Social

• Asch baseline 1951


  50 American men, confederate consistently said the wrong answer when asked to name the line which was the same length as an example. Participants conformed 36.8%. However, 25% of participants never conformed.
• Variables investigated by Asch 1955 (123 american men)

  • Group size. Varied number of confederates from 1 to 15. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to 3 confederates. Conformity to the wrong answer was 31.8% until it levelled off.
  • Unamitiy. Presence of a non-conforming confederate, conformity decreased to less than a quarter of what the % was when all confederates were unanimous.
  • Task difficulty. Making the task harder increased conformity due to the increase in ambiguity (evidence for ISI)
• Kelman

  Internalisation, identification, compliance
• Deutsch and Gerald


  Two process theory (NSI and ISI)
• Zimbardo stanford prison experiment

  24 men (student volunteers) were tested as ‘emotionally stable’, randomly assigned to their prisoner or officer. De-individuation through uniforms, prisoners had numbers for names, guards had sunglasses and uniform. Prisoners encouraged to act the part by telling them they could ‘apply for parole’. Guards were told they had complete power over the prisoners. FINDINGS - Guards became brutal, prisoners rebelled but were met with abuse and fire extinguisher. Prisoners became anxious and depressed. Guards identified more with their role. Social roles = strong
• Milgrim 1963 Baseline

  40 American men volunteered, ‘random’ draw to be teacher or learner, but it was fixed so participant was always be the teacher. The experimenter (confederate) encouraged the participant to deliver increasingly higher shocks, measuring obedience to the authority figure. 12.5% P’s stopped at 300 volts, 65% gave the maximum shocks.
• Milgrim questionnaire data


  Asked 14 psychology uni students to estimate the baselines findings. The students said that no more that 3% of p’s would continue to 450 volts (the max)
• Milgram situational variables

  Proximity - dropped from 65% to 40% when the leaner (confederate getting the shocks) was in the same room as particpant. When the experimenter was in a different room, obedience reduced to 20.5%

  Location - obedience reduced to 47.5% as the location becomes less credible and prestigious. (Yale university vs a run-down office block)

  Uniform - when experimenter was in casual clothing (not a white lab coat), obedience rates dropped to 20%, the lowest variation.
• Adorno’s research (F-SCALE)

  studied more than 2000 middle class, white American families and their unconscious attitudes towards ethnic groups with the f-scale. E.g ‘Obedience and respect for authority are the two most important virtues for children to learn’. People who scored highly on the f-scale identified with ‘strong’ people and were contemptuous of the ‘weak’. They respected status and were obedient to authority. Found a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
• Rotter

  Locus of control. High internal -> less likely to conform as they take responsibility for their behaviour and consequences. High external -> more likely to conform due to depending more on other people’s opinions.
• Another Milgram variation


  obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by a disobedient confederate (social support)