Studied by 21 people
how many types of conformity are there?
three
what are the three types of conformity?
Compliance Identification Internalisation
What is compliance?
When an individual changes their behaviour in order to fit in with the ideals of a group. It is public, but not private conformity. When the pressure from the group is gone, the changed behaviour is no longer exhibited.
It's temporary. Ex: laughing at an unfunny joke with a group of "friends" just to look good to that group of friends and fit in.
What is identification?
When an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they value the ideals of a group and want to identify with the group.
It is public but privately the belief is not followed/acknowledged.
It's temporary. Ex: laughing at an unfunny joke because you have a sense of these new beliefs.
What is internalisation?
A deep type of conformity where an individual takes on the beliefs of a group because they genuinely accept their values.
It leads to public and private permanent change in behaviour, even when the group is absent.
How many explanations for conformity are there?
2
Who came up with the explanations for conformity?
Deutsch and Gerard (1955)
What is informational social influence?
When people conform because they want to know the correct information to be right when unsure. They follow the majority if they seem to be aware of the correct information.
Cognitive Process
What is normative social influence?
When an individual conforms to be socially accepted by others and to not seem as if they are going against social norms to avoid rejection.
*Emotional process
Who came up with the types of conformity?
Herbert Kelman (1958)
Asch's Research Aim 1951,1955
Asch wanted to see if participants would conform to a majority answer that was wrong despite the correct answer being unambiguous or stick to their own answer
Asch's Participants
123 American male undergraduates
Asch's procedure
Participants had to say which out of three lines matched a standard line on a seperate card. It was an unambiguous task.
123 white, male, American undergraduates.
Group of 6-8 confederates and one naive participant who sat second to last. NAive participant unaware that the confederates were confederates
After the first few trials saying the correct answer, the confederates all said the same wrong answer. (12 critical trials out of 18)
Asch's Research findings
The naive participant gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
-Overall 25% of the participants did not conform on any trials, which means that 75% conformed at least once.
-When interviewed after participants said they conformed due to NSI
How many participants conformed at least once in Asch's study
75%
How many paricipants did not conform in Asch's study?
25%
How much percent of the time did the naive participant give the wrong answer?
36.8%
What is the Asch effect?
The extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous.
What are Asch's three variations?
Group size, unanimity, task difficulty
Group size's effect on conformity?
With 3 confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. Addition of further confederates made little to no difference.
Suggests a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted by there is no need for a majority more than 3.
Task difficulty effect on conformity
By making the stimulus and comparison lines more similar in length, conformity increased. This suggests ISI plays a greater role when the task is ambiguous.
unanimity effect on conformity
The presence of a dissenting confederate meant that conformity was reduced significantly than when the majority was unanimous.
The presence of a dissenter made the naive participant more encouraged to act independently.
This suggests influence of the majority depends to an extent, on the majority group being unanimous.
Asch Evaluation: A child of its time
P- One limitation is that Asch's findings may be a 'child of the times'.
E- Perrin and Spencer replicated Asch's experiment with male engineering students. They found only one conforming response in 396 trials. Participants felt more confident measuring lines than Asch's original sample, so were less conformist. Also, the 1950s were a conformist time in America and people might be less likely to conform in subsequent decades.
A- The Asch effect is not consistent over time, so it lacks temporal validity and is a limitation of Asch's Research as it cannot be applied to another time with the same results.
Asch Evaluation: Artificial situation and task
P- A second limitation is that the situation and task were artificial.
E- Participants knew they were in a study so may have just responded to demand characteristics. Fiske (2014) argued that although the naive participants were members of a 'group', it didn't really resemble groups that we are part of in everyday life for example friendship groups. He said that 'Asch's groups weren't very groupy'
A- Thus findings do not generalise to everyday situations where consequences of conformity are important, and where we interact with groups more directly. The study, therefore, lacks ecological and mundane realism.
What did Fisk (2014) say?
Groups were not very groupy.
Fiske (2014) argued that although the naive participants were members of a 'group', it didn't really resemble groups that we are part of in everyday life for example friendship groups
Asch Evaluation: Limited Application of Findings
P- Another limitation is that the findings only apply to certain groups.
E- Only men were tested in Asch's study. Neto (1995) suggested that women might be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
Participants were from the USA, and individualist culture, where people are more concerned about themselves than their social group. Conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures, e.g China, which are more concerned with group needs.
E- This suggests that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found; his findings may be limited to only American men.
What did Neto (1995) say?
Women are more conformist than men.
What are social roles?
A part individuals play as members of a social group, which meets the expectations of that siuation.
