Social Influence : Experiments

Will people still conform even if the answer is unambiguous?

Procedure

• 123 participants taking part in a vision test
• groups of 7-9 (only 1 real participant who sat second to last  the rest were confederates)

Findings

• When confederates gave the wrong answer, the participants went along with it 36.6% of the time 
• of the Ps, 75% conformed at least once, 5% conformed every time and 25% never conformed 

Group size

Unanimity 

Task difficulty 

Autokinetic effect - an optical illusion where if you focus on a dot in a dark room the dot appears to move 

to test these participants were asked to estimate how far the light moved and in what direction

 Findings

• when participants answered in groups, they moved their estimates up or down to be closer to other peoples answers 

Conclusions 

They internalised their beliefs about what the answer should be and changed their answer publically and privately

Informational influence

Stanford prison experiment 

• 24 Male college students were randomly assigned the role of either prisoner or guards. 
• the guards began to adopt their role and within hours some guards began to harass the prisioners. 
  
• the prisoners also began to take the rules very seriously and some prisoners were removed from the experiment due to stress 
  
• on the sixth day of the experiment it was shut down due to the danger

 Conclusion 

people will readily conform to social roles. they begin to identify with the role and lose any sense of personal identity (Deinvidualisation)

Situational factors and dispositional factors

• 40 male participants
• the draw of teacher and learner was rigged: Learner = Confederate Teacher = Participant
• the participant was told to give increasingly powerful electric shocks to the learner if they got the question wrong (the electric shocks were not real) after 300v the learner goes silent but the teacher was told to keep shocking them up to 450v

Findings

All 40 of the participants went to 300v and 65% went to 450v

Hofling

Arranged with hospitals to ring a nurse and pretend to be a doctor, the nurses were on their own and he would ask for an unknown drug 

the nurses giving this drug would break many rules 

Findings

21 out of 22 nurses obeyed the order

Rank and Jacobson

they criticised the realism of Hoflings experiment and red did the experiment, however, changed it to a known drug, a known doctor and the nurses have colleagues who they were able to consult

Findings 

only 2 out of 18 obeyed

what would make people rebel against unjust authority?

33 groups were asked to take part in discussion around firing a petrol station manager as his lifestyle was offensive and the meeting was filmed to be "evidence in court"

Findings

of the 33 groups, 32 rebelled in some way 

• 25 of the 33 refused to sign the consent form for the filming
  
• 9 groups threatened to sue to HR company 
  

the group established a strong group identity in agreeing that the demands were unreasonable

A minority is most likely to influence a majority if they are consistent

• The participants were all women and they took part in a colour perception test
• 36 slides that were different shades of blue 

Condition 1

• confederates consistently said the slide was green
• participants agreed with confederates 8.5% of the time
  
• 32% conformed at least once

Condition 2

• confederates answered green 24 times and blue 12 times
• participants agreed 1.25% of the time