Social influence Conformity, obedience

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Social influenceConformity, obedience
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• A large part of psychology is devoted to the
  study of the various ways that people influence
  each other when they are together.
• It has been established for quite a long time
  that people can have an effect on each other's
  behaviour, just by being there.
• Some people feel that they can truly be
  'themselves' only when they are alone, while
  other people feel happier if they are amongst
  others in a crowd or a group of friends.

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• Triplett (1898) set up one of the first
  experimental studies of social influence.
• He asked children to turn a fishing reel as fast
  as they possibly could, and measured how quickly
  they could do it. Then he arranged things so that
  they would either be doing it alone, or with a
  friend or another child.
• When the children were working in coaction
  (together) he found that they worked very much
  faster even just the presence of another person
  seemed to have a stimulating effect on their
  behaviour.

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• Do we agree with others, even we have a different
  opinion?
• Do we obey commands of others, even if we do not
  strongly agree with them?
• Conformity
• Obedience

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Conformity

• Asch (1951).
• He set up an experiment in which subjects were
  told that they were participating in a perception
  study.
• They were asked to judge the correct length of a
  given line, by identifying which of three sample
  lines was identical to it.
• Asch arranged that the subjects would be tested
  as members of a group, all of whom would report
  their judgments openly.
• Unknown to the subjects, the rest of the group
  consisted of 'stooges (assistants of the
  experimenter), who, from time to time,
  deliberately gave prearranged but obviously wrong
  answers.

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• Subjects clearly found it uncomfortable when they
  were in a position of disagreeing with the
  majority
• Many of them at one time or another during the
  study gave answers which they knew to be wrong,
  but which conformed with the majority judgments.

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• In total, 74 of Asch's subjects conformed at
  least once, and 32 of them conformed all the
  time.
• Asch reported that the anxieties being
  experienced by the subjects as they heard others
  giving the wrong judgments.

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• A more recent study by Perrin and Spencer (1980)
  involved replicating Asch's experiments with a
  new set of subjects.
• They found that, despite the clear existence of
  anxiety by the subjects, subjects did not conform
  as they did in Asch's study.
• Suggestion the Asch effect might be 'a child of
  its time' rather than a general effect.

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• However, Doms and Avermaet (1981) questioned this
  conclusion.
• They argued that a possible reason was because of
  their effort to obtain subjects who had not heard
  of the original Asch experiments.
• In doing so, they had asked students from
  disciplines such as engineering, chemistry, and
  medicine to take part in the studies. Students
  from scientific disciplines were likely to
  emphasise the need for correct judgements of
  measurements.
• Even though they disliked going against the
  majority, they would feel obliged to do so,
  because they would see accuracy as being
  important.

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Reasons for conformity

• An effort to avoid a conflict.
• Subjects believed that a group harmony is more
  important than the correct answer.
• Subjects had feel anxiety during incorrect
  answers.

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Asch (1951)
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Asch (1951)
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Types of conformity

• Kelman (1958) identified three main forms of
  conformity
• (1) Compliance - going along with the majority,
  however we do not change our opinions.
• (2) Identification a change of opinions and
  behaviors, identification with an another person.
  
• (3) Internalization we agree that opinions of
  majority are better than our one.

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(1) Compliance

• This form of conformity which is the most
  superficial,
• Going along with the majority in order to avoid
  rejection,
• or to gain rewards such as social acceptance or
  approva1.
• The distinguishing feature of compliance,, is
  that the conforming behaviour will only last as
  long as the situation does.
• Once the inf1uencing 'agents' are no longer
  present, the individual will stop conforming.

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(2) Identification

• The individual conforms at particular times and
  in particular ways because these are part of a
  general overall series of relationships which he
  or she is trying to maintain.
• In this type of conformity, the particular
  behavior is not an important thing in itself but
  only as it forms part of a whole system of
  behavior which establishes or maintains some kind
  of relationship.

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• Example
• A shop assistant who wishes to establish a
  positive working relationship with a supervisor
  will tend to conform to the behavior expected of
  a 'good' assistant - being pleasant with
  customers, accurate and fast when serving, polite
  and attentive to other employees, and so on.
• Although the individual will actually be likely
  to believe in each of these acts of conformity as
  a 'right way to behave, none of the individual
  acts will matter much on their own. They all
  arise from the person's identifying with the role
  of the assistant, and conforming to that.

