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PY331 > conformity and social influence > Flashcards

conformity and social influence Flashcards

1
Q

what is conformity

A 
changing oneself (by copying others), usually in response to real or imagined group pressure
-could be because of actual pressure of because fear of ostracism
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2
Q

what is obedience

A

performance of action in response to direct order

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3
Q

what is the social influence study on autokinetic effect

A
  • study about when a person stares at a light in a dark room and when you stare at it for a long time the light seems to move because of brain and eyes (not actually moving)
  • participants were told the light was actually moving, 1st in room alone they were asked to judge how much the light moved (each personal developed own person range of how much the light moved and it tended to be consistent, individual norm)
  • then put participants in groups (can’t see each other) but could hear each others estimates, noticed everyone’s estimates began to become similar to what the group was saying (developed group norm)
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4
Q

what are the two kinds of social influence (both kinds of conformity)

A

informational social influence and normative social influence

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5
Q

what is informational social influence

A
  • being influenced by other people because one sees their comments or actions as information about what is correct
  • assuming other people are correct (especially when you are unsure), look to other people to see what you are supposed to do
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6
Q

what is normative social influence

A
  • being influenced by other people because one desires their approval and does not want to be excluded or ostracized
  • someone changes behavior because they don’t want to come off as “stupid” or “weird”
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7
Q

what is Ash’s conformity study and the results

A
  • create conformity study with clear right answer
  • had participants look at 4 lines, had to identify which of three lines matches the target line in length
  • group of confederates and one participant (who comes in last)
  • each person gave answer to matching lines one at a time and the participant was also last
  • confederates gave right answer first few rounds but then gave wrong answer to see if people would conform to what they know is wrong just because everyone else said something different

results: 18 trials, 12 with pressure, 25% were completely independent and never conformed, 75% conformed at least once, participants conformed on 37% of trials on average (mostly the later trials)

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8
Q

what did Ash manipulate in his conformity study

A

of people, private vs. public answers and if only some confederates gave wrong answer (compared to all of them)

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9
Q

how did the “ have one confederate give right answer” manipulation work out

A
  • enough to make participants stop conforming
  • only 5% conformed, but deny partner influenced their answers

even when another person gave a different wrong answer conformity decreased

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10
Q

how did the “write down the answer” manipulation work

A
  • conformity dropped by 74%, reduced pressure to conform because you don’t have to share it with group
  • eliminated “informational social influence” because private answering made people give the right answer (if it were informational influence people would still give the wrong answer in private)
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11
Q

what is the reverse experiment of Ash’s conformity study and what does it show

A
  • 5 real participants give right answer and confederate gives wrong answer (one person goes against what is right)
  • the confederate was laughed at, ostracized, rejected, etc
  • shows people conform because fear of ostracism and that ostracism is real
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12
Q

what are the factors that influence conformity

A

1) group size
2) group unanimity
3) group cohesiveness
4) expertise and status of group members
5) culture
6) ambiguity or difficulty of task
7) anonymity
8) importance of situation

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13
Q

explain group size and conformity

A

conformity peaked at 4/5 participants, but leveled after that (did not increase any more)
-group size only affects it to certain extent

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14
Q

explain group unanimity and conformity

A

as soon as there is someone that disrupts the unanimity, conformity drops

  • people cannot explain their behavior (inadequacy of introspection)
  • social support from other non-conformists
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15
Q

explain group cohesiveness and conformity

A

when a group gets along with each other there is a desire to agree with one another, which increases conformity
-depends on certainty of situation - more likely to conform if situation is ambiguous

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16
Q

explain expertise and status of group members and conformity and example

A
  • will go along with what experts/leaders thing
  • informational: these people know more than me
  • normative: i dont want to disagree with the leader and cause problems in the group

ex. when giving reasoning problems in Navy bombing crews
- pilot correct: group correct 91% of time (pilot has most status)
- navigator correct: group correct 80% (less status than pilot)
- gunner correct: group correct 63% (least status)

-shows people deferred to the answer of the pilot when he got the answer right more times than they deferred to navigator or gunner even when they got the answer right too

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17
Q

explain culture and conformity

A

conformity is greater in interdependent cultures

-Ash did his study on other cultures

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18
Q

explain ambiguity or difficulty of task and conformity

A
  • adds informational component, not only normative

- greater conformity when task is more ambiguous or uncertain

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19
Q

explain anonymity and conformity

A
  • anonymous makes people less likely to conform
  • shows Ash’s study was normative influence not informational (because if information people would keep wrong answers in private)
20
Q

explain tea study that shows “other people’s actions become social defaults”

A
  • participants told taste preference study of two different Korean teas
  • in alone condition people chose tea A 47% of time
  • in participant with confederate
    private: confederate chose A and left room, participants chose A 80% of the time
    public: confederate chose A then stayed in the room until participant chose too, participant chose A 17% of the time
  • teas were ambiguous, no one knows anything about tea from Korea -> participants chose A in private condition because they assumed if someone else likes it they will like it too
  • in public setting the experimenter accredited drop in A to Americans being independent and not wanting to seem like they were copying the confederate
21
Q

what did the tea study show us

A

we are more likely to mimic other people’s behavior when

  • behavior is private
  • we’re uncertain (when choosing English teas that are familiar people conformed less because they are familiar with it and actually have preference)
  • we’re under time pressure (when not given time to think about tea, people conformed more, shows it’s instinct to conform)
  • won’t be held accountable for choice (when people had to justify choice they conformed less- didn’t want to be seen as copier)
22
Q

so what is the social default?

