Chapter 6 - Social Psychology

Conformity

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

What are the three varieties of conformity?

acceptance, compliance, and obedience

Acceptance

involving both acting and believing in accord with social pressure

Compliance

involving publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing

Obedience

involving acting in accord with a direct order or command

Three Classic Sets of Studies Demonstrating Methods for Studying Conformity:

• Muzafer Sherif’s studies of norm formation

• Solomon Asch’s studies of group pressure

• Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies

Muzafer Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation

• Light exposure - how far it moved

• Tested alone - very wide range of estimated distances

• Put in a group dynamic - individual interpretation of how far the light moved CONVERGED onto a smaller range of numbers

• Then tested individually again - even when the social pressure of the group was gone, the individuals used the converged data range/sets - INTERNALIZATION

Convergence

when tested in groups, individual estimates gradually converged

Internalization

when re-tested alone afterwards, participants did not revert to their original individual estimates

Solomon Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

• offered a series of comparisons for which six fake people (plants) gave incorrect answers to see if a participant would agree even when he knew they were not correct

  • some people never conformed by giving the wrong answer, but 75% did so at least once

  • 37% of the responses were conforming, but 63% did not conform

  • over the decades, when similar experiments were held, fewer students were willing to conform

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies

• How far would ordinary people go if an authority told them to harm someone?

• 40 men ages 20-50

• Recruited by ad

• Participants paid to show up

• Study of memory and learning was the coverup

• instructed to teach a list of word pairs to another “participant” and punish errors by delivering shocks of increasing intensity

  • learner was giving verbal cues that they were given quite painful experiments

  • despite expectations, 65% of participants continued the shocks to the highest voltage

  • some even had seizures and uncontrollable laughing fits

Four features of Milgram’s study mirror well-documented psychological effects that increase compliance and obedience:

• “Slippery slope” of small requests that escalate

• Framing of shock-giving as a social norm

• Opportunity to deny responsibility

  • Researchers in lab coats told me to do it!

• Limited time to reflect on the decision

Norm Formation

internalization of the group converged opinion

Suggestibility

the psychological tendency to accept, believe, and act on the ideas, instructions, or perceptions of others (i.e. contagious yawning, comedy-show laugh tracks, and mass hysteria)

Mass Hysteria

suggestibility to problems that spreads throughout a large group of people

What factors enhance group pressure?

• Group size: pull climbs up to about 3-5 people, then levels off

• Unanimity: one dissenter breaks the spell for everyone

• Cohesion: the tighter the team, the stronger the pull

• Status: we copy the captain and the veteran (best, longest attending)

• Public Response (communication): speaking out loud raises conformity

• Prior Commitment: once we commit publicly, we stick with it

Normative Influence

• going along to be accepted or to avoid rejection

• often leads to compliance

Informational Influence

• going along because others’ judgments are evidence

• often leads to acceptance

Hypothesis for Why We Do Not Conform:

1) Reactance

2) Asserting Uniqueness

Reactance Hypothesis

• A motive to protect OR restore our sense of freedom. It arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.

  • A freedom is threatened

  • We feel an unpleasant pull to get it back

  • We restore it, often by doing the opposite

• The pattern: the more forcefully a freedom is threatened through conformity or obedience, the stronger the push to restore it.

Asserting Uniqueness Hypothesis

• We feel uncomfortable being too different from others, but also being too similar. when we feel too similar, we act to stand out.

  • We notice what sets us apart

  • People describe themselves by what is distinctive in their setting. Children mentioned their ethnicity more when they were in the minority in their class.