Chapter 6 Flashcards
Conformity
Change in behavior or belief to accord with others (must be due to others’ influence.)
Acceptance
Conformity that involves both acting and believing. You actually were persuaded.
Compliance
Conforming without believing. You don’t want to do it but social pressures.
Obedience
Compliance in response to a command. Don’t want to do, social pressures, and they tell you to.
Which of the 4, conformity, acceptance, compliance, or obedience, has most cognitive arousal?
Obedience (a nonvoluntary nature)
Muzafer Sherif studies on Norm Formation
Changed answers when others had very different answers (how far light move in dark room)
People’s answers converge over repeated trials.
Autokinetic phenomenon
Apparent movement of a stationary point of light.
Mood linkage
Being around happy people can make us feel happier
Chameleon effect
Mimicking someone else’s behavior (eg. seeing happy face –> happy face yourself)
Mass hysteria
Mimicry on a large scale throughout a large group of people (eg. Lexus cars false malfunction example)
How does suicide and gun violence relate to mass hysteria?
These things could be socially contagious
Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure
3 lines and 1 is right. Social conformity.
From Asch’s studies, is it true that more people tell the truth even when others don’t?
Yes. 63% overall didn’t conform.
Soccer referee decisions and conformity
2.35 average (away team) vs. 1.89 average (home team) cards. Difference also larger in louder stadiums
How did self-estimates differ from the participants for Milgram’s study?
Not over 135 volts vs. 300+ volts
How have things changed about obedience conformity? Milgram replication
More people willing to disobey. Individualism shift maybe.
Why might Milgram’s findings not be as surprising as they seem?
4 phenomenon that support. 1) slippery slope (small –> large requests) 2) shock-giving as social norm 3) deny responsibility 4) limited time
Why Milgram might be considered unethical?
Agony from thinking about what they did to the ‘victims’ (trembled, stuttered, bit lips, groaned, etc.)
No true informed consent
Altered self-concepts
4 factors that bred obedience (Milgram)
1) victim’s emotional distance (greatest obedience when victim not seen)
2) authority’s closeness and legitimacy (presence of experimenter = more obedience)
3) Institutional authority (prestige university = more obedience)
4) liberating effects of group influence(when accomplices help out)
What happened when assistant took over study instead?
The participants disobeyed more. Even protested and unplugged
What do researchers argue the Nazi soldiers and other horrific obedience instances extended to?
Acceptance. They believed in the cause.
Compliance may breed _______
Acceptance.
“I think we need more women on the island to keep the men satisfied.”
How many thought they’d ignore, and how many actually ignored?
What’s the lesson?
5%, 55% actually did
social norms (kindness) are powerful.
Does situation of harm-doing exonerate harm-doers?
No. To explain is not to excuse.
