social influence: obedience + conformity

• • To discuss classic studies on conformity which demonstrate how and why individuals are influenced by others: Sherif's autokinetic + Asch's conformity
  • To discuss whether and how minority can influence majority.
  • To discuss Milgram’s studies of obedience and factors influencing obedience.
• Social influence


  process whereby attitudes + behaviour influenced by presence (including implied) of others
• social norms

  • understood by members of a group
  • came from interacting with others
  • sanctions from social networks rather than legal system
• how does Sherif (1936) study show that social norms develop to guide behaviour in uncertainty?

  • Autokinetic effect
  • point of light appears to move in a dark room (light actually does not move)
  • Judgements alone or in groups of 2/3 (participated in both)
  • Use judgments of others as frame of reference
  • Converge away from individual to common standard: group norm
  • As quite ambiguous
• Conformity Asch (1951)

  • rational process
  • people construct norm from behaviour observed in others to determine appropriate behaviour in a given social context
• Asch (1951) process of conformity

  Object of judgment

  • unambiguous
  • independent of group influence?
  • ambiguous: uncertainty
  • frame of reference: group
  • convergence on group norm
• Asch (1951) social influence on conformity: conformity is less when judgements are anonymous

  • mostly confederates, asked to see which lives are the same length
  • control condition - individual judgement, unambiguous
  • average conformity 33% (of the time, true participant went along with incorrect majority TEXTBOOK) because self-doubt, self-conscious, fear of social disapproval (they knew the answer is wrong but went along with it)
  • judgments anonymous = 12.5% conformity (reason of social disapproval makes sense)
• the role of informational and normative influence on conformity: Deutsch & Gerard (1955)

  • Sherif’s study: Informational influence
  • Ambiguous -> subjective uncertainty -> resolves this through others’ estimates as information
  • Asch’s study: Normative influence
  • Unambiguous: go along with group; especially when under surveillance
• how does informational influence lead to conformity?

  • Ambiguous / uncertain situations.
  • Need to feel confident our perceptions correct/appropriate
  • Influence to accept info from another person as evidence about reality
  • True cognitive change (conversion, change in not only public but also private attitudes!)
• how does normative influence lead to conformity? (Asch)

  • Need for social approval & acceptance
  • Avoid social disapproval
  • Surface compliance (public attitude changes but private attitude do not change)
• Minority Influence (Moscovici)

  • attitudes of the majority are altered in response to external pressure of the minority
  • effective if consistent, not rigid, committed
• Minority vs majority influence (Moscovici)

  • Majority influence produces public compliance via social comparison (compare responses to others) (little private attitude change)
  • Minority influence
  • indirect, private change
  • conversion a consequence of active consideration of minority pov, active + careful change
• Obedience to Authority Milgram (1963)

  • decide how much electric shocks to confederate (intentionally placed participants) in the context effect of punishment on memory (mock learning study)
  • participants socialised to respect authority of the state (acted as teacher to teach to learner, confederate)
  • agentic state
  • incorrect answer = shock; ordered participant to increase by 15 volts everytime
  • although no actual shock actually administered but the teacher did not know
  • authority = higher hierachy
• Agentic state = mentally absolve of own responsibility and transfer responsibility to person giving order.
• Obedience to Authority Milgram (1963)

  if participant was hesitating, experimenter told participant to go on:

  • ‘Please continue’
  • It is absolutely essential that you continue’ etc.
  • obedience to authority was much higher than predicted
• Factors influencing obedience

  • Gradual change and commitment to course of action.
  • Immediacy of victim: as immediacy (proximity vs unheard) increased, obedience decreased, increases humanisation
  • Immediacy of authority figure: obedience decreased when directions by experimenter given by telephone.
  • Legitimacy of authority figure:
  • Lab coated experimenter (good cause, advancing humanity); Yale University
  • Reduction in industrial setting (to remove prestige of Yale, obedience dropped)
• Milgram’s experiments - ethical issues:

  • Is research important? (objectivity?)
  • Is the participant free to terminate experiment? (but purpose of study was to persuade to carry on!)
  • Does the participant freely consent to take part?
  • fully informed consent vs deception