Conformity & Obedience

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  • Created by: Sess
  • Created on: 16-05-15 11:11
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  • Conformity & Obedience
    • Conformity
      • Definition
        • A change in behaviour or belief (attitude) as a result of real or imagined group pressure
        • A response to implicit social influence
        • Myers 2013
      • Asch (1951)
        • Cultural Influences
          • Milgram repeated the study
          • 12% conformed in Norway
          • In France, 1% conformed
        • 50 male ppts took part in a lines experiment
        • Each was placesd with 7 confederates
        • Asked to compare one line to 3 others
        • Ppt had to answer last. There were 18 trials and on 12 confeds gave a unanimous wrong answer
        • ppts conformed at least once. 25% never conformed
      • Predictors
        • Group Dynamics
          • Size
          • Unanimity
        • Level of commitment
          • If there is prior or public commitment, your decision doesnt change
          • When jury votes publically, they are more likely to vote for someone to hang
            • Kerr & MacCoun (1985)
        • Difficulty of the task
      • Types
        • Normative
          • Subconsious
          • When people wish to be liked  or accepted to avoid ostracism
          • One ppt vomited he was so afraid of being rejected
        • Deutsch & Gerard (1955)
        • Informative
          • You gain new info which may lead to a change
          • Members of a group turn to others to accept true info about reality
      • Not conforming
        • False Uniqueness Theory
          • Snyder + Fromkin
          • We like to think that we are more unique than we actually are
          • We believe our beliefs + attitudes are negatively correlated
          • They told students that their most important attitudes were shared by 10,000 others.
            • So they dissented in a conformity study
        • Can be a move to protect against freedom or individuality
        • Can also be to assert uniqueness
    • Obedience
      • Definition
        • Change in behaviour in response to explicit pressure
        • Explicit pressure or threat to conform
        • Myers 2013
      • Milgram (1963)
        • Ethics
          • Milgram was put underfire for harming ppt's mental state
        • Studied Nazi defense for their actions in WW2
        • Conducted a famous study involving 40 ppts and a confederate. The study was billed as a memory test
        • The ppts were proded a number of times if they hesitated to give shocks
        • 65% gave highest (450V) shocks even tho after 300V, the 'learner' stopped answering
        • No one predicted such an outcome.
      • Factors
        • Victim's distance
          • The learner and teacher couldnt see each other
          • When learner was in the same room, only 40% did 450V
          • This dropped to 30% if they had to place learners hand on voltage
        • Closeness of Authority
          • By telephone, obedience dropped to 21%
        • Legitimacy of Authority
          • When experimentor left, and clerk took over, obedience stopped completely
    • Social Contagion Effects
      • Laughing
        • A laughing epidemic broke out in Tanzania
        • It grew into a mass psychogenic illness
        • Tanganyika (1962)
      • Yawning
        • 360 students were divided into 12 groups
        • Provine (2005)
        • Some students watched clips of yawning or featureless or smiling faces
        • 55% yawned when videos of yawning were shown. 21% yawned during other categories
      • Norm Formation
        • Ppts were sat in a dark room and a bright light appeared
        • It moved and they were asked to judge the distance it moved
        • Over time, ppts were joined by more ppts
        • Their estimates gradually converged
        • A norm emerged, but estimates were false as it never moved
        • Sherif (1935)
        • Norm transmission
          • Used the same technique but had confeds say it moved 16 inches when control said 4-5
          • Gradually, the confeds were rotated out but 16 inches was still decided as the distance
          • This was upholded for 5 generations
          • Jacobs + Campbell
      • Chameleon Effect
        • Bargh (1999)
        • People unknowingly imitate each other
        • e.g. rubbing face or shaking foot

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