Conformity and Obedience: Influencing Behavior Flashcards
American culture
Stresses the importance of not conforming
Celebrates the rugged individualist
Conformity:
A change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people
Social Pressure and Torture
Under strong social pressure, individuals will conform to the group even when this means doing something immoral. In 2004, American soldiers’ degrading abuse of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison sparked an international scandal and a great deal of soul-searching back home. Why did the soldiers humiliate their captives? As you read this chapter, you will see how the social influence pressures of conformity can contribute to decent people committing indecent acts.
Conform because
See others as a source of information to guide our behavior
Believe that others’ interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action
Private Acceptance
Conforming to other people’s behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right
Informational social influence often results in private acceptance!
Public Compliance
Conforming to other people’s behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or saying
Sherif’s Study
Public compliance or private acceptance?
Subsequent research suggested private acceptance
The Importance of Being Accurate
Informational social influence affected by how important it is to make an accurate judgment
Eyewitness conformity when picking “perpetrators” out of police lineups
Manipulated importance of task
High-importance: Expect to receive $20 for accurate identification, used to develop real task
Low-importance: Just another psych experiment
Confederates gave incorrect answers
Contagion
The rapid spread of emotions or behaviors through a crowd When the situation is Ambiguous
A crisis
When other people are experts
Ambuiguity
Ambiguity is the most crucial variable.
When you are uncertain, you will be most open to influence from others.
The greater the uncertainty, the more reliance there is on others!
When the Situation is a Crisis
Don’t have time to stop and think about action we should take
Need to act—immediately
May be scared, panicked
See how other people are responding, and do the same
Problem
The people we imitate may not be behaving rationally!
Normative Social Influence: The Need to Be Accepted (2 of 4)
Humans are a social species.
Other people are important to our well-being.
Being deprived of human contact is stressful and traumatic.
Social norms:
The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members
Normative social influence
Conform in order to be liked and accepted by others
Results in public compliance with the group’s beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors.
Classic normative reasons for conforming
Don’t want to feel peculiar
Don’t want to feel like a fool
Belief that what others think is important, even if they are strangers
Variation of original Asch study
Participants wrote answers on paper instead of saying them out loud
Answers were private, not public
People did not have to worry about what the group thought of them
Variation of original Asch study
Conformity dropped dramatically
Occurred on average of only 1.5 of the 12 trials
Usually results in public compliance without private acceptance
Go along with the group even if you think the group’s actions are wrong
When participants conformed to group (gave incorrect answer)
Vision and perception areas active in brain
When participants disagreed (gave correct answer)
Different brain areas active
Amygdala
Negative emotions
Right caudate nucleus
Modulating social behavior
What happens when it is important to people to be accurate?
These people conform less to answers of the group that are obviously wrong.
But they still conform sometimes!
Conformity can occur
Even when the group is wrong
The correct answer is obvious
There are strong incentives to be accurate
People find it difficult to risk social disapproval
Even by strangers
Variation of original Asch study
Conformity dropped dramatically
Occurred on average of only 1.5 of the 12 trials
Usually results in public compliance without private acceptance
Go along with the group even if you think the group’s actions are wrong
When participants conformed to group (gave incorrect answer)
Vision and perception areas active in brain
When participants disagreed (gave correct answer)
Different brain areas active
Amygdala
Negative emotions
Right caudate nucleus
Modulating social behavior
If you disregard the group norms of your friends and fail to conform
Group would try to bring you “back into the fold”
Long discussions, teasing comments
If discussions don’t work
Friends may say negative things to you and about you
Start to withdraw from you
Social impact theory
The idea that conforming to social influence
depends on
Strength
Importance of group to person
Immediacy
Closeness in time and space
Number of people in the group
More conformity to normative pressures when group is
More important
More immediate
But, number (group size) operates differently
Conformity increases as the number of people in the group increases.
But, once the group reaches 4 or 5 other people, conformity does not increase much.
When the Group Is Important (1 of 2)
Normative pressures are much stronger when there is a cost to losing the group.
People whose friendship, love, and respect we value
Highly cohesive groups can make less logical decisions.
No one wants to upset relationships
Idiosyncrasy credits:
The tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms; if enough credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, deviate from the group without retribution
Variation on original Asch study
6 of 7 confederates selected incorrect line instead of unanimous.
Participant had an “ally”
Person not alone in dissenting
Conformity dropped to 6% of the trials (compared to 32% when the person was the only dissenter).
U.S. Supreme Court
Most common decision ratio
Unanimous, 9-0 vote
Least common decision ratio
8-1 (single dissenter)
It is difficult to be the lone dissenter!
When the Group’s Culture is Collectivistic
Greater conformity in collectivist cultures
Asch’s line judgment task
Norway more conformity than France
Collectivistic cultures view conformity as a valued trait, not as a somewhat negative one.
Minority Influence: When the Few Influence the Many
Minority influence:
The case where a minority of group members influence the behavior or beliefs of the majority
Consistency is key
People with minority views must express the same view over time
Members of the minority opinion must agree with one another
Can social norms be used to induce people to conform to correct, socially approved behavior?
Cialdini and colleagues suggestion
First, identify the norm that is operating in the situation.
Injunctive norms:
People’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others
Descriptive norms:
People’s perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others
Using Norms to Change Behavior: Beware the “Boomerang Effect”
Invoking descriptive norms may backfire
Depending on pre-existing behavior
e.g., college binge drinking, energy use
Invoking descriptive plus injunctive most successful
Example: Energy use (Schultz et al)
Other Tactics of Social Influence
Using norms is not the only way to change other people’s behavior.
Compliance techniques:
Foot-in-the-door
Door-in-the-face
Propaganda
Foot-in-the-Door Technique
Getting people to agree first to a small request makes them more likely to agree later to a second, larger request.