A

copying others

23
Q

explain the method of Milgram’s obedience study

A
  • old but still gets a lot of attention
  • told study was to see if punishment affected learning process (electric shock) - confederate was the learner and participants were teacher (participant had to “shock” when confederate gave wrong answer and they had to obey experimenter when told to shock the learner)
  • one variation was participants and experimenter in same room and confederate was in the other room
  • increase shock as more wrong answers were given and confederate pain expression (on tape) got worse as shocks got worse and eventually the tape went silent
  • participants tried to stop at this point and would look to experimenter as to what to do - experimenter told them that they must go on (but if participant tried to stop 5 times on one trial then the study stopped)

-participants were so upset they were hurting someone else and they believed they were hurting someone else but they still continued

24
Q

what were the results of Milgram’s obedience study

A

60-65% of people obeyed experimenter completely, gave 450 volts of shock

25
Q

what was the reason for running Milgram’s study

A

wanted to see if it is human nature to commit evil acts just because they are told to (obey orders)

26
Q

what are the ethical concerns of Milgram’s study

A

was it okay to put participants under this stress

27
Q

explain importance of situation and conformity

A

people are more likely to conform in high importance situations (when the situation is a crisis) / when we need to react fast

28
Q

what is the difference between private and public acceptance and how does it relate to normative and informational social influence

A

private acceptance is conforming because you genuinely think others are right (informational)

public acceptance is you conform without believing what others are saying, just have the need to fit in (normative)

29
Q

what was the default paradigm for Milgram’s study and the other paradigms he did

A

default: experimenter and teacher in same room, learner out of sight in different room
- Yale (seen as prestigious university - has institutional authority), Milgram repeated the study in the office
- Milgram also manipulated experimenter - turned them into “another participant” said “maybe we should increase stock”

30
Q

what are the factors that influence obedience

A

1) immediacy of the victim
2) physical closeness of authority
3) two peers rebelling

31
Q

explain immediacy of the victim and obedience and a real life example

A

(how close learner is- one group learner was in same room, getting small shocks and acting)
-in same room obedience dropped drastically

ex. easier for soldiers to kill people using a drone in warfare than face to face combat

32
Q

explain physical closeness of authority and obedience

A

authority figure vs. ordinary man (obedience dropped, showed participants viewed experimenter as authority)

33
Q

explain two peers rebelling and obedience

A

other confederate participants stopped doing it and the participants who saw this decreased obedience

34
Q

was institutional authority real in Milgram’s study

A

not significant

35
Q

why obedience?

A

1) normative and informational influence at work
- fear of what would happen if they disobeyed authority (normative)
- trust person and Yale to know what they’re doing (informational)

2) conforming the wrong norm (“obey authority”)
- did not conform to the norm to not hurt other people

3) incremental changes make it easier to justify continuing
- hard to justify stopping when you just said yes to something slightly different

4) lack of personal responsibility
- “this is not me, this is just an order”

36
Q

what are the flaws with Milgram’s research

A

methodologically: lack of constancy across conditions and participants
ethically: participants were distressed, believed they had no choice and no debriefing

37
Q

what did we gain from Milgrams

A
  • ethical guidelines/procedures
  • the dangers of blind obedience
  • power of the situation: good people can do bad things- (what we gained psychologically)
38
Q

explain the Burger replication of Milgram’s study

A

-has obedience decreased today? would this still happen?

methodological changes:

  • 79% of Milgrams participants who went past 150 volts go all the way to 450, most distress was noticed 150-450 volts: so if Burger’s participants went past 150 they stopped there
  • wouldn’t let people with pre-existing conditions participate
  • participants talked to psychologist right after debrief and then a follow up
  • full consent given and participants could leave at any time
39
Q

what were the results of Burgers study

A

70% of participants went past 150 volts
-82% in Milgram’s study but these results were not different significantly

obedience rates have not changed

40
Q

what were the results of Burger’s manipulations

A

1) another person who refused to obey
- 63% in Burger who watched someone refuse to continue went past 150 (not significantly different)

2) personality measure
- empathic concern and sex were unrelated to stopping in the baseline condition

41
Q

what are injunctive norms

A

behaviors that we think other people approve and disapprove of

42
Q

what are descriptive norms

A

behaviors that we think other people are actually doing

43
Q

when can descriptive norms be beneficial

A

when the norm is to behave positively

44
Q

explain Cialdini’s research

A

1) looked at people’s energy usage before and after appeal
- no appeal
- please use less power it saves the earth
- please use less power it saves you money
- please use less power other people use less than you

results: comparing to other people was the most effective appeal, amount of energy use decreased

2) partnered with hotel
- reuse towels it saves earth
- reuse towels 75% of hotel users do
- reuse towels 75% of people in this room do

results: comparing to people in room was strongest appeal, close to 50% compared to less than 40%, had maids check # of people who hung up towels to reuse

45
Q

what is the boomerang effect

A

if someone’s behavior is better than the norm, their behavior could get worse
-follow up in energy usage study: those lower than norm increased energy use fixed this by putting smiley faces as reinforcement for their good behavior

PY331 (16 decks)

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