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(3) Internalization

• This form is concerned with an individual's own
  personal value system, their way of understanding
  the world and morality in both small and large
  matters.
• Someone may accept another person's inf1uence,
  and conform to their demands or expectations
  because they fully agree with the principles
  involved.

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Milgrams study

• Milgram
• Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of
  obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social
  Psychology,52, 500-510.
• Experiment influence of pain on learning

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• A subject was informed that he/she takes part in
  an experiment. The goal of a study is help people
  to improve their memory (altruistic goal).
• Teacher was asked to read a couple of words to
  a student and than to test his memory. The
  teacher said the first word from a pair, the
  student was required to say the second word from
  the pair.. Incorrect answers were punished with
  an electrical shock.

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• Teacher controlled a shock generator with 30
  switches in units of 15 volts. The switches were
  labeled with increasing voltage designations,
  from 15 to 450 volts.
• The switches also had descriptive labels. For
  example, slight shock (15-60 V), very strong
  shock (195-240 V), dangersevere shock
  (375-420 V). The 435 to 450 V range very simply
  labeled XXX.
• Teacher had to punish the first recall error
  with a mild 15-volt shock and then increase the
  shock by 15 volts for each succeeding error.

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• Thestudent was middle-aged, mild-mannered, and
  likable man, He was escorted to a nearby room
  where he was strapped to a chair and hooked up to
  an electrode that transmits the electric shock.
• The student, a bit worriedly, mentions that he
  has a slight heart condition. But the
  experimenter assures him that although the
  shocks may be painful, they cause no permanent
  tissue damage.

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Milgrams study
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Milgrams study
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• The subjects were aware that they were
  administering extremely high levels of shock, and
  that these could prove fatal.
• They could hear the 'stooge' subject, who they
  had seen strapped into a chair, giving
  increasingly loud cries of pain at first and then
  becoming silent as if he had passed out or died.
• They were extremely disturbed by what they were
  being asked to do, and frequently argued with the
  experimenter.
• But, nonetheless, 65 of them gave electric
  shocks up to the maximum possible level. All of
  Milgram's subjects found it very difficult to
  disobey the experimenter by refusing to
  participate any further.

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Explanation

• Milgram attributed his findings directly to the
  power of social roles.
• By entering into the experiment and adopting the
  role of participant, the subjects felt that they
  had entered into a social contract which involved
  their behaving obediently.
• Their view of the contract was also that it
  involved the experimenter behaving responsibly,
  and many afterwards stated that they had gone
  along with it because it took place at a
  high-status university, Yale, where they assumed
  the experimenter would be a responsible
  scientist.

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• The original studies were conducted at Yale
  University
• When they were repeated in downtown building
  indicated as Research Associates of Bridgeport
  the full obedience rate dropped from 63 to
  48.
• When an ordinary man gave the orders, obedience
  fell to about 20 .
• But when the research was conducted at Princeton
  University, obedience increased to 80.
• Obedience decreased with the decrease of the
  authority of the experimenter or an institution.

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Milgrams study
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Milgrams study

• The study was replicated in other countries.
• Shanab and Kahya (1977) in Jordan. The level of
  obedience 80
• Kilham and Mann (1974) in Australia. The level of
  obedience only 50.

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Milgrams theory of obedience

• Milgrams theory of obedience (1973)
• Two modes of social consciousness
• Autonomous state individuals behave on the
  basic of their own conscience, attitudes, norms.
  The majority of people is fair, gentle, and in
  aggressive.
• Substitute state individuals think and act as
  substitutes of an other person.

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Obedience in a work

• Another study which shows the power of social
  roles and expected behaviour in a more real-life
  setting was performed by Hofling (1966) in a
  hospital.
• The aim of the study was to see if nurses would
  comply with a doctor's instructions (which, of
  course, is a strong part of their expected role
  behaviour) even if it went against the hospital
  regulations.
• While on duty, a nurse would receive a phone call
  from a doctor who claimed to be Dr. Smith from
  psychiatry, about a particular patient. The nurse
  would be asked to give the patient a particular
  drug called Astroten.

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• At first, they would be asked to go to the drug
  cabinet, check that the drug was there and to
  report back.
• This gave the nurse a chance to see the bottle,
  which was clearly labelled 'maximum doseage 10
  mg'. Dr. Smith would then ask the nurse to
  administer 20 mg to the patient.
• This request required the nurse concerned to
  contravene hospital regulations in two ways,
  firstly by administering a dose which was above
  the maximum considered safe, and secondly, by
  taking instructions from an unknown person, which
  was also forbidden.
• Despite this, 21 out of 22 nurses involved in the
  study poured out the medication, and were
  prepared to administer it to the patient.

