Social Psychology Final Term PDF

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY WHAT ARE THE CLASSIC CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE STUDIES? WHAT IS CONFORMITY? 1.​ Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation Conformity...

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY WHAT ARE THE CLASSIC CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE STUDIES? WHAT IS CONFORMITY? 1.​ Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation Conformity Muzafer Sherif -​ A change in behavior or belief as the result -​ Wondered whether it was possible to of real or imagined group pressure. observe the emergence of social norms in -​ WESTERN INDIVIDUALIST: negative the laboratory. connotation -​ Conformity is the overall term for acting EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE: differently due to the influence of others. -​ A participant is seated in a dark room. A -​ Is a change in behavior or belief to light 15 ft in front of you appears. accord with others. -​ After a few seconds, it moves erratically and finally disappears. 2 VARIETIES OF CONFORMITY -​ The experimenter asks you to guess how far it moved. ​ Acceptance -​ The dark room gives you no way to judge ○​ Conformity that involves both distance, so you offer an uncertain “six acting and believing in accord with inches.” The experimenter repeats the social pressure. procedure. This time you say, “Ten ○​ NANINIWALA KA AT inches.” With further repetitions, your NAKIKISUNOD KA. estimates continue to average about eight ​ Compliance inches. ○​ Conformity that involves publicly -​ You return to the room with two other acting in accord with an implied or participants. They had the same experience explicit request while privately yesterday but gave much smaller estimates: disagreeing. ​ One person says, “One inch.” ○​ NAKIKISUNOD KA PERO ​ The other says, “Two inches.” HINDI MO NAMAN GUSTO -​ Feeling unsure, you adjust your response ANG GINAGAWA MO. and say, “Six inches. ○​ Ex: You say you like your friends’ -​ As the experiment continues over multiple favorite band even though you days, your estimates start to match the don’t. group’s. ○​ Obedience - variation of compliance. W/ direct command. CONCLUSION: Over time, a group norm forms, where everyone’s estimates become similar. BUT…The norm is false—the light never actually moved! The movement was an optical illusion called: AUTOKINETIC PHENOMENON, apparent movement of light in the dark -​ Self (auto) motion (kinetic). The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark. SOCIAL CONTAGION In Asch’s experiment: Examples: ​ Alone: Participants were correct 99% of the 1.​ Comedy show time. 2.​ Being around with happy people can help us ​ With group pressure: 75% conformed at feel happier. least once. 3.​ Chameleon effect - mimicking someone’s ​ Overall, 37% of responses were behavior conforming. a.​ Our natural mimicry inclines us to feel what others feel. It also makes Shows social pressure can override individual us look more helpful and likeable judgment. b.​ BUT…Mimicking another’s anger fosters disliking. Exception to the OTHER EXPERIMENTS: imitation-fosters-fondness 4.​ Mass hysteria - Suggestibility to problems 1.​ Dental flossing - Those given the inflated that spreads throughout a large group of estimate not only expressed increased intent people. to floss, but also flossed more over the 5.​ Conversion disorder – form of mass ensuing three months hysteria, caused when psychological stress is 2.​ Cancer screening - But 39 percent signed up unconsciously expressed in physical after being told that most other men symptoms. As a result, it spreads as social (“indeed 65 percent!”) had been screened. contagion 3.​ Soccer referee decisions - professional referees who judged filmed foul scenes ASCH'S STUDIES OF GROUP PRESSURE awarded more yellow cards when a scene was accompanied by high-volume noise. Solomon Asch MILGRAM’S OBEDIENCE STUDIES EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE: -​ It asks participants to compare a line to Milgram experiments comparison lines. There are accomplices -​ “the most famous, or infamous, stud[ies] in that tell inaccurate observations to see if the the annals of scientific psychology” participant will conform or not. -​ —tested what happens when the demands -​ The experimenter explains that you will be of authority clash with the demands of in a study of perceptual judgments, and then conscience. asks you to say which of the three lines in Figure 4 matches the standard line. AUTHORITY VS CONSCIENCE -​ You can easily see that it’s line 2. -​ You start a simple visual test, easily -​ A teacher instructed the participant to identifying correct answers. conduct a “study” and if the accomplice is -​ On the third trial, the first person gives a answered wrongly, the participant is wrong answer—then the second and third asked to apply shock to the accomplice do too. EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE: Confused, you question reality: "Are they blind, or -​ The experiment requires one of them to am I?" teach a list of word pairs to the other and to The fourth and fifth people also agree with the wrong punish errors by delivering shocks of answer. increasing intensity. The experimenter turns to you—do you trust your -​ Teacher and experimenter then return to the eyes or the group? main room, where the teacher takes his place  before a “shock generator” with switches b.​ when the one making the command ranging from 15 to 450 volts in 15-volt is physically close, compliance increments. The switches are labeled increases. “Slight Shock,” “Very Strong Shock,” c.