1 Conformity & Obedience Eunice Mun – Suzie Park – Sooji Seo 2015.4.6 “It’s easy to stand with the crowd. It takes courage to stand alone.”
Dec 24, 2015
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Conform-ity & ObedienceEunice Mun – Suzie Park – Sooji Seo 2015.4.6
“It’s easy to stand with the crowd. It takes courage to stand
alone.”
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Table of Contents
02 Obedience 2-1 Milgram experiment
2-2 Factors that influence obedience
01 Conformity 1-1 Automatic mimicry
1-2 Normative social influence
1-3 Informational social influence
1-4 Difference btw. Normative and Informa-
tional
03 Test your knowledge
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Conformity01
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Conformity, what is it?
1) Done studies by Solomon Asch
• Which of the 3 comparison lines is equal to the standard line?
• Answering questions alone, errors less than 1% but answering with
others (confederates who purposely answered incorrectly), more than
1/3 of the time, the students went along with the group
• Approximately 70 % of participants gave at least one incorrect
answer
Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group
standard
01
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Still confused on Asch Experiment? This video will clear things up
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Automatic Mimicry
1) Chameleon effect by Tanya Chartrang and John Bargh
• Students were to work together in a room alongside other peo-
ple who were actually confederates. The confederates rubbed
their face and the students tended to rub their face along with
them. Same with foot=shaking
• Creates empathy-feel what others are feeling
• Mimicking the way an another talks or their gestures
Humans are natural imitators, copying other people’s expressions, postures, voice tones, and
moods
1-1
Real life example:
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Normative social influence
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or to avoid
disapproval
(matching the rules of behavior)
• Ex) everyone starts standing up and clapping at a concert-> you feel
you need to stand while clapping as well.
• We are sensitive to social norms because the price we pay for be-
ing different can be severe
1-2
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Informational social influence
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions
about reality
1-3
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Normative social influence
More of your behavior• Candid camera (not facing the
door in the elevator …feel the urge to do the same)
More of your thoughts and way of thinking• Asch Conformity (others are
thinking differently than you so you want to follow their way of thinking)
Don’t be confused!Normative social influence vs. Informational so-cial influence
1-4
Informational social influ-ence
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Obedience02
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Obedience, what is it?
1) Done studies by Stanley Milgram
• People often give into social pressures
• Done the most controversial and influential experiment
• 40 male volunteers were notified that he was studying the ef-
fects of punishment on learning
• He assigned them to the role of a teacher
• Each subject told to help another subject to learn a list of word
pairs. Each mistake=electric shock to the learner. (Increased
every time the learner made a mistake)
• *They actually did not receive the shock, but pretended to.
• Result: 2/3 of the teachers did administer highest level of shock
despite believing that the learner was suffering great pain and
distress
• Thought it was because they were pressured to do so by
an authority figure
Compliance with commands given by an authority figure
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Obedience=one of many
factors that caused people
to follow orders during the
Holocaust
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Simple outlook on the Milgram Experiment
2-1
Became the ‘teacher’
40 males (20-50 yrs) volunteered
‘teacher’ tests the ‘learner’ (who is
actually a confederate acting)
Told to administer an electric shock per
mistake, but increasing the level of
shock each time
Result: 2/3 of the participants (‘teachers’)
continued to the highest level of 450
volts. All participants continued to
300 volts.
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Obedience to Authority
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Factors that Increase Obedi-ence
1. Commands were given by an authority figure rather than another volunteer
2. Experiments were done at the prestigious institution
3. Authority figure was present in the room with the subject
4. Learner was in another room
5. Subject did not see other subject disobeying commands
6. People obey to get rewards and avoid negative consequences from disobeying
7. In more extreme situation, people obey when they are required to violate their
values and morals. Why?
• People justify their behavior by assigning responsibility to the authority
rather than themselves
• People define the behavior that’s expected of them as routine
• People don’t want to be rude or offend the authority
• People obey easy commands first and then feel compelled to obey more and
more difficult commands. This is called entrapment and it illustrates the
foot-in-door phenomenon.
2-2
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Test your knowledge
1. In the Milgram studies, the dependent mea-
sure was the
a) Highest level of shock supposedly admin-
istered
b) Location of the learner
c) Length of the line
d) Number of people in the group
e) Instructions given by the experimenter
2. In Asch’s conformity study, approximately
what percentage of participants gave at least
one incorrect response?
a) 30
b) 40
c) 50
d) 60
e) 70
3. A change in behavior or belief as a result of
real or imagined group pressure is
a) Compliance
b) Conformity
c) Acceptance
d) Reactance
4. According to the text, the most famous and
controversial experiments of social psychology
are
a) Asch’s conformity experiments
b) Milgram’s obedience experiments
c) Smith and Dunn’s reactance experiments
d) Berg’s compliance experiments
5. Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill
other’s expectations is
a) Nominal influence
b) Informational influence
c) Normative influence
d) Indirect influence
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Thank you for listening.