Aim of Zimbardo's study
To investigat if people and to what extent would people conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing simulation of prison life. Do guards behave brutally due to sadistic personality or is it the situation that creates such behaviour?
Zimbardo Prison Study Procedure
Set up a mock prison in Stanford Unvieristy basement
Advertised for volunteers and selected the emotionally stable after extensive psyhcological assessment.
Students randomly assigned role
Prisoners arrested in their own homes, blindfolded, strip searched, given uniform and number.
16 rules to follow, enforced by guards on shift, no more than 3 a time
Names not used for prisoners, only numbers
Guards had uniform, wooden club, handcuffs, keys, shades.
Guards were given control over prisoners
Participants in Zimbardo's prison study
24/75 men paid $15/day didnt know each other
Process of selecting participants in Zimbardos Study
diagnostic interviews, personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological issues, medical disabilites, criminal history or drug abuse.
Zimbardo's study findings
Guards behaviour became a threat to prisoners wellbeing
-In 2 days, prisoners rebelled, protested, fought, ripped uniforms
-Divide and Rule tactics used by guards to put prisoners against each other to put down rebellion
-1 prisoner released early due to signs of psychological disturbance
-1 went on hunger strike, guards brutally force fed him.
-Guards became more agressive, some enjoying their power
-Experiment ended after 6 days, 8 days earlier than intended.
How many days did Zimbardo's Study last
6/14
Conclusion of Zimbardo's study
People conform to the expectations of their perception of the attitude of an individual in their social roles
Evaluation of Zimbardo's Study: High level of Control
P- High-level Control over variables in the selection of participants- psychological + physical evaluations and the random allocation of roles.
E- The emotional stability of participants ruled out the possibility of individual differences acting as an extraneous variable.
E- If guards behaved differently, but roles were random, it can be said that they acted as they did due to the pressure of the situation.
L- This level of control increases internal validity allowing for a more confident conclusion to be drawn from the study.
Weakness Zimbardo's PS: Lack of Realism
Banuazizi & Mohavedi (1975) argued that participants were play-acting rather than conforming to social roles as they were aware of the study they were in and based their actions on the stereotypes of the social roles they were allocated.
One of the guards stated that he based his brutal character on a guard from the movie cool hand luke. This could also explain why prisoners rioted- because they thought that was what real prisoners did.
COUNTER: Zimbardo pointed to evidence that the situation was very realistic for participants as quantitative data shows 90% of prisoner conversations were about prison life. Prisoner 416 stated the prison was real just run by psychologists not the government. A high degree of internal validity.
What did prisoner 416 say
Prisoner 416 stated the prison was real just run by psychologists not the government.
Weakness Zimabardo's Study: Ethical Issues
Zimbardo took up dual roles - the role of experimenter and also superintendent- causing the study to lack objectivitiy. This meant that he responded as a superintendent rather than an experimenter neglecting his responsibility for his participants in his care. There was a report that a student asked him to leave but was denied exit. His participants were brought to excessive harm by the guards. Zimbardo should have given up one of his roles- by parttaking in the experiment he was unable to observe the true harm that had come to his participants and broke many ethical guidelines for psychology experiments reducing the recognisability of the findings of the study.
When did Zimbardo conduct the Stanford prison experiment?
1971
What is obedience?
When an individual follows a direct order from a figure of authority with the power to punish those who do not follow.
What was the aim of Milgram's study?
To investigate what level of obedience would be shown when participants were told by an authority figure to cause harm to another person.
*- To see how easy ordinary people could be convinced to commit atrocities inspired by Germany WW2
Milgram's study participants
40 male participants recruited via newspaper advert- deceived participants to believe the study was about memory.
$4.50 to take part.
20-50 year old unskilled to professional working males.
Told they can leave at any time, money is theirs.
Milgram's Obedience Study procedure
Naive paricipant always teacher
Confederate 1 (Mr. Wallace) learner
Confederate 2 experimenter
-Learner strapped in chair with electrodes
Teacher in different room, required to give a shock everytime they gave wrong answer to the word list they were given
15-450 volts
-15 labelled slight shock, 450 labelled danger severe shock
At 300V learner banged on wall and at 315V went unresponsive
Findings of Milgram's study
65% to 450V None stopped before 300V
Many showed signs of stress, objected but still continued
Once informed 84% said they were glad they took part
Conclusion of Milgram's study
When an authoritative figure takes responsibility for an order, people are more likely to follow it.
People will carry out a harmful order.
What did the experimenter in the Milgram obedience studies do to get the participants to continue shocking the learner?
