 Social Influence Conformity

 Social Influence Obedience

Psychological Social Influence Notes

CONFORMITY

Conformity: a change in behavior or belief as a result of real or “imagined” group

pressure.

- Conformity is a form of social influence

- When you conform, you consciously act differently from the way you would act alone.

Aim: To investigate reactions to group pressure (i.e. conformity). This was tested
using unambiguous stimuli.

Method: 123 male students from the US. These were the ‘naïve’ participants. A
true P was seated in a row among confederates. The P was seated 6th in a row of 7
people.

Participants were instructed to pick which of 3 lines “matched” a standard line. The
true P could see that one of the lines was obviously a match, the others obviously
wrong.

18 ‘trials’. On the early trials, the confederates gave the correct answer. On the 12
‘critical’ trails, they selected the wrong answer.

x = standard line

Results: 36.8% of the time, participants gave the wrong answer (conformed)

25% of participants never gave a wrong answer. 75% conformed at least once. A
few conformed most of the time – individual differences.

Conclusion: People conform to group pressure even when there is an obvious

correct answer.

However, a high percentage of the time, people can resist the pressure to conform.

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P – The task and situation are
artificial.

E – Judging line lengths in a room

full of strangers is not a usual task.
The consequences of an error in this
 Social Influence Conformity
 Social Influence Obedience

task are not important. It is easy to

see how people might react
differently if their answers had a
serious impact.

This task also does not inform us

how people might react in a group
of friends or family.

C – The findings in this study will

therefore not be generalizable to
everyday situations.
P- The findings may lack temporal
validity.

E -They may not apply now as Asch’s

experiment was carried out in the
age of McCarthyism (1950s).

Perrin & Spencer – Replicated the

study in the UK in the 1980s. Found
that only one person conformed on
396 trials. (Special group)

C – This suggests Asch’s finding may

not be consistent over time and so
only found under certain conditions.
P- Asch’s study may only be
applicable to individualistic cultures
(e.g. US/UK)

E- Individualistic cultures put more

emphasis on the individual.
Collectivist cultures put more
emphasis on the group and cohesion
– this should mean conformity levels
would be different in these cultures.

Smith & Bond found that of a review

of 31 Asch type studies conformity
was higher in societies where
community is emphasised and
encouraged (e.g China).

C – This means the results of Asch’s

study may not be reflective of
conformity across cultures.

We can explain conformity by referring to:

- Dispositional Factors – something about you as a person e.g. personality. =

 Social Influence Conformity
 Social Influence Obedience

- Social Factors – something about the environment or other people.

Social Factors
Group size– There is greater pressure to conform the more participants in the majority.
‘Three’s the magic number’. Any more may suggest collusion.

Evaluation – The impact of group size will vary depending on what the task is e.g. music
preference.

Anonymity – conformity relies on group pressure. If people can be anonymous,

this pressure is reduced. When Ps were able to write their answers down, there were
fewer incorrect answers = less conformity
Evaluation – If people are giving opinions with a group of friends, anonymity tends
to increase conformity rather than decrease it.

Task Difficulty -
Dispositional Factors
Personality – Locus of control (LOC)

Internal – you feel responsible for your outcomes

External – you feel you do not influence things which happen to you

Burger & Cooper (1979) found Ps with an external LOC were more likely to be influenced
by a confederate’s rating of a cartoon than those with internal LOC

Evaluation – Rotter (1966) found that if you are in a familiar situation, your LOC does not
change your behaviour. How you performed previously is more important. Shows
personality interacts with other factors.

Expertise – If you are an expert in an area, you are less likely to conform.

Those who rate themselves as skilful at Maths are less likely to conform to answers
to Maths questions (Lucas et al. 2006)
Evaluation – No one single factor can explain conformity. Expertise alone is too
simple an explanation. Being an expert may still lead to conformity.

OBIDIENCE

Obedience – is the performance of an action in response to a direct order.

Milgram Shock Experiment 1963

- 2 people showed up to psychology lab. One was true P & the other a confederate.
- A stern experimenter in a lab coat, explained that study was interested in the effect of
punishment on learning.
 Social Influence Conformity
 Social Influence Obedience
- The P was to play the role of “teacher,” the confederate, the role of “learner.”
- “Teacher” was to read word pairs to the “learner” who was in another room hooked up to
shock leads.
- With each missed word, the P was to shock the “learner.”

- The shock panel had switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts in 15-volt increments.
- Switches were labeled: “slight shock,” “very strong shock,” “danger: severe shock,” etc

Conclusions.

- Ordinary people are astonishingly obedient to authority when asked to behave in an

inhumane way
- It is not necessarily evil people who commit evil crimes but ordinary people who are just
obeying orders.
- Crimes against humanity may be the outcome of situational rather than dispositional factors
- An individuals capacity for making independent decisions is suspended under certain
situational constraints – namely, being given an order by an authority figure
Results

- 65-66% of Ss continued shocking “learner” to full capacity.

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