Social influence Flashcards
definition of conformity
Change in belief or behaviour to fit the majority in response to social pressure.
Types of conformity and explanations
1.Compliance - conforming publicly but privately disagreeing. Temporary, shallow change.
2. Identification - conforms publicly and privately but only when in presence of group they want to be associated w. May be temporary, short-term change.
3.Internalisation - conforms publicly and privately - becomes part of their own belief system. Permanent, deep level of conformity.
Explanations for conformity
- Normative social influence (NSI) - conforms due to desire to be liked and fit in w the group. Usually associated w compliance
- Informational social influence (ISI) - conforms due to desire to be right, so look to others who they believe may have more info. Occurs in unfamiliar situations. Associated w internalisation.
Perrin and Spencer - ISI
ISI doesnt affect everyone in same way - Found engineering students conform very little as they have more confidence in themselves.
Research support for NSI
- Asch’s line study
-Shultz et al - hotel guests exposed to signs that say 75% of ppl reuse towels reduced their own usage by 25%.
Research support for ISI
Jenness Bean Jar - Had 101 psych students individually guess how many beans were in a jar. Then split into groups and asked to discuss and re-estimate. Individually asked to guess again.
- Nearly all ppts changed their original estimate as they assumed the group estimate was more likely to be right.
Asch research
-Conformity research
-Lab exp
- 123 male US students
-asked to look at 3 diff length lines and say which was most similar to a standard line
- real ppt always answered last (in group w other confederates who they thought were ppts)
-confederates gave SAME wrong answer on 12/18 trials.
- also had control condition w no confederates giving wrong answers to ensure lines were unambiguous - ppts made mistakes 1% of time.
Asch findings
- 33% average conformity rate
- Individual differences - 25% never conformed
-when interviewed after, found majority of ppts who conformed continued to privately disagree but changed behaviour to avoid disapproval from group (compliance)
Variables affecting conformity
- Group size
- Unanimity of majority
- Difficulty of task
Effect of group size on conformity - research
Asch - very little conformity w only 1 or 2 confederates, however rates increased to 30% when there were 3 confederates.
No further change after more increase.
Effect of unanimity of majority on conformity - research
Asch - when given 1 or more confed who gave a right answer, conformity dropped to 5.5%.
when a confed gave a different wrong answer to the rest of the group, conformity dropped to 9%.
Effect of difficulty of task on conformity - research
Asch - conformity increases when differences between lines were smaller, so correct answer was less obvious.
Lucas et al - asked ppts to solve easy and hard maths problems. found ppts conformed to the wrong answer more often when problems were hard.
Zimbardo research
-Conformity to social roles
-Controlled and ppts obs. - Stanford prison experiment
-24 male students volunteers who had undergone psychological screening and found to be most stable.
- randomly assigned to role of ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’
-Zimbardo played prison superintendent
-Prisoners unexpectedly arrested by real police (deception), blindfolded and taken to mock prison in basement of uni.
-Stripped naked, deloused and given prison uniform w a number that they would be referred to as.
-guards given uniform, clubs, whistles and reflective sunglasses - told not to physically harm prisoners.
Zimbardo findings
- Prisoners rebelled in the first few days, putting their beds up against the door so guards couldn’t get in. Guards infuriated by this and began taking away rights of leaders of rebellion (took away their beds, clothes and created a ‘privilege cell’ for prisoners who weren’t involved – created tension between prisoners).
- Guards became increasingly abusive towards prisoners, waking them up in the middle of the night to exercise, clean toilets w bare hands etc. Some even asked for extra unpaid shifts.
- Ppts seemed to forget it was a study – prisoners asked for parole instead of asking to withdraw and only talked about prison life with each other.
- 5 prisoners had to be released early due to extreme reactions, and study was ended after 6 days (meant to be 2 weeks) as postgrad student reminded Zimbardo that the study didn’t justify abuse
Conclusions of Zimbardos study
- Showed the power of the situation to make both guards and prisoners conform to their social roles. This was taken on very quickly.
- Deindividuation occurred – Guards became so immersed in the norms of the group (abusive behaviour) that they lost sense of identity.
- Learned helplessness – Prisoners learned that whatever they did, it would have little effect on what happened to them so gave up and stopped reacting (conformed).
Milgram research
- Obedience research
-controlled obs w 40 male volunteers set in Yale uni
-met by experimenter in grey lab coat and met confederate ‘Mr Wallace’ - chose who would be teacher and learner (rigged so mr w would always be learner)
-naive ppt given test shock.
-mr w strapped to chair in separate room and announced he had heart problem
-ppt had to deliver shock every time mr w got an answer wrong (gave mainly wrong answers). shock increased by 15V every time until max of 450V (told it was fatal shock)
-mr w takes fake shocks in silence until 300V - screams and kicks wall and says he has heart pain. after, he gave no responses
-if ppt asked to stop, experimenter gave standardised set of 4 prods - “please continue”….”you have no choice” - only allowed to stop after asking 4 times.
Milgram findings
-65% of ppts went to max shock 450V
-100% went to 300V
-ppts observed to be in distress - sweating, trembling, stuttering.
-3 ppts had seizures
Research support for Milgram - Hofling
- field exp on nurses
-95% went to give what they thought was double the max dose of a (placebo) drug to patient, after receiving orders over the phone (against policy) and drug wasnt authorised (not on stock list)
Example against Milgram - Mandel
- Real life event
- Polish soldiers given option to kill some jewish ppl in market or do office work
-majority chose to kill the jewish ppl even tho they were given a different option and werent in close proximity to auth fig
situational factors affecting obedience
- proximity
- location
3.uniform
research into location affecting obedience
- Milgram variant - found when study was done in run down office block instead of yale, obedience fell to 48% (from 65%)
research into proximity affecting obedience
- Milgram variant - found when teacher and learner were in SAME room, obedience fell to 40% (from 65%)
- Milgram variant - found when teacher had to force the learners hand onto the shock plate (touch proximity), obedience fell to 30%
- Milgram variant - when experimenter gave ppt instructions over the phone, obedience fell to 21%