Please Continue The experiment requires that you continue It is absolutely essentil you continue You have no other choice, you must go on
Weakness of Milgram's study: Low internal Validity
Orne & Holland (1968) said that participants behaved as they did because they were aware that the shocks were not real and were therefore okay with going to high voltages. Recordings show that the participants had doubts that the shocks were real. This means that Milgram's study has low internal validity as paricipants many have been acting on demand characteristics rather than obeying.
COUNTER: Shedrian & King (1972) found 54% males and 100% of females administered real shocks to a dog that were fatal suggesting the effects of Milgram's experiment were real as people behave the same way when shocks are definitely real.
Strength Milgram's Study : Good External Validity
Despite being conducted in a lab, the relationship between authority figures (experimenter) and teachers (naive participants) reflects real-life situations as supported by other research.
Hofling et al (1966) studied nurses and found 21 out of 22 obeyed by giving an unknown drug to their participants after being told to do so by doctors. This suggests the study can be generalised to real-life hierarchal situations and is a valuable piece of insight into how obedience works in real life.
Weakness of Milgram's study (ethical issues)
Milgram's Study breaches many ethical issues that result in the weakening of his study's credibility. He decieved his participants into thinking that they were participanting in a memory test as well as the allocation of roles being random when it wasn't. He did not protect his participants from psychological harm of knowing that they were administering harmful, life-threatening shocks to a person with prompts from the experimenter urging them to continue taking away their autonomy. He also did not follow up with their mental health checks after despite the detrimental effects that such a study can have on particiant's wellbeing.
What does situational variable mean?
factors influencing the level of obedience shown by an individual related to only external circumstances and not personality.
What are Milgram's situational variables?
Location, proximity, uniform
What are the proximity variations?
Teacher and learner in same room - 40%
teacher force learners hand on shock plate - 30%
Experimenter leaves, instructs via phone - 20.5%
what are the location variations?
run down building instead of yale, experiementer had less authority due to loss of prestigious value - 47.5%
what are the uniform variations?
Experiementer called away, member of public in normal clothes not lab coat carries on experiment - 20%
What 3 evaluation points are you writing for situational variables?
Research support
Lack of internal validity
Cross cultural replications and support
Explain the Research support: SIT. Variables
Bickman (1974) conducted a study using Milgram's variation of unform. He used three confederates and dressed them up in different outfits of different levels of authority: security outfit, jacket and tie, milkman. The confederates had to ask members of the public to pick up litter on the street or give a coin for the parking meter. It was found that people were 2 times as likely to obey the security guard than the man in a jacket an tie. This is supporting research as it shows uniform unlocks a higher level of authority which influences the likelihood of obedience of the population.
Low internal validity SIT. VARIABLES
ORne and Holland critisised milrgam's study for lacking realism. They argued that participants were aware that the shocks were fake and were just acting based on demand characteristics. Milgram expressed that he too believed the participants had realised the nature of the study and were acting as they were expected to when he introduced the variables. The extra manipulation of the study in the uniform variation where the experimenter left and was overtaken by a normal person in normal clothes was not believable enough. Due to this an uncertainty as to if the experiemnt measured genuine obedience or if the participants saw through the deception has been risen.
Cross cultural replication SIT VAR.
Miranda et al (1981) replicated Milgram's study with both male and female Spanish students and found that obedience levels were at 90%. This allows Milgram's findings to no longer be limited to American males but generalised to not only other cultures but also women as well.
However, Smith and Bond argued that it is too early to generalise findings on obedience from Milgram to the whole world. This is because the majority of replications have taken place in western-like countries with similar cultures to the USA - Spain and Australia. Other countries with more collectivist cultures like China have not been reported to produce similar obedience results
SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS
Agentic state and legitimacy of authority
What is legitimacy of authority?
An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
What is the agentic state?
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour and are absolved of the consequences of actions. we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. I.e as an agent.
Agents still experience high levels of anxiety when they know what they are doing is wrong however they feel powerless to obey.
What are the two explanations for obedience?
Agentic state and legitimacy of authority
Milgram's interest in Eichmann
Eichmann ran a nazi camp and his excuse was i was just following orders.
Autonomous state
When an individual feels direct responsibility for their own actions, and behave accoriding to their principles.
How do you go from autonomous to agentic
Agentic Shift
Why do people remain in agentic state?
binding factors
What are binding factors?
Layers of excuse to ignore the harm that the individual is causing, reducing their moral strain.
Shifting responsibility
Denying damage done
What is destructive authority?
Authority figures who use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes (ordering people to behave dangerous/cruel)
What evaluation points for Social-psychological factors?
Research Support Limited Explanations Cultural Differences Real life Crimes against humanity
Research support (SPF)
Blass & Schmitt (2000) showed a film of milgrams study to students and asked who was responsible for the harm to the learner.
