Week 9: Conformity, Obedience and Compliance

why do people follow rules, order, and instructions (even unwritten ones)?

makes getting along more easily, and sometimes not doing so means suffering painful consequences.

conformity

changing your thoughts or behavior to align with those of another.

obedience

involves a change in your behavior in response to the orders of another.

behavior that is in response to the orders of another who is perceived to have some form of power or authority.

compliance

involves shifting your behavior because of requests.

normative social influence

the need to conform due to social pressures and norms.

linked to the core social motive of belonging

informational social influence

conformity in order to be correct

The Power of the Situation: The Stanford Prison Experiment

To examine the power of roles and conformity, psychologist Philip Zimbardo recruited 24 male participants from Stanford University to be part of a study. They were randomly assigned to play the roles of either prisoners or guards in a simulated prison in the basement of a building on campus for 2 weeks. The guards wore uniforms and were outfitted with clubs. The prisoners were referred to by serial numbers.

Before long, people fell into their roles, perhaps too well. The guards became offensive and insulting to the prisoners, who soon became passive and helpless. The entire situation got so out of hand that they abandoned the experiment before the end of the first week.

Who do people comply with requests?

• To obtain a reward, such as points or expertise

• To gain information

• Coercion (when a person forces or intimidates someone else)

• Personal relationships (such as a friend who needs to be taken to the airport).

• Legitimate authorities, such as a boss at work, have the right to ask us to do things.

• Helplessness,such as when a small child asks for help in tying her shoes or someone asks you to reach something in a grocery store.

Milgram’s Experiment

Would people blindly obey the directions of an authority?

• What happened: Participants (the “teacher”) were told to give increasingly strong electric shocks to a “learner” (an actor/confederate) each time the learner answered a question incorrectly. The shocks were fake but the teacher believed they were real.

• Sample and setting: Milgram tested about 40 men from varied backgrounds at Yale in the early 1960s, using an experimenter in a lab-coat as the authority figure.

Key findings

• High obedience: A large majority of participants continued to obey the experimenter’s instructions to deliver shocks up to the highest (dangerous-sounding) levels, despite the learner’s cries and apparent pain.

• Main conclusion: Ordinary people will often follow orders from an authority figure even when those orders conflict with personal conscience.

Psychological explanation

• Agentic state: People shift into an “agentic” mindset where they view themselves as an agent executing another’s wishes, reducing personal responsibility.

• Situational power: Features of the situation (authority presence, laboratory setting, gradual escalation of demands, and pressure to continue) strongly increase obedience; this shows situational factors can overpower dispositional morals or personality.

People obey authority more than we expect; context often beats conscience.

Like all attitudes, prejudice contains three components, explain them

• an affective, or emotional component (like or dislike toward the group)

• a behavioral component (acts toward or against a group), and

• a cognitive component (set of beliefs about the group).

prejudice

the way people apply characteristics of and judgments about a group to an individual. Often these characteristics and judgments are negative.

discrimination

the tendency to act differently toward a member of a particular group.

What reduces prejudice?

Working together in a setting in which people are equal, in an environment that fosters friendships, and in which an authority encourages this setting does tend to improve relationships of people with different backgrounds

aggression

words or physical acts a person does in order to cause harm.

instrumental aggression

Words or physical acts a person does to cause harm in an ultimate goal to obtain something.

• ex: a child who hits another child to obtain a toy truck.

hostile aggression

aggression simply to inflict harm.

• ex: bullying

theory of testosterone’s role in aggression

research has pointed to the role of testosterone as a chemical associated with aggressive behavior.

theory of serotonin’s role in aggression

research has also implicated low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in sleep, mood, and appetite, as playing a role in aggression.

amygdala

research has also implicated low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in sleep, mood, and appetite, as playing a role in aggression.

theory of the role of the amygdala in aggression

damage to limbic system structures can produce aggression even when the person is not threatened

cathartic

An experience that involves the release of pent-up emotions.

Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment

3 Groups

• Aggressive model group: Children watched an adult behave physically and verbally aggressively toward the Bobo doll (e.g., punching, hitting, shouting).

• Non‑aggressive model group: Children watched an adult play calmly and ignore the doll, showing no aggression.

• Control group (no model): Children had no model demonstration before being left alone with the toys and the Bobo doll.

Children exposed to aggressive models reproduced more physical and verbal aggression and sometimes produced novel aggressive acts. This supported social learning theory’s claim that behaviour can be learned through observation.

Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

explains that people learn behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions by observing and imitating others.

Sociocultural theories of aggression suggest that ________________ factors can be important aspects of aggression.

societal and cultural factors

• ex: crime is much higher in countries that have

  considerable gaps between poor and rich

Media Impact’s on Aggression

it was once thought that viewing aggressive acts would be cathartic and reduce aggression in people, but it appears to do the opposite. People who are exposed to media violence are more aggressive than those who are not exposed to the aggression

Videogames fare similarly. In one study, boys who were allowed to play aggressive videogames displayed much more physical and verbal aggression than those who were not

proximity’s role in forming supportive contacts

People who lived closer to each other were much more likely to become friends than were those whose apartments were farther apart.

An explanation for the importance of proximity may be familiarity. All other things being equal, people seem to like objects and people to which they have been exposed to before.

mere exposure effect

repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to preferring that stimulus.

appearance or physical attractiveness’s role in forming supportive contacts.

