Intro to Psych Conformity and Obedience

obedience

following orders from authority

compliance

agreeing to others’ requests

conformity

changing behaviors to fit group norms

Milgram’s obedience experiments

participant teacher selects shock for learner, complies with experimenter despite obvious distress

foot in the door effect

compliance strategy; agreeing to small request makes you more likely to agree to later larger request

door in the face effect

compliance strategy; rejecting a large request makes you more likely to comply with a following smaller request

informational influence

adopting others beliefs under assumption that others have knowledge beyond one’s own

normative influence

changing behavior to avoid looking bad/adhere to group standards

Sherif Autokinetic effect

subjects rated motion duration and amount for a small unmoving dot, high individual variance but estimates converge when tested in group, adhere to group estimate when re-tested alone

unambiguous situation experiment

comparing 3 lines to a reference, with other “subjects” purposely giving wrong answers and participants conforming to the wrong answers despite thinking they were wrong

group size on conformity

maximum conformity in groups of 4-5, unanimity more influential than group size

task importance

more likely to conform in conditions of high importance, ex: eyewitness identification test with high (monetary reward) vs low (preliminary study) importance

groupthink

desire for group harmony overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives

social roles

we conform to expected behavior for a given role, ex: Stanford prison experiment (role appropriate attitudes despite randomly assigned groups)

cognitive dissonance

need to preserve stable and positive self image, changing/justifying behavior to reduce dissonance (ex: smoking habits)

deindividuation

state of reduced autonomy, self awareness, and self restraint when in a group caused by anonymity and diffusion of responsibility

diffusion of responsibility

bystanders expect other bystanders to take responsibility, resulting in no one taking action

bystander intervention effect

people are less likely to help someone in need if more people are present