Students said experimenter. Teacher was just following orders as an agent as they showed distress.
Students indicated responsibilty is absolved from teacher (agentic state proof) and passed into experiementer (LOA)
Experimenter was an intelligent scientist therefore higher in the hierarchy and therefore a LOA
Both recognised as possible causes for obedience.
Limited Application (SPF)
Agentic state doesn't explain why some participants in Milgram's study didn't obey. It also doesnt explain why in Hofling's study, the nurses didn't experience distress when carryign out a destructive order.
Agentic state suggests that the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor but they should have shown distress like Milgram's participants as they both understood their roles in the destructive process.
Cultural Differences (SPF)
Useful for showing cultural differences in obedience.
Australia only 16% obeyed
Germany 85% obeyed.
This shows that different cultures are more likely to accept authority as legitimate than others.
What is a dispositional explanation?
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual's personality
What is an authoritarian personality?
A personality type that strongly believes in obeying people in authority. They are submissive of those in higher powers than then and dismissive of those less powerful than them.
Who did a study looking into dispositional factors for obedience?
Adorno
What year did Adorno do his study?
Adorno et al (1950)
Aim of Adorno et al (1950)
To investigate the cause of obedient personality and one's unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
Participants of adorno's study
2000 white middle class americans
Procedure of Adorno's study
Developed scales to investigate unconscious attitudes towards racial groups.
F scale: measures the authoritarian personality till today
Facism
Form of far-right dictatorial power suppressing opposition.
Findings of Adorno's study
people score highly on f scale = high respect for people with higher social status
stereotypes for racial groups
Conscious of their status and other people's statuses.
correlation between prejudice and authoritarianism
Conclusion of Adorno's study
People with authoritarian personalities have correlation with higher levels of obedience and prejudice towards other racial groups.
Origin of authoritarian personality
-Strict discipline from parents -Expectation of Loyalty -Impossibly high standards -Severe criticisms of failings -conditional love from parents depending on behavious
Creates resentment and hostility that cannot be expressed towards the parents and so are displaced (scapegoating)
What evaluation points for dispositional factors for obedience
Research Support Limited Application of Findings Correlation not causation
Research Support for dispositional factors
Milgram et al (1966) conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants. They scored highly on the F scale demonstrating a correlation between obedience and authoritarian personality.
However the link is just correlational so it is impossible to draw conclusions that one affects the other.
There may be a third factor involved.
Limited explanation of authoritarian personality
It cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of the counties population.
Anti Semitism existed in Germany before the war despite the population having different personalities.
its quite unlikely that most of the country was Authoritarian.
An alternative explanation is that majority of German people identified with the Nazis beliefs and scapegoated the Jews.
this explanation is a social identity theory.
this limits Adornos theory because there is a better explanation.
Correlation not causation authoritarian
Research conducted into the explanations for obedience being the authoritarian personality is all correlational not cauational.
Adorno et al (1950) found there is a link between the high F-scale score and authoritarian personality.
However correlation doesn't mean causation, so we cannot assume these two variables have a cause and effect relationship
This weakens the authoritarian explanation for obedience.
RESISTANCE TO SOCIAL INFLUENCE
sociql support, LOC
What is resistance to social influence
Ways in which an individual withstands the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority.
What are the two explanations for resistance to social influence
social support and locus of control
What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same. These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible.
What is locus of control?
The extent to which individuals believe how much control they have over their lives.
Who introduced locus of control
Rotter (1966)
What is the continuum of loc
High extenal LOC ------LOW E/I LOC-------- High internal LOC
internal locus of control
the perception that you control your own fate
external locus of control
the perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
Internal locus of control are more liekly to resist because?
They believe they are in control of their own decisions and life. So they take responsibility for their own actions and therefore act according to their own values.
They are more self-confident, achievement oriented, intelligent, less need for social approval. ALL FACTORS OF A RESISTOR!
What evaluation points for Resistance to Social Influence
Research support for conformity + Obedience Research support for Locus of control Limited Application of Findings for LOC
Research support for conformity and obedience: RSI
Allen & Levine (1971) found that conformity decreased when there was a dissenter a person who does not agree with others. in an Asch type study. Even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said they could not see properly. Allowing the other person to feel free from the pressure of the group because of social support. This is a strength as it shows the effects of social support on conformity as the dissenter made the naive participant more confident to resist acting as a model and reducing their need for NSI.
Gamson et al (1982) found that dissenting peers increases resistance to obedience. They found higher levels of resistance in their study compared to Milgram's. The participants in Gamson's study were in groups 88% of participants rebelled demonstrating the link between social support and resistance.
Note
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