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• Social pressure elicited by inequality causes
  that a nurse prefers to endanger a patient than
  do not respect the order of a physician.

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• Milgram (1963) - experiments in the New York
  subway system.
• He found that 50 of the people asked to give up
  their seat to another person with no explanation
  would comply.
• It seems that for many people, refusing a direct
  request from someone is very difficult.

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Bystander intervention

• Some kind of situation arises in which we feel
  that we ought to help out a total stranger,
  either because they have had an accident or
  because they are being attacked. Although most
  people know what they ought o do in such
  situations, there have been several cases in
  which crimes or even murders have been committed
  in full view of the public, but no-one
  intervened.

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• The bystander apathy has been studied by many
  psychologists, in an attempt to identity the
  factors which bring about people's reluctance to
  intervene.
• There would appear to be three main factors
• the influence of other people's presence
• the way that people comprehend what is going on
• the effects of other people's example.

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The presence of other people

• The presence of other people is thought to have
  an effect because each person expects the next
  one to act or, in some cases, assumes that they
  already have.
• In the case of a murder reported by Rosenthal
  (1964), of the 40 or so witnesses to the murder
  (it took place in front of a block of flats and
  went on for a considerable time) each assumed
  that someone else had called the police, which
  meant that in the end no body did.

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• Latane and Rodin (1969)
• Subjects were seated in a room, with only a
  curtain separating them from another room in
  which a 'secretary' was working. They heard her
  climb on a chair to reach the bookcase shelf,
  fall, and cry for help, saying that her foot was
  trapped and that she was in pain.
• 70 of the subjects who were waiting alone came
  to her rescue,
• whereas only 40 of the subjects who were waiting
  in pairs came to help.
• When they were waiting with other people, it
  seemed, the subjects considered the other person
  equally responsible for helping, and if the other
  person didn't help then they didn't either.

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Diffusion of responsibility

• This factor is usually called diffusion of
  responsibility, whereby the more people who are
  considered able to help, the less any particular
  individual feels responsible.

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• The way that people understand the situation
  seems to result also in different kinds of
  behaviur.
• People tend to define situations for themselves
  and if a situation is defined as an emergency,
  they will be far more ready to help than if they
  have defined the situation to themselves as a
  non-emergency.
• This factor also tends to work in terms of other
  people's responses. If someone appears to be very
  calm in a particular situation, we may assume
  that they have defined the situation as a non
  emergency.

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• Latane and Darley (1968) asked experimental
  subjects to sit in a waiting room, waiting for an
  interview.
• As they sat there, a wall vent began to pour
  smoke into the room.
• Subjects were observed through a one-way mirror
  to see how long it would be before they reported
  the smoke to someone else outside the room.
• The subjects were tested either singly or in
  groups.

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• 75 of the single ones reported the smoke within
  two minutes of it starting.
• When the subjects were in groups, less than 13
  of them reported the smoke at all, despite the
  fact that the little room filled up with it over
  a six minute period!
• Those subjects said afterwards that they had not
  really thought of the smoke as indicating a fire
  but as some other harmless phenomenon, such as
  steam or smog.
• It seems that the presence of other people, and
  their unwillingness to act, had meant that they
  all defined the situation as a non-emergency, and
  so acted accordingly.

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How other people's examples may infIuence our
behaviour

• Bryan and Test 1967.
• They set up a motorway study, in which a 'model'
  scenario was acted out by the side of a motorway,
  and a bit further on drivers had the chance to
  imitate the 'model'.
• Drivers passed a broken-down car, with a man
  repairing it by the roadside, and a woman
  standing watching.
• A bit further on down the road, they came to the
  'test' car, which had a flat tyre, and a woman
  apparently unable to change it.

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• A control group of drivers saw the 'test'
  situation, but not the 'model' beforehand.
• Out of 4,000 passing cars, 93 drivers who had
  seen the 'model' stopped to help, but only 58 of
  the 'control' group stopped.
• Although this might not seem like much of a
  difference, it was one which was very unlikely to
  have happened by chance alone, and implies that
  seeing another person helping does affect how
  likely we are to help other people ourselves.