​ The authority must be perceived “Danger: Severe Shock,” and so forth. legitimate Under the 435- and 450-volt switches d.​ participants were significantly appears “XXX.” The experimenter tells the more obedient when they identified teacher to “move one level higher on the with the researcher or the scientific shock generator” each time the learner gives community he represents. a wrong answer. With each flick of a switch, 3.​ INSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY lights flash, relay switches click, and an a.​ authorities backed by institutions electric buzzer sounds. wield social power. To keep the participant going, he uses four verbal 4.​ THE LIBERATING EFFECTS OF prods: GROUP INFLUENCE Prod 1: Please continue (or Please go on). a.​ When you are angry with a teacher Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue. but kept it to yourself, then a Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue. student who stood up to that Prod 4: You have no other choice; you must go on. teacher, and you followed it. b.​ It had a liberating effect on you FOUR FEATURES OF MILGRAM’S STUDY DESIGNS REFLECTIONS ON THE CLASSIC STUDIES ​ Slippery slope of small requests escalates to bigger ones -​ The scientific contexts of the experiments ​ Framing of shock-giving as the social differ from the wartime contexts. norm -​ The obedience studies also differ from other ​ Opportunity to deny responsibility conformity studies in the strength of the ​ Limited time to decide social pressure: Obedience is explicitly commanded. WHAT BREEDS OBEDIENCE? ASCH AND MILGRAM’S SIMILARITIES 1.​ VICTIM’S DISTANCE a.​ In everyday life, too, it is easiest to ​ compliance can take precedence over moral abuse someone who is distant or sense. depersonalized. ​ They succeeded in pressuring people to go b.​ People who might never be cruel to against their own consciences. someone in person may be nasty ​ They sensitized us to moral conflicts in our when posting comments to own lives. anonymous people on Internet ​ They affirmed two familiar social discussion boards. psychological principles: the link between c.​ On the positive side, people act behavior and attitudes and the power of the most compassionately toward those situation. who are personalized. 2.​ CLOSENESS AND LEGITIMACY OF BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES THE AUTHORITY a.​ The physical presence of the -​ When external influences override inner experimenter also affected convictions, attitudes fail to determine obedience. behavior.  -​ a powerful social pressure (the -​ The drift toward evil usually comes in small experimenter’s commands) overcame a increments, without any conscious intent to weaker one (the remote victim’s pleas). do evil. -​ Torn between the pleas of the victim and the orders of the experimenter, between the “The most fundamental lesson of our study is that desire to avoid doing harm and the desire to ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without be a good participant, a surprising number of any particular hostility on their part, can become people chose to obey. agents in a terrible destructive process.” - Milgram. -​ Slippery slope of obedience – once they started, it was difficult to stop QUESTION: Does a situational analysis of -​ External behavior and internal disposition harm-doing exonerate harm-doers? Does it absolve can feed each other, sometimes in an them of responsibility? escalating spiral. -​ Many subjects harshly devalue the victim as ANSWER: Psychologists who study the roots of evil a consequence of acting against him. Such insist otherwise. To explain is not to excuse. To comments as, “He was so stupid and understand is not to forgive. You can forgive stubborn he deserved to get shocked,” were someone whose behavior you don’t understand, and common. Once having acted against the you can understand someone whom you do not victim, these subjects found it necessary to forgive. view him as an unworthy individual, whose punishment was made inevitable by his own deficiencies of intellect and character. -​ Step-by-step, an obedient but otherwise decent person evolved into an agent of cruelty -​ Compliance bred acceptance -​ Human genocide – criticism produces contempt, which licenses cruelty, and when justified, leads to brutality and killing then systematic killing WHAT PREDICTS CONFORMITY? THE POWER OF SOCIAL NORM GROUP SIZE -​ A group of 3-5 people illicit more -​ Saying what we would do is easier said than conformity done -​ Mas nagcoconform ang mga tao sa 3-5 -​ But evil also results from social members lang pero kapag mas marami na sa forces—from the powerful situations that 5, magkakaroon yan ng iba’t ibang opinyon. help make a whole barrel of apples go bad. -​ The American military police, whose abuse UNANIMITY of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison -​ It easier to stand up to someone when you horrified the world, were under stress, can find someone else to stand up with you taunted by many they had come to save, -​ A support from one comrade greatly angered by comrades’ deaths, overdue to increases a person’s social courage return home, and under lax supervision—an -​ When someone punctures a group’s evil situation that produced evil behavior. unanimity, it deflates its social power. -​ SITUATION CAN INDUCE ORDINARY -​ Seeing someone else disagree with the PEOPLE TO CAPITULATE CRUELTY majority—even if they are wrong—can -​ Often in complex societies, the most terrible make us feel