WK 6 - Conformity and obedience

Conformity

A change in one's behaviours due to the real or imagined influence of others

Why do people conform?

Informational social influence and normative social influence

Informational social influence

• Relying on other people as a source of information to guide our behaviour

• Leads to conformity because we believe that other's interpretation of an ambiguous situation is correct

When do people conform to ISI?

new/ ambiguous situation, crisis situation, other people are experts

Sherif’s dot experiment

• Worked on how social norms develop in groups

• Studied social phenomenon in a controlled environment

• Based on autokinetic effect

Sherif’s dot experiment - What is an autokinetic effect?

an illusion, eye movements which we cannot control, we have a muscle connected to eye ball that pulls on your eye causing it to make involuntary movements. In a dark room, a dot of light was projected on a wall

Sherif’s dot experiment - procedure

• Participants estimated how much the dot moved

• Trials were done alone and in groups

Sherif’s dot experiment - results

• When ppt did this task by themselves, their estimation of movement varied a lot

• But when they were in groups and they said the estimate outloud, the group arrived at a decision and established a group norm

Sherif’s dot experiment - when bought back to the lab to do it by themselves found that 

people stick to the groups responses

Sherif dot experiment - when new group members were added that were not there when the original norm was established

the new group members would carry on the norm

private acceptance

conforming to other people's behaviour out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right

Eyewitness Identification study - Baron et al (1996)

procedure

• Saw an image of perpitrator and then saw an image of 4 men

• Then had to find the perpitrator from the 4 men

• This task was done very quickly which made it ambiguous

Eyewitness Identification study - Baron et al (1996)

conditions

• They did the task in groups of 4 and confederates gave wrong answer before ppt

• In one condition they were told task is going to be used to test eyewitness abilities and paid $20 (high importance condition)

• In another condition they were told it was a first attempt to construct a task (low importance condition)

Eyewitness Identification study - Baron et al (1996)

Findings

• In low importance condition, ppt conformed to group response on 35% of trials. But in high importance condition this conformity increased to 51%

Normative social influence

Conforming with what other people do to be liked and accepted, to avoid rejection and ridicule

Asch’s Line judgement experiment - procedure

• Ppt were shown a reference line and compared to 3 other lines

• Were asked which line out of the set of 3 is the same length as the reference line

• The correct answer was obvious

Asch’s line judgement experiment - results

• This shows us information social influence did not play a role as when they write down their answers most people were correct

• People conformed on a 1/3 of all trials

Variations to Asch’s experiment - different group sizes

 3 other people giving the wrong answer is enough for maximum conformity

Variations to Asch’s experiment - ppt has an ally

confederate gave a correct answer so conformity drops as they are no longer the only one giving a different answer

What does NSI lead to?

public compliance but not always private acceptance

public compliance

conformity to other people's behaviour publicly, without necessarily believing in what they are doing or saying

The case of Johnny Rocoo - Schachter (1951)

Procedure

• Students asked to evaluate the case of Johnny Rocco, a juvenile dilinquent

• Most students thought that he should receive a mid-level punishment

• There was a confederate that argued he should receive the harshest punishment ever

The case of Johnny Rocoo - Schachter (1951)

Results 

• They attempted to change his mind but after they could not they ignored him

• In a post-survey, they were asked who they want to assign the boring tasks to in the next experiment and they assigned these tasks the deviant confederate

Social impact theory: conforming to normative social influence depends on:

The groups importance, Immediacy (closeness in space/time), the number of people in the group, cultural values

Minority influence works if:

• The minority is consistent

• New and unexpected information is introduced (use of ISI)

Injunctive norms

perceptions of what behaviours are approved or disapproved by others

Descriptive norms

perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behaviour is approved or disapproved by others

Reno et al (1993) using conformation for good - procedure

• How many people would litter in a given situation

• Walking back to their car from a parking lot. One of the parking lots were clean and the other was littered

Reno et al (1993) using conformation for good - conditions

confederate walks by, confederate litters bag, confederate picks up bag

Reno et al (1993) using conformation for good - DV

When they get to the car they find a flyer and test to see how many people throw it on the floor

Reno et al (1993) using conformation for good - results for confederate litters bag

when the parking lot was littered 30% littered but when the parking lot was clean only 10% littered

Reno et al (1993) using conformation for good - results for confederate picks up bag

both in clean and littered car parks less than 10% littered

Conserving electricity - Shultz et al (2007) - procedure

• Divided into 2 groups high usage and low usage of electricity

• They were given a leaflet on household energy used

• few weeks later energy usage measured

Conserving electricity - Shultz et al (2007) - conditions

1. Descriptive norm condition: household energy used, average neighbourhood use

2. Descriptive & injunctive condition: household energy used, average neighbour hood, given a happy face or sad face depending on how much energy was used

Conserving electricity - Shultz et al (2007) - results

• In descriptive condition, those who used high levels of energy reduced their use but those with low usage increased their consumption

• In descriptive&injunctive condition, high usage decreased their usage and those with low usage remained the same

Foot-in-the-door

Getting people to agree first to a small request makes them more likely to agree later to a second, larger request (Freedman & Fraser, 1966)

Door-in-the-face

First asking people for a large request that they will probably refuse makes them more likely to agree later to a second, smaller request (Cialdini et al, 1975)

How does door-in-the-face work

we don’t want to seem unreasonable as they have made a compromise and has asked for less

Obedience

Change in one's behaviour due to the direct influence of an authority figure

Milgrams eletric shock studies -results

• People estimate that only 1% of population would apply maximum shock

• Instead, 62% of ppt delivered the maximum shock of 450V

• The average maximum delivered was 360V

• 80% kept administering shocks even after the learned said that his heart was bothering him

NSI in Milgrams experiment

Ppt didn’t want to disappoint the experimenter. The experimenter gave very insistent commands

ISI in Milgrams experiment

The situation is ambiguous, a crisis, other people have expertise and take responsibility

Milgrams experiment variations - 3 teachers 2 of which confederates

 Confederates refuse to continue - only 10% of ppt apply the maximum 450V shock

Milgrams experiment variations - 2 experimenters disagree…

about continuing to apply the shocks - the authority's veiw is unclear, so the 'teacher' stops applying the shocks

Why do people obey authority? (3)

• Following the wrong norm - once they follow a norm it is difficult to recognise it is no longer appropriate

• Self-justification

• Not their responsibility

Heavy criticism of Milgrams study because

deception, lack of informed consent, right to withdraw, psychological distress

Milgram Study replications

Burger (2009)

• Prescreened to remove those with distress, stopped at 150V

• 70% delivered the maximum voltage

Milgram study replications

Dolinski (2017)

90% of polish ppt obeyed to 150V