AP Psychology. Unit 14: Social Psychology. Social Influences

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1 AP Psychology Unit 14: Social Psychology Mod.75: Conformity & Obedience: Social Influences I. Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures: A. Automatic Mimicry: 1. Behavior is contagious! fish, birds, & humans tend to go w/their group, to think what it thinks, & do what it does! a. Chimps yawn when seeing others yawn so do humans! b. If one of us yawns, laughs, coughs, stares at the sky, or check a cell phone (!!!), others in our group will soon do the same. 2. Humans take on the emotional tones of those around us, just as chameleons take on the color of their surroundings. a. Hearing someone read a neutral text in a happy or sad sounding voice creates mood contagion in listeners b. We are natural mimics unconsciously imitating others expressions, postures, & voice tones. 3. Chameleon Effect: a. Chartrand & Bargh captured this mimicry & called it the chameleon effect: they had students work in a room alongside another person, who was actually a confederate working for the experimenters: i. sometimes the confederate rubbed their own face, or shook their foot the students ended up mimicking the face rubbing or foot shaking Connect the chameleon effec to the concept of mirror neurons: 4. Other studies found people synchronizing their grammar to match material they are reading or people they are hearing (Ireland & Pennebaker 2010) 5. Obesity, sleep loss, drug use, loneliness, and happiness spread through social networks we & our friends form a social system! 6. Automatic mimicry helps us empathize to feel what others are feeling a. Helps explain why we feel happier around happy people than around depressed people

2 b. Helps explain why studies of groups of British nurses & accountants have revealed mood linkage sharing up & down moods c. Empathetic people yawn more after seeing others yawn d. Empathetic mimicking fosters fondness - when someone nods their head as you do & echoes yours words, you feel a certain rapport & liking 7. Suggestibility & mimicry sometimes lead to tragedy & copycat violence: a. 8 days after Columbine, every state except Vermont had threats of copycat violence: Pennsylvania had 60 threats! b. Suicides increase after a highly publicized suicide c. Suggestibility & mimicry are subtle types of conformity B. Conformity & Social Norms: 1. Conformity adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard; tendency for people to adopt the behavior, attitudes, and beliefs of other members of a group; tendency to change one s thinking or behavior to coincide with a group standard a. Conformity can be in response to real or imagined group pressure 2. Solomon Asch s Conformity Studies: a. The Asch conformity experiments are considered the most famous studies of the factors associated with conformity to group pressure b. These suggestibility studies conducted by Solomon Asch demonstrate that a unanimous group (all agree, or are all the same) makes us unsure about our behavior or thinking, and so we are more likely to conform to the group standard (to what the group is doing), even if it is incorrect c. Asch began his experiments by inviting 7-9 male students into a classroom d. 1 of the students = naïve subject who was unaware of the experimenter s true purpose; all others were instructed students who had already met w/asch & rehearsed their experimental roles e. Instructed students confederates/actors took their seats, leaving a seat near the end for the naïve subject - by placing them in this order, Asch insured that the naïve subject would receive the full impact of the majority trend before uttering his judgments f. Asch showed them a series of cards - a standard line was always clearly displayed on the left; 3 companion lines numbered 1, 2, & 3 were always on the right Asch asked each subject to pick the companion line that matched the standard line. g. Unknown to the naïve subject, on 12 of the 18 trials, the instructed subjects deliberately gave the wrong answer. So on 12 trials the naïve subject was confronted with a contradiction b/w what he clearly saw & what a unanimous majority reported.