Numerous studies have found a strong association between people’s perception of others’ attractiveness and their positive evaluation of those others as people whom they would like to meet

• ex: In a study of roommates, those who perceived their roommates to be attractive were more satisfied with roommate relations.

Physically attractive people are believed to be nicer people more skillful verbal communicators, more exciting, sociable, interesting, sensitive, outgoing, nurturing, kind, and modest.

similarity’s role in forming supportive contacts.

People tend to gravitate to those who are like themselves.

Research suggests that individuals prefer people who are similar to themselves in intelligence, ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and even size.

Having similar values, interests, and background were strong predictors of friendship

matching hypothesis

people are paired to equally attractive partners.

Reciprocity of liking

Reacting positively to those who react positively to you.

When people like us, they treat us in ways that we appreciate, they smile at us, their eyes brighten when we enter the room, and they cheerfully say hello when we call. It is rewarding when people like us, and we reciprocate this.

in-group bias

accepting the attitudes of your own team.

out-group homogeneity

the idea that members of the out-group are similar to each other, (may be the basis of stereotypes and may also lead to discrimination.)

social identity theory

in-groups raise our self-esteem because we see the members of the group as special, thus favoring the in-group and their ideas/behaviors

We can sometimes regard those who are not part of the group as inferior.

ethnocentrism

Applying social identity theory to ethnic groups, believing that your own group is superior to others and that it should be the standard by which other cultures are judged.

altruism

being unselfish and helpful to other people

social-responsibility norm

the assumption that assistance should be given to those in need

reciprocity norm

An assumption that you should behave positively toward those who have helped you.

Why is our behavior sometimes governed by altruism? (2)

• social-responsibility norm

• reciprocity norm,

Latane and Darley’s 5 Stages in the Decision to Offer Assistance

1. Notice the situation and

2. Decide if help is needed.

3. Take personal responsibility to assist.

4. Decide what kind of assistance is needed.

5. Offer your assistance.

theory of assisting due to stress.

Helping suggests that we feel distress when we see someone who needs help. Helping reduces that distress.

However, offering help can come at a price. We offer to help when the cost of offering is less than enduring the distress of seeing the person in need.

diffusion of responsibility

when the responsibility to help is spread across a crowd.

• ex: If you are the only person around, then you have to assume responsibility to help. If you and another person are present, then each of you might think that the other person will help. If there are 38 people present, then you have 37 other people who could assume the responsibility, 37 others you could blame if help was not called, and 37 people to share in the guilt if nothing is done.

bystander effect

A phenomenon in which people are less likely to offer assistance to someone in need while in groups than they are by themselves.

effects of group Interaction

• Imitating the behaviors of the individuals of the group

• look for a GL

• prefer their group’s members over nonmembers

• ppl may change their views to match those in the group and increase a sense of belonging.

group polarization

the likelihood that the attitudes of members of a team will become more similar over time and even made more extreme.

group think

Sometimes groups begin to overestimate their moral position, become more closed off to new people and ideas, and pressure their members to conform.

When a group’s ideals become so important that alternative ideas are dismissed.

Conformity to the minority position occurs through _____ pressure rather than _____ pressure.

informational; normative

How can a minority view become heard?

a consistent and confident message

social loafing

the tendency to put forth less effort in a group than one would on one’s own.

social facilitation

the tendency to work harder when others are around

social pressure to work is encouraging

deindividuation

a merging of the self with a group in order to feel anonymous

when people feel anonymous and part of a wider group, it diminished their sense of control and responsibility.

The senior partner in the law firm tells Taylor, a junior partner, to revise the brief before she leaves that evening, and she does. The act of doing so represents:

A. conformity.

B. obedience.

C. central route to persuasion.

D. normative social influence.

B

8. Carla changed her vote from guilty to not guilty simply because the rest of the jury voted that way. Which concept explains why?

A. Normative social influence

B. Informational social influence

C. Compliance

D. Obedience

A - Normative social influence involves social pressure to conform to a group’s norms—in this case, the belief that the defendant in a trial was not guilty.

Five-year-old Drake hit his sister Cassie in order to take the ball she was playing with. The act of hitting Cassie to get the ball is an example of:

A. discrimination.

B. obedience.

C. instrumental aggression.

D. hostile aggression.

C

Nick is surprised that a couple he knows is getting married. “I think she can do better, she’s so much more attractive than he is,” he thinks. Nick is using which principle to determine the couple’s compatibility?

A. Mere exposure effect

B. Matching hypothesis

C. False conscious effect

D. Self-perception theory

B - According to the matching hypothesis, people are paired to equally attractive partners.

Thinking that everyone in the South listens to country music is an example of:

A. out-group homogeneity.

B. out-group bias.

C. ethnocentrism.

D. in-group bias.

A

Darla helped her neighbor clean her gutters because earlier in the summer, the same neighbor helped her clean out the garage. This helping behavior demonstrates:

A. social facilitation.

B. altruism.

C. social responsibility norm.

D. reciprocity norm.

D

Individuals with a minority decision within a group will need to sway the larger group to the minority opinion using:

A. informational social influence.

B. normative social influence.

C. social facilitation.

D. groupthink.

A

Barbara likes exercising in boot camp with other people because she feels she works much harder than when she works out alone. Her extra effort is due to:

A. diffusion of responsibility.

B. bystander effect.

C. deindividuation.

D. social facilitation.

D

Although they were helping Trey get his truck unstuck from the mud, not everyone was pushing as hard as he could. The factor that explains this is:

A. group polarization.

B. groupthink.

C. social loafing.

D. deindividuation.

C