suggest all of these have been conducted in industrialised western societies and may not reflect universal behaviour.
• ethical issues, deception, protection of participants, right to withdrawal.

Question 21

Explain obedience study 2…

Answer 21

Hofling (1966) created a more realistic study than Milgram’s as it was a naturalistic field experiment. A confederate acts as a doctor and calls the nurses working a night shift at a hospital, he asks her to check for the medication “astroten”, when the nurse checks she can see clearly the maximum dosage is 10mg but when she reports back to the doctor he tells her to administer 20mg to patient “Mr Jones”. He tells her he will authorise all paperwork on his return but is extremely busy at the moment. This procedure was repeated 22 times and the nurses were observed to monitor their behaviour and see if they obeyed. If they did, they would be breaking three hospital rules
1) not to accept instructions over the phone
2) administering double the maximum dosage
3) the medicine itself was not on the stock list and not authorised on the ward stock list.
21/22 nurses followed the doctors orders, ignoring the rules.

Question 22

Critical evaluation of Hofling (1966)?

Answer 22

Strength: high ecological validity (field) (Carlson, Martin and Buskit, 2004)
Weakness: broke ethical guideline of deception (McLeod,2008)

Question 23

What are the main predictors of obedience?

Answer 23

Factors that influence obedience are… Status, social support and proximity

Question 24

Explain status?

Answer 24

-higher status people elicit more conformity from others. Participants don’t blindly follow orders but are taking relevant situational factors into account such as the person ordering them, as people are often sensitive to the legitimacy of others authority (researcher in lab environment). The power of the uniform also clearly shows this authority in the environment.

Question 25

Explain social support?

Answer 25

Social support is a powerful factor in disregarding social influence. It provides a frame of reference to judge the legitimacy of obeying the instructions one is given. This is supported by Asch’s work on conformity and the variation of his study involving a supporting participant.

Question 26

Explain proximity?

Answer 26

It has been found that participants will be more likely to obey when in closer proximity, such as if a request is made and the requester looks at and touches them (Klienke, 1977).
Proximity is also an important element from the Milgram study as it was easier to harm someone emotionally and physically distant from oneself. People also often feel less empathy towards victims of large scale disasters in faraway countries.