Door-in-the-Face Technique (1 of 2)
First, asking people for a large request that they will probably refuse makes them more likely to agree later to a second, smaller request.
Would you agree to put a big sign in your yard, blocking the front of your house?
Door-in-the-Face Technique (2 of 2)
Research on the door-in-the-face technique suggests that your answer might depend on whether or not you have already agreed to a smaller request first.
Propaganda
A deliberate, systematic attempt to advance a cause by manipulating mass attitudes and behaviors, often through misleading or emotionally charged information
Nazis on Parade
Nazi propaganda permeated all facets of German life in the 1930s and 1940s. Here, huge crowds attend the 1934 Nuremberg rally. Such large public gatherings were a technique frequently used by Goebbels and Hitler to promote loyalty and conformity to the Nazi party.
Obedience to Authority (1 of 3)
Obedience is a social norm
Universally valued
Without obedience, would be chaos
We are socialized to obey legitimate authority figures
Internalize social norm of obedience
Obey even if authority figure isn’t present
e.g., traffic lights
Obedience to Authority (2 of 3)
Obedience can have serious, tragic consequences.
Obey the orders of an authority figure to hurt or even kill other human beings
Obedience to Authority (3 of 3)
The Milgram studies
Most famous series of studies in social psychology
Imagine that You Were a Participant
(1 of 4)
When you arrive at the laboratory, you meet another participant, a 47-year-old, somewhat overweight, pleasant-looking fellow.
The experimenter, wearing a white lab coat, explains that one of you will play the role of a teacher and the other a learner.
Imagine that You Were a Participant
(2 of 4)
You draw a slip of paper out of a hat and discover that you will be the teacher.
Your job is to teach the other participant a list of word pairs (e.g., blue–box, nice–day) and then test him on the list.
Imagine that You Were a Participant
(3 of 4)
The experimenter instructs you to deliver an electric shock to the learner whenever he makes a mistake because the purpose of the study is to examine the effects of punishment on learning.
Imagine that You Were a Participant
(4 of 4)
The learner makes many mistakes.
The experimenter instructs you to keep shocking the learner.
What would you do?
Milgram’s Studies (1 of 4)
How many people do you think would continue to obey the experimenter and increase the levels of shock until they had delivered the maximum amount, 450 volts?
Imagine that You Were a Participant
(4 of 4)
The learner makes many mistakes.
The experimenter instructs you to keep shocking the learner.
What would you do?
Milgram’s Studies (1 of 4)
How many people do you think would continue to obey the experimenter and increase the levels of shock until they had delivered the maximum amount, 450 volts?
Milgram’s Studies (2 of 4)
Estimate: About 1% of the population
Psychology majors at Yale University
Middle-class adults
Panel of psychiatrists made similar predictions
The Role of Normative Social Influence (1 of 4)
Don’t want to disappoint experimenter
Insistent experimenter
Difficult to say no
Variations on original study
Other teachers (confederates) refused to continue
Only 10% gave maximum shock
Compared to 62.5% in original study
When someone wants us to do something, it’s difficult to say no
If they said no, experimenter may have been disappointed, hurt, or maybe angry
Experimenter actively tried to get people to conform
“It is absolutely essential that you continue”
Variations on original study
3 teachers, 2 of which were confederates
One confederate read word pairs
Other confederate told the learner whether the response was correct or not
Real participant delivered shocks
Variations on original study
Confederates stop at different points in the study
Confederate 1 at 150 volts
Confederate 1 at 250 volts
Results?
Seeing peers disobey made it easier for the participant to disobey
Only 10% gave the maximum shocks
The Role of Informational Social Influence (1 of 5)
Participants were free to get up and leave. Why didn’t they do so?
Confusing circumstance, not sure what to do
Informational social influence is powerful when
Situation is ambiguous
Situation is a crisis
Other people in the situation have expertise
All three characteristics describe the Milgram experiment
Variations on original study
3 critical changes
Experimenter never said which shock levels were to be given.
Before the study, the experimenter received a phone call and had to leave the room, telling the participant to continue without him.
A confederate played the role of an additional teacher, recording the length of the learner’s responses.
Variations on original study
The other “teacher” suggested that they increase the level of shock with each wrong answer.
Variations on original study
Results? Compliance dropped to 20%.
“Teacher” lacked expertise, but some still used this nonexpert as a guide.
Other Reasons Why We Obey
Conform to wrong norm
Fast-paced nature of experiment
No time to reflect
Self-justification
Shock levels increased in small increments
Internal pressure to continue to obey
Loss of a personal responsibility
The Obedience Studies, Then and Now
(1 of 4)
Despite the contributions of the Milgram’s study, many consider its procedures unethical.
Research considered unethical for several reasons
Involved deception
Lacked fully informed consent
Despite the contributions of the Milgram’s study, many consider its procedures unethical.
Research considered unethical for several reasons
Involved deception
Lacked fully informed consent
Research considered unethical for several reasons
Role as teacher caused psychological distress
Not made clear that the participants could withdraw from study
Participants experienced inflicted insight.
Learned unpleasant things about themselves.
The Obedience Studies, Then and Now
(3 of 4)
Burger (2009) replicated Milgram’s study
Changed procedures
Reduced psychological distress by stopping the study after 150 volts
Disobedience was most likely to occur at this point
Participants were prescreened by a clinical psychologist
The Obedience Studies, Then and Now
(4 of 4)
Changed procedures
Burger explicitly and repeatedly told the participants and the learner that they could leave at any time.
Results? 70% obeyed at 150 volts (compared to 82.5% that continued up until that point in Milgram’s original study).
Difference not statistically significant
