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Psychology > Conformity, Obedience > Flashcards

Conformity, Obedience Flashcards

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1
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure

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2
Q

Why do people who conform?

A

Normative social influence- Desire to be liked. We conform to be accepted and to be approved. So we don’t appear foolish.

Information social influence- Desire to be right. We conform by looking at others whom we believe to be correct, to give us info, particularly in ambiguous situations

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3
Q

Why do people not conform?

A

Independence- Unresponsive to the norms of the group

Anti- conformity- Consistently oppose to the norms of the group

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4
Q

Aim of Asch’s line experiment

A

To see if people would conform to the majority when given an unambiguous situation

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5
Q

Procedure: Asch’s line experiment

A
  • 123 undergraduate students
  • 8 to 10 participants round table
  • Each participant was shown 18 sets of lines in total, on 12 the confederates all gave the same wrong answer
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6
Q

Results: Asch’s line experiment

A
  • On critical trials, 36.8% of responses were incorrect

- 25% never conformed, 75% conformed at least once

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7
Q

Limitations of Asch’s line experiment

A
  • All male- Cannot generalise the results to other populations. Lacks population validity
  • Nothing to do with everyday life- Artificial task. Not applicable to real life situations
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8
Q

Strengths of Asch’s line experiment

A
  • Levels of conformity reflected American culture- Easy to replicate, more accurate average of conformity and increases reliability
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9
Q

Asch Variations

A
  • Unanimity- Less conformity when one of the confederates didn’t conform
  • Task difficulty- More conformity when task was harder
  • Size of majority- More conformity when there were more confederate
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10
Q

What is compliance?

A

Publically conforming to the behaviour but privately maintaining ones own views
Supports NSI

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11
Q

What is internalisation?

A

A conversion, or true change of private views to match those of the group
Supports ISI

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12
Q

What is identification?

A

Adopting the views or behaviour publically and privately because one valued membership of that group

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13
Q

Normative social influence evaluation

A

Strength- Asch’s participants said they feel self conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval

Limitations- People who are less concerned with being liked are less affected than those who care about being liked. Naffiliators

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14
Q

Informational social influence evaluation

A

Strength- People conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer

Limitations- Doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour. Asch found that students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%)

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15
Q

Aim of Zimbardo’s experiment

A

To see if dispositional or situational factors affect conformity to social roles

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16
Q

What is the situational explanation of behaviour?

A

Presumes people will act in a way that they think is required by their social role

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17
Q

Procedure: Zimbardo’s experiment

A
  • 24 male students
  • Unexpectedly arrested at home
  • Guards and prisoners wore uniforms
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18
Q

Results: Zimbardo’s experiment

A
  • Guards grew increasingly tyrannical
  • 5 prisoners released early with extreme depression
  • Suppose to last 2 weeks, lasted 6 days
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19
Q

Conclusion: Zimbardo’s experiment

A
  • Guards and prisoners conformed to the social roles they were assigjned
  • Supporting situational explanation of behaviour and
20
Q

Limitations: Zimbardo’s experiment

A
  • Reliability- not consistent. Can’t be repeated as there are a lot of ethical issues
  • Breaks ethical guidelines: protecting the participant and informed consent
  • Study lacks population validity and is cultural biased ( more conformity in china)
21
Q

Strengths: Zimbardo’s experiment

A
  • Good application in real life situations. Abu Ghraib- real life problems
  • Randomly chosen participants- reacted as though it was real
  • Maintained some degree of control and some ecological validity
22
Q

What is obedience?

A

Doing what you have been told to do by someone else (authority)

23
Q

Aim of Milgram’s experiment

A

Investigate whether ordinary people will obey in extreme situations

24
Q

Procedure: Milgram’s experiment

A
  • 40 male participants- introduced to (confederate)
  • Participant is always the teacher
  • Administer increasingly strong electric shocks
  • 3 prompts before they’d stop
25
Q

Results: Milgram’s experiment

A
  • 65% went to the maximum of 450v
26
Q

Limitations of Milgram’s experiment

A
  • Went against ethical guidelines: Deception, protecting the participant, informed consent
  • Biased: all male- can’t generalise
  • Lack of ecological validity: artificial task
27
Q

Strengths: Milgram’s experiment

A
  • Conducted in lab: high level of control. More reliable- can replicate
  • Shows high experimental realism
28
Q

Variations of Milgram’s experiment

A

Location- less obedience when they aren’t in professional location

Proximity- closer you are to the person, the lower the obedience rate. More obedience when closer

Uniform- more likely to obey when someone is in more official uniform

29
Q

Resisting social influence

A

1) Locus of control

2) Social support

30
Q

What is internal locus of control?

A

A person believes their behaviour is caused primarily by their own personal decisions and efforts

31
Q

What is external locus of control?

A

A person believes their behaviour is caused primarily by fate, luck or by other external circumstances

32
Q

Research studies to support: Holland (study overview)

A

Holland repeated Milgram’s Vaseline study and measures whether participants were internals or externals

33
Q

How does Holland’s study support locus of control as a way of resisting social influence?

A

He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level, whereas only 23% did not continue

Internals showed greater resistance to authority

34
Q

Holland continue

A

Research support increases validity of the LOC explanation and our confidence can explain resistance

35
Q

Research studies to support: Twenge et al (study overview)

A

Twenge et al analysed data from American locus of control studies over a 40 year period

36
Q

How does Twenge’s study challenge the locus of control as a way of resisting social influence?

A

The data showed that over time people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external

37
Q

Twenge’s continue

A

If resistance were linked to an internal LOC, we would expect people to have it become more internal

However, it is possible that the results are due to a changing society

38
Q

Why was Milgram’s study ethically bad?

A

went against:
Protecting the participant
Deception
No informed consent

39
Q

Psychological explanations for obedience

A

Agentic state

Legitimacy of authority

40
Q

What is agentic state?

A

When we blame the person giving the order for any negative consequences of our actions, becoming an “agent” of theirs

41
Q

Agentic state continue

A

The person remains in the agentic state because of “binding factors” which are aspects of the situation which allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour

42
Q

What is legitimacy of authority?

A

We are more likely to obey people whom we see to have accepted power over us

Society is hierarchal and we are taught to and accept that some people have power us and we should hand control of our behaviour over to them

43
Q

Processes involved in minority influence

A

Commitment
Flexibility
Consistency

44
Q

Commitment

A

When minorities engage in extreme activities which are at some risk to them, majority group members pay more attention (augmentation principle)

45
Q

Flexibility

A

Being extremely consistent can be seen as rigid. If minority members can adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter arguments they are more successful

46
Q

Consistency

A

Synchronic- agreement between people in the minority group

Diachronic- agreement over time

Psychology (7 decks)

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