The Power of the Situation (conformity, obedience) Flashcards
What is social influence?
changes in behavior and/or attitudes that result from the comments, actions, or mere presence of others
What are the 3 types of social influence?
- Conformity
- Compliance
- Obedience
What is conformity?
Changing one’s behavior or beliefs in response to some real (or imagined) pressure from others. It can be implicit or explicit
Why do people conform?
- To imitate others (Automatic Mimicry)
- Informational social influence
- Normative social influence
- Factors affecting conformity
What is informational social influence?
The reliance on other people’s comments and actions as an indication of what’s likely to be correct, proper, and effective
What do the studies by Sherif (1936) show?
People’s most basic perceptions or group norms are established through interaction
What does it mean that people’s judgments fuse into a group norm?
Initial judgments fuse into a group more. Others’ opinions are a good source of information to “get it right”
What is normative social influence?
People conform to avoid standing out, negatively, in the eyes of the group
What do the studies by Asch show?
The experiments revealed the degree to which a person’s own opinions are influenced by those of a group. Asch found that people were willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer in order to conform to the rest of the group.
What are the factors affecting conformity?
- Group Size
- Group unanimity
- Anonymity
- Expertise & Status
- Culture
What is the difference between expertise and status?
Expertise: more likely to affect informational social influence; experts are more likely to be right
Status: more likely to affect normative social influence
- An often wrong assumption that status = expertise
What is the lesson from the Milgram experiment?
showed that contrary to expectations, most people will obey an order given by an authority figure to harm someone, even if they feel that it’s wrong, and even if they want to stop.
How was the Milgram experiment structured?
The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher.’ The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates (pretending to be a real participant).
What were the results of the Milgram experiment?
concluded people obey either out of fear or out of a desire to appear cooperative–even when acting against their own better judgment and desires.
What is normalization?
a process that emphasises that the experiences a person finds upsetting exist within the range of normal functioning and can be experienced in the absence of distress, or disability.
