Conformity, compliance, obedience - (week 5) Flashcards
What describes compliance, and what are some of the key components or strategies to compliance?
Compliance is defined as a change in behaviour, due to direct REQUEST. Compliance is often based on power, authority and more intelligent figures.
Strategies to compliance might include:
1) ingratiation (compliment)
2) norm of reciprocity (arrangement/ return of favour)
Sequential requests include:
- Foot in the door (start with small request)
- Lowballing (secure agreement with request, and then increase size of request)
- Door in the face (begin with large request we know will be rejected)
- That’s not all (start with somewhat large request & immediately offer smaller request or bonus)
What is obedience, and what are the important studies involved with obedience?
Obedience refers to actual behaviour change, often influenced by authority. The Milgram study was the most renowned. It was based on Asch’s line estimation study, as well as individuals’ responses to WW2.
Milgram study: participants were assigned to be the ‘shocker’ and administered shocks to a confederate as directed by the authority figure. The majority of participants obeyed the researcher, and actually gave stronger shocks (65% gave an extreme shock). However, there wasn’t any ethical consideration on the trauma this would have posed onto the participants during and post-study. It caused distress, no consent was given, and may have created trauma.
When might obedience be useful?
Blind obedience might be useful in emergency situations, where we must act and follow instructions quickly or when situations require technical knowledge we might be unaware of ourselves. Obedience is also importance when we get pulled over by the police, or we are in dangerous situations (like the army).
However, the downsides include genocides, cults etc.
What factors might influence obedience?
Sex differences, cultural differences (increased obedience in collectivist cultures). Commitment to action (more likely with foot in the door techniques). Immediacy, presence & legitimacy of authority.
Define conformity and the experiment that was done. (Sherif - autokinetic)
Conformity is when we change our perceptions, attitudes and behaviours to be consistent with group norms –> we completely & genuinely change our beliefs.
Sherif’s autokinetic experiment: groups judged a perceptual illusion (autiokinetic effect) of spot of light’s movement in the dark, which was actually stationery. Estimates were called out in random order; and the question was whether people would converge on a group norm. I.e. changing your answer if someone says something much more extreme, to meet in the middle.
RESULTS: norm CONVERGENCE (people essentially met in the middle; converged on mean of group estimate), and norm PERSISTENCE (norms became internalised later on when estimating alone.
Describe Aschs’ conformity experiment.
Asch conformity experiment = line study. Participants called out which line matched the one presented on the screen. Participants conformed to clearly wrong answers!
Relates to Sherif’s ambiguous / unambiguous stimuli as basis:
- uncertainty relates to ambiguous stimuli: need to turn to others when there is not an obvious right answer (vs when there is an unambiguous stimuli.
RESULTS: people conformed to an obviously wrong response (unambiguous stimuli) because:
- own perceptions were seen as inaccurate
- fear of social disapproval
- saw the lines at the majority of participants did.
What are the social processes that underly conformity?
Normative & informational influence:
Normative influence = actions/ conformity based on social norms, social approval
Informational influence = actions/ conformity based on reality check, especially for ambiguous stimuli.
Describe what role a minority influence might have with conformity.
This is the process by which dissenters (non-conformist) produce change within a group.