3 h. Asch s Results: i. 76% of the naïve subjects agreed w/ the incorrect majority opinion at least once! ii. 5% conformed EVERY TIME! iii. Altogether, the naïve subjects followed the majority by giving the wrong answer on 37% of the critical trials..obviously B is correct answer, but if everyone else says C, even though you know it s wrong, you will probably just conform and agree with them! TRY THIS! Begin to yawn in class. Count how many other students then yawn. Try this in your other classes today! Stand in front of school and look up at the building. Have a friend/observer nearby count how many people join in. Go to a public place & start yawning. Have a friend/observer nearby count the number of people who then yawn. 3. Factors that Promote Conformity: a. We are more likely to conform when we i. Are made to feel incompetent or insecure ii. Are in a group with at least 3 people iii. Are n a group in which everyone else agrees (If just one other person disagrees, the odds of our disagreeing greatly increase) iv. Admire the group s status & attractiveness v. Have not made a prior commitment to any response vi. Known that others in the group will observe our behavior vii. Are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards

4 b. Factors that Promote Conformity: i. The size of the majority ii. The unanimity of the majority iii. The characteristics of the majority iv. The difficulty of the task: As the difficulty of the task increased, conformity increased So. Conformity is promoted when When people feel incompetent or insecure, When they are in groups of 3 or more, When the group is unanimous and of high status and attractiveness When no prior commitment has been made, When behavior will be observed, When people have been socialized in a culture that encourages respect for social standards (new kid = insecure) unanimous. High status & attractive no commitment to sit w/anyone else = PINK! Conformed. Janis Ian should have taken AP Psychology, her friend Cady had no chance.

5 We conform in order to: gain social approval (normative social influence) or b/c the group provides valuable information (informational social influence) 4. Normative Social Influence: a. Gain social approval = normative social influence: b. Normative Social Influence influence resulting from a person s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval c. Conforming in order to avoid rejection or to gain social approval we are sensitive to social norms d. Social norms - understood rules for accepted & expected behavior; (norms = rules about how group members should act) e. We are sensitive to social norms b/c the price we pay for being different can be severe: we need to belong! To get along, we go along! 5. Informational Social Influence: a. The group provides valuable information= informational social influence: b. Informational social influence influence resulting from one s willingness to accept others opinions about reality c. We conform b/c we want to be accurate d. Groups provide information e. Accepting others opinions about reality = informational social influence it pays to assume others are right & to follow their lead

6 II. Obedience: Follow Orders: (Obedience to Authority): A. Obedience the performance of an action in response to the direct orders of an authority or person of higher status B. Stanley Milgram s Obedience Experiments: 1. Stanley Milgram- student of Asch; social psychology s most famous, controversial, & influential experiments 2. Milgram s famous experiments on obedience began July Yale University 3. When ordered by the experimenter to electrically shock the learner, the majority of participants (the teachers ) in these studies complied. a. Recent studies have found that women s compliance rates in similar situations were similar to men s 4. Milgram s basic experimental design involved 3 people: a. Experimenter this was an actor (originally played by a 31 yr old high school biology teacher)- the experimenter wore a white technician s coat to enhance his status as an authority figure b. Learner or Victim also an actor, affable & friendly (originally played by a 47-year old Irish-American accountant) c. Teacher/Subject this was the true research subject, a person who responded to an ad offering volunteers $4 (about $30 today) to participate in a 1-hour memory & learning test the subjects represented a wide range of educational & occupational backgrounds. 5. Experimenter began by explaining that he was testing the effects of punishment on learning & memory. a. Learner would be required to memorize a long list of word pairs such as slow-dance, nice-day, blue-box b. Learner was later required to pick the correct match form a list of several words read by the volunteer teacher/subject c. Teacher/subject reads blue: sky, ink, box, lamp & the learner was supposed to respond box 6. When the learner gave the correct answer, the teacher would proceed to the next word pair. However, when the learner made a mistake, the experimenter instructed the teacher to punish him with an electric shock delivered by a realistic, but bogus, shock generator. 7. Shock generator could deliver shocks ranging from 15 volts- 450 volts. It had 30 switches that were clearly labeled form Slight Shock up to Danger: Severe Shock, and the 435-volt & 450-volt switches were marked XXX 8. Experimenter instructed the teacher/subjec to begin w/a 15-volt shock & then raise the voltage one 15-volt level at a time a. NOTE: before beginning, the volunteer teacher/subject was given a real 45-volt sample of slight shock the ONLY REAL SHOCK in the entire experiment! 9. Milgram carefully rehearsed the responses used by both the learner and the experimenter. The learner s protests were carefully coordinated to the shock being administered by the teacher/subject. After each shock the learner a. 75-volts: a little grunt b. 125-volts: shouted to the experimenter that the shocks were becoming painful c. 150-volts: cried Get me out of here! I won t be in this experiment anymore!, I refuse to go on! d. 180 volts: cried out I can t stand the pain! e. 300 volts: shouted in desperation that he would no longer provided answers to the memory test f. 315 volts: violent scream & reaffirmed his prior refusal to continue participating g. 330 volts: hysterically demanded LET ME OUT OF HERE! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO HOLD ME HERE! LET ME OUT! h. Above 330 volts: The learner is silent and no longer heard from again

