Conformity and Obedience

• What are the three types of conformity?

  Compliance, identification, internalisation
• Types of conformity in order from lowest to highest level:

  Compliance, identification, internalisation
• Two short term types of conformity:

  Compliance, identification
• Long term type of conformity:


  Internalisation
• Public/private belief change in compliance:


  public change, private same
• Public/private belief change in identification:


  public and private change in presence of particular group
• Public/private belief change in internalisation:

  both public and private change regardless of group
• What is normative social influence? And types


  Wanting to be liked by majority group, fear of rejection, loyalty, etc. Factor in compliance, identification
• What is informational social influence? and types


  Want to seem intelligent and correct, believing others know betterFactor in internalisation
• Asch: What type of experiment?


  Lab, artificial environment
• Asch: What sample did Asch use?


  50 male college students (low in pop. validity)
• Asch: What setup did Asch use?

  Line judgement task, one real (naive) participant in a room with 7 to 9 confederates who had agreed answers in advance, real participant deceived (unethical) and seated 2nd from last
• Asch: What method did Asch use?


  Participants completed 18 trials and confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials
• Asch: What was Asch's aim?


  Asch wanted to see if the real participants would conform to majority view even if the answer was clearly incorrect
• Asch: What were the results from his experiment?

  Participants conformed to incorrect answers on 32% of the trials75% of the participants conformed on at least one trial and 25% never conformed Control group w/ no confederates - 1% of participants gave an incorrect answer
• Asch: Why did the participants conform?

  Normative social influence
• Asch: Evaluate the weaknesses

  Low pop validity; no females and ethnocentric as all American Low eco validity; artificial environment and lab Unethical; deceived and unprotected from harm - told part of a vision test, and many were stressed when disagreed with majority
• M&A: What was the aim?

  To replicate Asch's experiment without need for actors
• M&A: What sample did they use?

  104 Japanese participants, no actors, both males and females (high in pop and eco val)
• M&A: What method did they use?


  Lab experiment using MORI technique with the glasses to see different lines - one participant with different comparison line tested in groups of 4 at a time - minority always went 3rd tested in single sex groups
• M&A: What results did they find?

  Differences between male and female conformity rates - female conformed 30% while men conformed 5% Majority answered incorrectly 8% of the time
• M&A: What conclusion did they find?

  Gender and self esteem and cultural links to conformity
• M&A: Evaluate the weaknesses

  Study conducted in Japan, cannot be generalised to other cultures (pop val)Took place in a lab (eco val)Some deception - glasses to 'protect from glare' (unethical)Large % of participants were not naive to social psychology so may have been aware of the experiment Background visual 'noise' was added which may have added to task difficulty and increased conformity
• M&A: Evaluate the strengths

  High control over extraneous variables, more validParticipants knew each other so more accurate to irl peer group conformity (eco val)Higher pop val, mixed gendersMORI technique doesn't need actors, more ethical and efficientNone of the participants were suspicious and took task seriously
• How does conformity change for gender?

  Females more likely than males to conform, women socialized to make harmony within a group whereas men are more likely to be independent
• How does conformity change for self esteem?

  Lower SE more likely to conform, less confidence in own judgements so follow others. Those w high SE may still conform informationally.
• How does conformity change for group size?

  With 3 confederates, 32% of participants conformed on clinical trials - conformity reaches highest level with 3 peopleConformity may decrease if the group gets a lot bigger
• How does conformity change with unanimity? (Asch)


  With an ally, conformity dropped to 5% - less likely to conform with social support
• How does conformity change with task difficulty? (Asch)


  When becomes more difficult, conformity increases (no %) due to informational social influence
• What is an individualistic culture?

  UK/USA, more independent and self sufficient - less conformity
• What is a collectivist culture?


  Asia/Africa , more priority to family and social group - more conformity
• Name the individual factors to conformity:

  Gender, self esteem, culture
• Name the situational factors to conformity:


  Task difficulty, unanimity, group size
• What is obedience?


  A form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure
• Factors affecting obedience:

  perceived legitimate authority, socialisation, authoritarian parenting, autonomous and agentic levels of behaviour, situational factors
• M: What was the aim of Milgram's study?


  If ordinary Americans would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were told to
• M: What sample did Milgram use?


  40 male participants from range of backgrounds, all volunteers
• M: What method did Milgram use?

  - lab experiment- real participant was teacher- confederate was learner w/ predetermined answers- different rooms- teacher administered a shock whenever learner was incorrect- the shocks increased, learner became more dramatic- reached 450 volts- experimenter prompted the teacher to continue
• M: What results did Milgram find?


  all of the participants went to at least 300 volts and 65% continued to 450
• M: Why did 65% follow the orders?


  Those participants had a agentic shift and shifted the responsibility of their actions to the authority figure - 35% who didn't stayed in an autonomous state and remained in control of their own actions