more confident in thinking for evil evolves from a sequence of small evils. ourselves. It shows that it's okay to  challenge the group, making us less likely to WHY CONFORM? blindly follow others. Their dissent, even if incorrect, encourages independent thinking NORMATIVE INFLUENCE and resistance to peer pressure. -​ Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others’ expectations, often to gain COHESION acceptance. -​ An opinion from someone with the group -​ FOR PEOPLE PLEASERS we identify with sways us more than the -​ “going along with the crowd” to avoid minority opinion. rejection, to stay in people’s good graces, or -​ The more cohesive a group is, the more to gain their approval. power it gains over its members. -​ Normative influence leads to compliance, -​ Fearing rejection by group members whom especially for people who have recently seen they like, allows others to have a certain others ridiculed or who are seeking to climb power over you a status ladder -​ We have an inclination to go with our group -​ often sways us without our awareness. – to think what it thinks and to do what it -​ SOCIAL IMAGE PRODUCES NI. does. INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCE STATUS -​ Conformity occurs when people accept -​ Higher status people have more impact evidence about reality provided by other -​ Prestige begets influence people. -​ Captures how beliefs spread. PUBLIC RESPONSE -​ leads people to privately accept others’ -​ People conform more in public or in front of influence. other people than in private writing -​ In one study, conformity to other’s opinions -​ IT IS EASIER TO STAND UP WHEN WE lasted no more than three days HAVE PRIVACY -​ THE DESIRE TO BE CORRECT II. -​ people conform more when they must respond in front of others rather than writing TAKE NOTE: As most of us know, social rejection is their answers privately. painful; when we deviate from group norms, we often pay an emotional price. PRIOR COMMITMENT -​ Prior commitments restrain persuasion and WHO CONFORMS? makes us feel hesitant to retract that commitment. PERSONALITY -​ Prior commitment means that once you -​ people higher in agreeableness (who value publicly state your opinion or decision, you getting along with others) and are less likely to change it, even if others conscientiousness (who follow social norms disagree. This happens because people want for neatness and punctuality) are more likely to stay consistent and avoid looking to conform indecisive. So, making a prior commitment -​ People high in openness to experience—a reduces conformity because you are less personality trait connected to creativity and likely to give in to group pressure after socially progressive thinking—are less already taking a stand. likely to conform CULTURE threatens their sense of freedom, they often -​ Collectivistic countries are more likely to rebel. conform -​ Biological wisdom in conforming: When we Theory of psychological reactance think of getting sick, we tend to conform -​ —that people act to protect their sense of more likely for safety freedom -​ Social classes: Working class people want -​ is supported by experiments showing that similarities. Middle class people like attempts to restrict a person’s freedom often uniqueness produce an anticonformity “boomerang effect” SOCIAL ROLES -​ Because we know that we should do it, it becomes difficult to do it without feeling our All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women freedom is compromised merely players: They have their exits and their -​ If we know others are doing it, we are more entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. likely to do it too (normative influence) —William Shakespeare ASSERTING UNIQUENESS -​ Our internalized roles have powerful effects -​ People feel uncomfortable when they appear on conformity, it subsides our self too different from others. But in consciousness one. individualistic Western cultures they also -​ Must re-conform before being back in sync feel uncomfortable when they appear -​ Nevertheless, we have seen that social exactly like everyone else situations can move most “normal” people -​ People wearing nonconformist clothes are to behave in “abnormal” ways. perceived to have higher status -​ Role reversal -​ When someone tries to copy it or our -​ Role playing can be a positive force self-presentation, we become angry to the -​ people sometimes change person themselves or empathize with -​ people feel better when they see themselves people whose roles differ from as moderately unique and act in ways that them will assert their individuality. -​ Roles often come in pairs defined by -​ Any minority group tends to be conscious of relationships—parent and child, teacher and its distinctiveness and how other cultures student, doctor and patient, employer and relate to it employee. Role reversals can help each -​ Majority group sees the minority as understand the other. hypersensitive -​ Rivalry is more intense when the two are DO WE EVER WANT TO BE DIFFERENT? more alike -​ We do not like being greatly deviant, we are We may act according to our own values, all alike in being distinct and noticing how independently of the forces that push upon us. we are distinctive Knowing that someone is trying to coerce us may -​ Our quest is not to be different from average even prompt us to react in the opposite direction. but to be better than average REACTANCE -​ A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action. -​ Individuals value their sense of freedom and self-efficacy. When blatant social pressure