Conformity and Obedience Flashcards
social psychology
study of intrapersonal interactions, including individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior during these interacitions
conformity
tendency people have to change their behavior to fit group norms
informative influence
tendency of individuals to assume that the actions of the group are correct when in an ambiguous situation
normative influence
tendency of the individuals to conform to the behaviors of the group, out of fear or rejection
privately conforming
tendency of individuals to change one’s beliefs and behaviors to fit with the group
publicly conforming
tendency of individuals to change beliefs outwardly, while maintaining one’s own beliefs privately, to fit in with the group
compliance
tendency to go along with the orders of an authority figure, due to the rewards of obedience or the threat of a consequence in the case of disobedience
identification
driving force of conformity, through which a person is motivated to behave in a certain way due to respect and a desire to be like another person
internalization
strong driving force of conformity through which an idea has been both publicly and privately adopted by a person
group polarization
phenomenon in which a decision made by a group tends to be more extreme than the opinions of any of the individuals
confirmation bias
tendency of an individual or group to seek out information that reinforces their pre-existing beliefs
often contributes to group polarization
groupthink
phenomenon in which group unity or agreement is favored over analyzing information and making the correct decision
strong leader and a feeling of invincibility in a group often play a role in this
obedience
tendency of individuals to comply with authority figures and their recommendations, actions, and ideas
Asch conformity studies
experiments that used many confederates that intentionally gave the wrong answer to an obvious question in order to observe the tendency of the subject of the study to give the same wrong answer
studies found that 75% of subjects gave the wrong answer at least once in order to agree with the group
Gestalt psychology
way of studying the mind that focuses on the whole individual in terms of the environment in which they live
confederate
actor that takes part in a study
supposed to look like another participant but is actually working for the study
ecological validity
degree to which a study predicts real world behavior
demand characteristics
tendency of a participant in a study to change their behavior to more closely match what they believe the experimenter wants them to do
Milgram studies on conformity
group of experiments designed to observe participants’ willingness to act against their morals to obey an authority figure
most famous experiment used confederates who instructed subjects to administer increasingly large (with some marked potentially lethal) electric shocks and confederates who pretended these shocks were real
65% of subjects would continue obeying the authority figure up through the largest shock, well past the lethal warning
just world phenomenon
belief that people have earned or deserved their outcomes or consequences, clearly placing blame on any individual in a negative situation
eg blaming the victim of the shocks in the Milgram studies for answering questions wrong and earning a punishment for this
passing responsibility
phenomenon that often contributes to a person completing violent acts because they attribute blame to the person ordering the violent act, not themselves for executing the act
self-serving bias
cognitive distortion of facts to maintain self-esteem
often seen as an individual attributing success to intrinsic factors and failures to extrinsic factors
fundamental attribution error
cognitive distortion in which negative actions of people in the outgroup are attributed to personal flows but the negative actions of that individual and their ingroup are attributed to their situation
Stanford Prison Experiment
unethical study by today’s standards that aimed to examine how social norms influence the actions of groups of participants with different authority and power
half of the participants were told to play prisoners and the other half told to act as guards in a mock prison setting
situational attribution
idea that behaviors can be explained by the context or environment rather than by intrinsic factors
helps explain why guards and prisoners behaved as they did in the Zimbardo Prison Experiment
dispositional attribution
idea that behaviors that can be explained by intrinsic personality factors
deindividuation
effect of belonging to a group that results in the loss of self-awareness or identity
often leads to individuals taking actions as part of a group that they would not perform when alone
cognitive dissonance
experience of discomfort due to one’s conflicting and currently-held beliefs, or actions that conflict with one’s held beliefs
internalization
process of changing one’s own beliefs to better align with those belonging to the group
selection bias
issues and confounding variables resulting from a participant group that was not randomly chosen, or was selected for some specific feature
factors that affect conformity
specific aspects of the group that make a person more likely to go along with the beliefs or actions of the group
influences that make a person more likely to go along with a group include: group size of 3-5 people, unanimity within the group, seemingly elevated status of the group, group cohesion, observation by others, public response, insecurity, prior commitments to the group or others
factors that affect obedience
aspects of the situation that make a person more or less likely to listen to an authority figure
influences include: closeness (physical or psychological) to the authority, legitimacy of authority, institutional qualifications, depersonalization of the victim, and role models of authority
