Conformity and Obedience Flashcards
Study!! (23 cards)
Describe the term group norm.
The rules of the
game. Tells group members how to behave
Give a definition of
Conformity
A change in behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure
Describe the procedure of Asch’s Conformity
Experiment
Involved judging a set of three lines where one line was the same as the
stimulus line. Ps were tested in groups. Confederates gave the wrong answer.
Describe the
term compliance?
People yield to
social pressure in their public behaviour even though their private beliefs
have not changed.
Describe the term Normative Social Influence
The influence others/norms
which causes pressure to conform
Describe the results of Mori and Arai’s 2010 experiment.
Females conformed more than men and to the same extent as the males in Asch’s experiment
Describe the method of Milgram’s experiment
Learner and Teacher. Teachers gave rising level of volts when questions wrong to point of being lethal. Pressured to continue by the man in the white coat
Identify 3 situational factors that can affect conformity as found in the variations of Asch’s experiment.
Difficulty of task.
Size of the group
Answering in private.
Status of the majority
In what ways did Mori and Arai’s experiment differ from Asch’s experiment.
Women took part.
All participants were naïve to the purpose of the experiment.
Participants knew each other
Describe authoritarian parenting.
Parents have strict rules and expectations. They are very demanding and not responsive.
Describe Democratic parenting.
Parents are more relaxed and negotiate rules and expectations
They are very nurturing.
Describe Milgram’s Agency Theory
People move from an autonomous state to an agentic state via the agentic shift which absolves them of responsibility.
What did Bickman (1974) conclude from his experiment?
People are more likely to obey someone in uniform.
Describe informational social influence.
Refers to the influence to change which comes from others who are seen as being reliable.
Name the 3 levels of conformity.
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
Name 2 individual factors which affect conformity
Gender
Self-Esteem
Who was the perceived legitimate authority figure in Milgram’s experiment?
The Experimenter in the white lab coat
In what ways did Mori & Arai’s experiment differ from Asch?
With no confederates but with participants who knew each other. Females were included.
Give 2 evaluation points for Milgram’s Obedience Experiment
- Milgram’s research was unethical (1), as participants thought they were taking part in a study about memory not obedience (1)
- The study lacked ecological validity (1) as it was conducted in a laboratory (1)
- Milgram’s sample consisted of males only (1) which means we are unable to generalise the results to females (1)
- As the experiment was highly controlled (1), the results are reliable. (1)
What conclusions can be reached from Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience?
- when given orders by a figure of authority, we are likely to obey (1)
- the ‘I was just obeying orders’ reason given by those who obey orders to harm others is explained by the results of the study (1)
- it can be concluded that people are in an agentic state when they follow orders given by an authority figure (1)
- it can be concluded that the features of a situation can influence most people to obey. (1)
Analyse Mori & Arai’s (2010) study into conformity.
Unanimity was not as important a factor in Mori & Arai’s experiment as it was in Asch’s - men were not swayed by the majority view.
Females in Japan are more likely to conform than males, which the researchers explained as being because of the different expectations and social roles of males and females
Mori & Arai concluded that the reduced conformity in males compared to the Asch study may
reflect generational changes since the 1950s (1).
