CHAPTER 6 - Conformity and obedience

Conformity

a change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure

Acceptance

conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure

Compliance

conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing

Obedience

a type of compliance involving acting in accord with a direct order or command

autokinetic phenomenon

Self (auto) motion (kinetic). The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark.

mass hysteria

suggestibility to problems that spreads throughout a large group of people

Cohesiveness

a "we feeling"; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction to one another

normative influence

conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance

informational influence

conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people

Reactance

A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.

Muzafer Sherif

CONFORMITY: Muzafer Sherif's 1935/1937 AUTOKINETIC effect experiment demonstrated how social norms and conformity form in ambiguous situations. By using a stationary light that appears to move in a dark room, he showed that individuals' varied estimates of movement converged into a shared, stable group norm when sharing answers out loud. Bottom line: Demonstrated how people look to others to define reality.

Solomon Asch

CONFORMITY: The 1951 Asch LINE experiments, conducted by Solomon Asch, demonstrated that individuals often conform to a unanimous but incorrect group consensus to fit in, even when the correct answer is obvious. Results showed that 75% of participants conformed at least once, with participants agreeing with false, unanimous answers 32% of the time.

Stanley MIlgram

OBEDIENCE: Stanley Milgram in 1961-1962 at Yale University, found that a surprising majority of ordinary people (65% in key trials) were willing to administer seemingly fatal electric shocks to a stranger when ordered by an authority figure. The study aimed to understand the, "just following orders," defense used by Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, proving that situational pressure can override personal morality.

What is conformity?

Conformity exists on a spectrum:

-ACCEPTANCE= Internal belief change

-COMPLIANCE= Outward agreement without belief

-OBEDIENCE= Compliance with direct authority

Why conform?

-Normative influence

-Informational influence

What breeds conformity?

-Victim's emotional distance to perpetrator/when victim is depersonalized

-Victim's physical distance to perpetrator

-When authority figure is physically close

-When authority figure is perceived as legitimate

-When everyone else is doing it

- Behavior and attitudes are mutually reinforcing: A small act of evil fosters an evil belief, enabling a larger act of evil

What predicts conformity?

-GROUP SIZE: 3-5 is more powerful than 1-2

-UNANIMITY: if EVERYONE is doing it, even if one person doesn't, conformity drops

-COHESION: A cohesive group identity and opinion has more power over its members; a minority opinion from someone outside the group drops conformity

-STATUS: higher status individuals impact desire to conform

-PUBLIC RESPONSE: conformity drops in private

-PRIOR COMMITMENT: increases the likelihood that a person will stick with that commitment

Who conforms?

-PERSONALITY: people who seek to please (agreeableness and conscientiousness)

-CULTURE: certain cultures socialize people to be more or less susceptible (individualistic, collectivistic)

-SOCIAL ROLES: involve a certain degree of conformity

Do we ever want to be different?

-Reactance: a motivation to defy coercion in order to maintain sense of freedom

-We are not comfortable being too different from a group, but neither do we want to appear the same as everyone else. Thus, we act in ways the preserve our uniqueness.

-In a group, we are most conscious of how we differ

what is an example of bad conformity?

Leads someone to drive drunk

What is an example of Good conformity?

Encourages everyone to wash their hands

What is an example of inconsequential conformity?

directs tennis players to wear white

Conformity is not just acting as other people act; it is also…

being affected by how they act

What is not conformity?

Because you want to

what is conformity?

do it because of people

Acceptance occurs when you

genuinely believe in what the group has persuaded you to do, you inwardly and sincerely believe that the group’s actions are right

What is an example for acceptance?

You stop at a red light because you accept that not doing it is dangerous

compliance is

conforming to an expectation or a request without really believing in what you are doing

what is example of compliance?

you say you like your friend’s favorite band even though you don’t

obedience is a

response to a command, is a type of compliance

what is an example of obedience

if your father tells you to clean up your room and you do- even if you don’t want to.

Who wondered whether it was possible to observe the emergence of a social norm in the lab

Muzafer sherif

Sherif wanted to

isolate and then experiment with norm formation to figure out how people come to agree on something

who used the autokientic phenomenon besides sheirf?

Robert Jacobs and Donald Campbell

who did an experiment that suggests mimicry helps people look more helpful and likable

Rick Van Buren

mimicry

people become more likely to help someone whose behavior has mimicked their own

what was Asch experiment

Perceptual judgements and then asks you to say which of the three lines matches the standard line

Victims distance

Miligram participants acted with the greatest obedience and least compassion when the learners could not be seen

example of cohesiveness

high school students often a time of cohesive groups often lead students to think as much alchol as their peers to become popular

Normative influence is

going along with the crowd to avoid rejection/ desired to be liked

informational inlfuence

desire to be right

reactance example

When teens were told that others believed eating fruit was healthy, they said they intended to eat less fruit