Social psychology research studies

Developed a two-process theory arguing that there are two main reasons people conform: the need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI)

Asked students to give answers to maths problems that were easy or hard. There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult. This was most true for students who rated their maths ability as poor

Found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform

Found that many of his participants went along with a clearly wrong answer just because other people did. He asked them why they did this and some of the participants said they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and were afraid of disapproval. When Asch repeated his study but asked participants to write down their answers instead of saying them out loud, conformity rates fell to 12.5%

Conducted a similar study to Asch’s involving science and engineering students and found very little conformity. Only one student conformed in 396 trials

Women may be more conformist because they are more concerned about social relationships than men

Argued that the participants in Zimbardo’s study were play acting based on stereotypes rather than genuinely conforming

Accused Zimbardo of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour and minimising the role of personality factors. Only a third of the guards behaved in a brutal manner; another third tried to apply the rules fairly and the last third actively tried to help the prisoners

Conducted a partial replication of the Stanford Prison Experiment known as the BBC Prison Study. They found that it was the prisoners who eventually took control and subjected the guards to harassment. The researchers used social identity theory to explain the outcome, arguing that the guards failed to develop a shared group identity whereas the prisoners did - they actively identified themselves as members of a social group that refused to accept the limits of their roles

Conducted a study with 40 male participants

Each was ‘randomly’ assigned the role of teacher in a rigged draw and the learner (‘Mr Wallace’) was played by a confederate - there was also a researcher in a lab coat who was a confederate

The teacher had to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner each time they failed a question

The learner would pound on the wall after 300 volts and then not answer any questions after

The experimenter would use prompts to try and convince the teacher to continue

12.5% of participants stopped at 300 volts and 65% continued to the highest shock level

Participants showed signs of distress and 3 had seizures

Conducted a study where real shocks were given to a puppy

54% of male student participants and 100% of female student participants delivered what they thought was a fatal shock

Studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that levels of obedience to unjustified demands from doctors was very high (21 out of 22 nurses obeyed)

In a replication of Milgram’s study, participants believed they were on a new game show and were paid to give (fake) electric shocks to other participants who were actors

80% of participants delivered a 460 volt shock to an apparently unconscious man and their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram’s participants

Looked at how participants behaved each time a prod was used in Milgram’s study

The first 3 prods only asked for help with the science but the fourth demanded obedience; every time the fourth prod was used, the participant quit

Criticised Milgram’s study because of the deception; she objected because she saw deception as a betrayal of trust that could damage the reputation of psychologists and their research

Conducted a field experiment in NYC where three different confederates dressed in three different outfits (jacket and tie, milkman’s outfit and security guard’s outfit) and asked passersby to perform a task (i.e. picking up litter)

People were twice as likely to obey the ‘security guard’ than the ‘jacket and tie’

Criticised Milgram’s support of a situational explanation of obedience because it offers an excuse for evil behaviour

In his view it is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply following orders and were victims of situational factors beyond their control

When the learner and teacher were in the same room obedience rates dropped from 65% to 40%

When the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto an electroshock plate, obedience rates dropped to 30%

When the experimenter left the room and gave instructions via telephone, obedience rates dropped to 20.5%

When the location was changed to a run-down building rather than a prestigious university, obedience rates fell to 47.5%

When the experimenter was called away and replaced by an ‘ordinary member of the public’, obedience rates dropped to 20%

Showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner. The students blamed the experimenter rather than the participant. The students also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority but also due to expert authority

Described one incident involving a German battalion where men obeyed orders to shoot civilians, despite the fact that they did not have direct orders to do so and were told they could be assigned to another duty if preferred

Replicated Milgram’s procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of the participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale.

Replicated Milgram’s procedure in Germany and found that 85% of the participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale.

The My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US army

Investigated the causes of obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle class, white Americans

Used the F-scale (potential for fascism scale) to measure this

Found that people with authoritarian leanings identified with ‘strong’ people and were generally contemptuous of the weak

They were conscious of their own and others’ status, showing excessive respect and servility to those of higher status

They had a cognitive style where there was no ‘fuzziness’ between categories of people, with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups

There was a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Argued that the F-scale was a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality. Extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have much in common, for example they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority

Proposed the concept of locus of control

Internals believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves whereas externals tend to believe that things happen without their own control (e.g. due to luck)

Found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch-type study. This occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision (so was clearly in no position to judge the length of the lines)

Found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram

This was probably because the participants in Gamson's study were in groups; 29 out of 33 groups (88%) rebelled

Repeated Milgram's baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% of the externals did not continue - internals showed greater resistance to authority

Analysed data from American obedience studies over a 40-year period. The data showed that people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external

Demonstrated minority influence in a study where a group of six people were asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides varying in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green. in each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said that the slides were green on two-thirds of the trials. The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials and 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial

A second group of participants were exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25%. For a third control group there were no confederates and the participants identified the colour wrongly on just 0.25% of the trials

Argued that consistency can be interpreted negatively and members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments

Carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies (to Moscovici’s) and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were the most influential

Gave participants a message that supported a particular viewpoint and measured their support. Participants then heard a minority group agree with the initial view, whilst another group heard this from a majority group. Both groups were then exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again. Found that people were less willing to change their opinion if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group

In a variation of Moscovici's blue-green slides study, participants were allowed to write their answers down. Private agreement with the minority position was greater in these circumstances; it appears that members of the majority were being convinced by the minority argument and changing their views, but were reluctant to admit this publicly

Suggested that obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment

Once a small instruction has been obeyed, it becomes harder to resist a bigger one and people essentially ‘drift’ into a new kind of behaviour