7 10. When the volunteer teacher/subject showed any resistance to the experimenter s commands, the experimenter responded w/one of the following commands: a. Prod 1: Please continue b. Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue c. Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue d. Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on e. If the subject insisted on stopping after hearing all 4 verbal prods, the experimenter halted the experiment. Otherwise, the experiment was halted after the teacher/subject administered the maximum 450-volt shock! C. Milgram s Shocking Results: 1. Before conducting the experiment, Milgram asked 39 psychiatrists to predict the results, they guessed that a. most subjects would stop at 150-volts b. About 4% would go as high as 300-volts c. Just 1 person of 1000 would go all the way to 450-volts 2. The psychiatrists were wrong! a. 26 people 65% of the 40 teachers/subjects in the 1 st experimental version gave the learner a 450-volt shock 3. Numerous replications by Milgram & others produced almost identical results (when results are consistent after replications, it means the results are reliable!) a. NOTE: Female teacher/subjects were as likely to inflict pain on a stranger as the male subjects were! D. Ethical Violations: 1. Milgram s use of deception & stress triggered a debate over his research ethics. 2. Milgram s controversial findings sparked debate about the willingness of ordinary citizens to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform actions that conflicted with their personal values. 3. In addition, Milgram s use of deception influenced the debate about the proper code of ethics in psychological research. E. Obedience was highest when: 1. The person giving the orders was close at hand & was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure: a Temple University s basketball coach sent a 250 lb bench player, Nehemia Ingram into the game w/instructions to commit hard fouls following orders, Ingram fouled out in 4 mins after breaking an opposing player s arm! 2. The authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution: a. Compliance was little lower when Milgram dissociated his experiments from Yale) 3. The victim was depersonalized or at a distance, even in another room a. Many soldiers in combat either have not fired their rifles at an enemy they can see or- have not aimed at them properly b. These refusals to kill were rare among soldiers who were operating long-distance artillery or aircraft weapons 4. There were no role models for defiance: a. Teachers/subjects did not see any other participant disobey the experimenter

8 F. Factors that Promote Obedience: 1. Cultural pressures to conform, obey, and not cause trouble: a. American society places a high value of obedience to people in positions of legitimate authorityb. Good people obey & don t cause trouble- we are taught that good children, students, & employees obey instructions and do not cause trouble. c. Milgram speculated that his subjects inability to invent a disobedient response may be symptomatic of the pressures in our culture to conform 2. Role as a good subject : a. Milgram believed that the volunteers/teachers/subjects were decisively influenced by their role of subject in a scientific experiment. The role of good subject committed them to follow the instructions of a scientist who was seen as a legitimate & trusted authority. 3. Small ignoble emotion-embarrassment : a. Milgram also believed that what he called the small ignoble emotion-embarrassment played an important role - his subjects simply couldn t bring themselves to disrupt what appeared to be a legitimate experiment. G. Factors that Reduce Obedience: 1. Milgram conducted variations of his experiment on approximately 1000 subjects. Taken together, his experiments comprise one of the largest research programs in the history of social psychology. 2. Milgram s additional experiments identified several conditions that reduced the willingness of his subjects to obey the experimenter: a. When subjects were allowed to freely select the shock level 95% of them did not go beyond 150-volts b. When subjects observed other subjects who refused to obey the experimenters orders 90% of them refused to continue i. NOTE: This finding corroborates Asch s discover that subjects will stand by their convictions when they are supported by a dissenter or role model NOTE: Be sure to know: AP Psych test writers expect students to be thoroughly familiar with Milgram s classic study of Obedience to Authority. 65% of participants administered the highest voltage Subjects were least likely to deliver maximum levels of shock when they observed dissenters who refused to obey the experiment s orders Psychiatrists significantly underestimated the subject s level of obedience

