1Change in behavior / belief due to real or imagined social pressure
Conformity
2public conformity, private disagreement
Compliance
3acting & believing in accord with social pressure
Acceptance
4acting in accordance with a direct order / command
Obedience
5Participants in a dark room viewing point of light 15 ft away; Ps guessed how much light had moved; light never moved; next 2 confederates’ guesses differed from Ps; most Ps conformed to confederates’ guesses
Muzafer Sherif’s Studies of Norm Foundation & Suggestibility
6Perceptual judgment experiment; line estimation studies; P is 1 of 7, w/ 8 confederates; confederates all give same incorrect answer; 75% of Ps conformed @ least once; w/ no confederate influence, Ps give correct answer 99% of time
Solomon Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure
7Tested demands of authority vs. demands of conscience; word recall task w/ electrical shock for recall errors; teacher “shocks” learner @ the insistence of experimenter; teacher is true P, learner is confederate; 65% of Ps gave max shock level (450 volts) even when confeds pleaded with them to stop
Stanley Milgram’s Studies of Obedience
86 factors that affect obedience
Distance of the victim
Distance of authority figure
Legitimacy of authority figure
Institutional authority v. non
Effects of group influence (if others present refused to obey)
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
97 factors that influence conformity
Feelings of incompetence
Group size (as group size increases, conformity increases [with up to 5 people])
Unanimity (if broken, conformity decreases)
Cohesion (the more cohesion in group, the more conformity)
Status (higher status people have more influence on conformity)
Public vs private responses (more conformity with public responses)
Prior commitment (once made, it resists change)
10Based on desire to fulfill others’ expectations; often to gain rewards or avoid punishment; comes from our desire to be liked
Normative influence
11Accept evidence about reality provided by others; more likely to → acceptance than [OTHER] influence; comes from our desire to be right
Informational influence