9 Stanley Milgram s Obedience to Authority studies ordinary people to shocking things! 1961 Yale University Participants in Milgram s experiments were ordered to teach a list of word pairs to another person by punishing the learner s (an actor) wrong answers with electric shocks. No one was actually electrocuted but the participant thought they were actually delivering electric shock. This study researched when we obey and to what extent. Would we be willing to deliver a deadly electric shock just because an authority figure told us to? Surprisingly, yes, we would. Obedience was highest: when the experimenter was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure supported by a prestigious institution, when the victim was depersonalized or at a distance, when there was no role model for defiance (if other teachers in the room morally objected to shock of the victim (actor), then the subject would be less likely to continue with the experiment) Just to Think About: We know when things are wrong and unjust, but most of us (65%) will not object because an authority figure or institution tells us to continue. Consider the following: Nazi soldiers in Germany Martin Luther King Jr. broke the rules/law, was even arrested, and openly objected to inequality and discrimination, and many followed his lead, without him would our society be where we are today? Milgram s Shocking Results: Before the experiment, Milgram asked 39 psychiatrists to predict the results, they thought that Most subjects would stop at 150 volts, 4% would go as high as 300 volts, and that 1 person of the 1000 subjects would go all the way to the deadly 450 volts. The psychiatrists were wrong!!! 26 people, 65% of the 40 teachers (subjects) in the 1 st version of the experiment gave the learner (an actor) a deadly 450 volt shock! 65% of people would kill someone if an authority figure told them too! This study has been replicated and results were similar = consistent = accurate data. Female subjects were just as likely to inflict pain on a stranger as male subjects were. This experiment is unethical to do today b/c of the psychological and emotional harm it causes the subjects/ teachers, thinking they would have killed someone b/c an authority figure said to

10 III. How the presence of others may produce social facilitation, social loafing, & deindividuation: A. Social facilitation- occurs when tasks are simple or well-learned but not when they are difficult or unfamiliar. When observed by others, people become aroused. Arousal facilitates (helps) the most likely response the correct one on an easy task, an incorrect one on a difficult task. 1. This is closely related to Yerkes-Dodsen Law (optimum levels of arousal, too high or too low and performance will be low, high arousal then we perform well on easy tasks, but high arousal on difficult tasks will make our performance worse) B. Social loafing- occurs when people who work anonymously as part of a group exert less effort than those individually accountable for performance. C. Deindividuation- occurs when group participation makes individuals feel aroused, anonymous, and less self-conscious. 1. The uninhibited and impulsive behavior of mobs may occur as a result of this deindividuation D. Zimbardo s Prison Study deindividuation & group roles 1. Aka Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo converted the basement of Stanford University s psych building into a mock prison 3. Placed ads in local papers offering volunteers $15/day to participate in 2 week prison simulation middle-class, educated young men- they were randomly assigned to either guard or prisoner 5. Deliberately promoted the deindividuation: a. Guards- identical khaki uniforms, mirror sunglass (so no one could see their eyes or read their emotions), carried billy clubs, whistles, handcuffs (makes them look and feel their assigned role) b. Prisoners- stocking caps, and hospital dressing gowns, identified by numbers sewed on to their gowns 6. Zimbardo called off the experiment in only 6 days b/c some guards became sadistic, verbally & physically abusing prisoners E. Zimbardo Prison Experiment- shows the powerful effects of deindividuation. As guards became immersed in their roles, they developed a strong group cohesion that reduced their sense of personal responsibility. As they stopped viewing the prisoners as individual human beings, the guards behavior became increasingly aggressive.

11 IV. Group polarization and how it can be a source of groupthink. A. Group polarization- refers to the enhancement of a group s prevailing (dominant/main) tendencies that occurs when like-minded members discuss issues and attitudes B. Groupthink- the unrealistic group decision making that occurs when the desire for group harmony outweighs the desire for realistic thinking. Harmony > Realistic Thinking C. Groupthink is fed by: 1. Overconfidence 2. Conformity 3. Self-justification 4. Group polarization D. Groupthink can be prevented when the leader welcomes dissenting opinions (nonconforming/ rebellious ideas) and invites criticism. V. How personal control & social control interact in guiding behavior: A. The power of the situation (social control) and the power of the individual (personal control) interact. When feeling pressured, people may react by doing the opposite. 1. The impact of a minority in swaying the majority opinion illustrates the power of personal control. 2. A minority that unswervingly holds to its position is more likely to be successful in swaying the majority than a minority that waffles. VI. How a minority can influence the majority: A. Minority influence- a form of social influence, it takes place when a member of a minority group, like an individual, influences a majority to accept the minority's beliefs or behavior..

12 REVIEW: Social Influence: 1. The chameleon effect refers to our natural tendency to unconsciously mimic others expressions, postures, and voice tones. 2. Copycat violence is a serious example of the effects of suggestibility on behavior 3. The term that refers to the tendency to adjust one s behavior to coincide with an assumed group standard is conformity 4. The psychologist who first studied the effects of group pressure on conformity is Asch. 5. In this study, when the opinion of other group members was contradicted by objective evidence, subjects were willing to conform to the group opinion. 6. One reason that people comply with social pressure is to gain approval and avoid rejection; this is called Normative social influence; Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior are called social norms 7. Another reason people comply is that they have genuinely been influenced by what they have learned from others; this type of influence is called Informational social influence. 8. In one experiment, Robert Baron found that people were more likely to conform to the group s judgments when the task was construed as important and when it was difficult 9. Conformity rates tend to be lower in individualistic cultures 10. The classic social psychology studies of obedience were conducted by Milgram. When ordered by the experimenter to electrically shock the learner, the majority of participants (the teachers ) in these studies complied. Recent studies have found that women s compliance rates in similar situations were similar to men s. Obedience was highest in Milgram s shocking experiments when. - The person giving the orders was close at hand and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure, - The authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution - The victim was depersonalized, - There were no role models for defiance 11. In getting people to administer increasingly larger shocks, Milgram was in effect applying the foot-in-the-door technique. 12. The tendency to perform a task better when other people are present is called Social facilitation; In general, people become aroused in the presence of others, and arousal enhances the correct response on an easy task. Later research revealed that arousal strengthens the response that is most likely in a given situation. 13. Researchers have found that the reactions of people in crowded situations are often amplified. 14. Ingham found that people worked less hard in a team tug-a-war than they had in an individual contest. This phenomenon has been called social loafing. 15. The feeling of anonymity and loss of restraint that an individual may develop when in a group is called deindividuation 16. Over time, the initial differences between groups usually increases. The enhancement of each group s prevailing tendency is called group polarization. Future research studies will reveal whether electronic discussions on the internet also demonstrate this tendency. 17. When the desire for group harmony overrides realistic thinking in individuals, the phenomenon knowns as groupthink has occurred. 18. In considering the power of social influence, we cannot overlook the interaction of social control (the power of the situation) and personal control (the power of the individual). 19. The power of one or two individuals to sway the opinion of the majority is called minority influence. 20. A minority opinion will have the most success in swaying the majority if it takes a stance that is unswerving.