Some of
the topics covered in the section on
Conformity, Compliance,
& Obedience
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information
- Social norms
- How do people react to norm
violations?
- How does it feel to violate
norms?
- 1. Norms are whidespread
(e.g., behaviors, fashion, values); different
norms exist for different groups
- 2. Norms affect us through
normative social influence (need for acceptance)
- 3. Norms affect us through
informational social influence (need for
accuracy)
*note: reality checks limits
what can become norms. E.g., Eskimos are not going to
have a norm of vegetarianism or favor short skimpy
dresses for females.
-
- When do
people conform to Normative Social Influence?
- 1. Social
Impact Theory
- Strength: How
important the people in the group are to you. The
more you value their friendship, love, respect,
the stronger the normative pressures to conform.
- Immediacy:
How close the group is to you in space and time
- Number:
How many people? 3 or more = max influence power.
- 2.
Unanimity of group
- (remember the
"ally" in Asch's line judgment
experiment?)
- 3. Is
conformity a cultural norm?
- Independent self
vs interdependent self
- 4.
Personality and Gender
- Self
esteem: inconsistent results
- Gender:
(small Difference)
- 1. Women are more conforming in public
situations because females are socialized
to be more agreeable and supportive.
- 2. People are more conforming on
unfamiliar issues. Since most experiments
were designed by male researchers, they
tend to use traditionally male dominated
topics (e.g., sports), and therefore
women comformed more because they were
unfamilar with the issues. New
experiments that use traditionally female
topics (e.g., childcare) shows males are
more conforming.
Summary from
Emotions lecture
- Facial
Feedback Theory
- Putting on a
facial expression TRIGGERS (causes) the
subjective experience of emotion.
- Possible
mechanism: (1) use of different face muscles
affect blook flow to different parts of brain
- (2)
Proprioreceptors in brain keep track of
what muscles are used, and thus trigger
the emotion related to the use of the
particular set of muscles.
- (Demo:
pen in teeth, pen in lips)
- Two Factor
Theory of Emotion
- Our subjective
experience of emotion is formed by 2 factors:
- 1. Physiological
arousal: The first factor that is essential for
emotion. e.g., heartbeat, sweating. This arousal
is "neutral"--the same symptoms can be
caused by many different sources (exercise,
anger, excitement, attraction)
- 2. Cognitive
factor: EXPLANATION: you need to attribute the
arousal to some source.
-
- Experiment on
2 factor theory
- Dutton & Aron
(1974)
- Reasoning: if
emotion is composed of arousal and attribution of
the arousal to a particular source, then people
may misattribute the arousal to
a wrong (but salient) source.
- Hypothesis
- A male participant
who is physiologically aroused will misattribute
the arousal to attraction felt for the female
experimenter
- Conceptual IV:
level of arousal
- Operational IV: On
bridge (high) or after relaxing (low)
- Conceptual DV:
degree of misattribution (attraction)
- Operational DV: #
who phone experimenter
- Results:
- 30% of
"rest" group called, 65% of
"bridge" group called.
- Experiment on
2 factor theory: Schachter &
Singer (see coursepack link)
-
-
- Modern
view of emotion
- Emotion is NOT
"caused" by facial expression or
labelling or unexplained arousal.
- Cognitive
Appraisal approach
Eliciting event ===>
Appraisal ====> Emotional response (3 component)
- 3 components of
emotional response
- 1. Physiological
activation (e.g, heartracing)
- 2. Subjective
experience (e.g., a positive or negative
emotional feeling)
- 3. Facial
expression
- Emotion can be
"jumpstarted" by manipulating people's
physiological actiavation or facial expression,
but that is not the noraml way emotions are
experience.
- Evoluationary
View of Emotion
- Emotions are
adaptive (functional) because particular
situation/need/threat triggers specific emotion
responses (Core relational theme), and the
triggerd emotion guides people to behave in a way
that best solve the problem/situation that
triggered the emotion in the first place (action
tendencies)
- Core
relational themes
- "themes"
that comp up often in people's relations with the
world (i.e., with other people, situations,
objects)
- Each theme maps on
to a specific emotion (e.g., Theme=danger -->
Fear; Theme=personal loss --> sadness)
- Action
tendencies
- Each emotion leads
to a TENDENCY (not actual behavior, only
tendency) to behave in a certain way (e.g.,
Emotion=fear --> action=escape; Emotion=anger
--> action=fight)
Put togehter, you can
see how emotions allow people to act quickly in response
to any situations:
Core-relational Them =
Danger ----> Emotion = fear -------> action =
escape
- "Review quiz":
- 1.a) Define
“conformity”, “compliance”,
and “obedience”. What are the
differences between them?
b) Describe a relevant
example for each. 2.Define
informational social influence. Then, identify:
a) the situations where
this type of conformity is likely to occur (hint:
3 )
b) why it occurs (the
motive for conformity)
c) what happens to the
person’s private belief after the
conformity.
d) the experiment(s) that
illustrated this type of conformity.
3.Define normative
social influence. Then, identify:
a) the situations where
this type of conformity is likely to occur (hint:
social impact theory, and others)
b) why it occurs (the
motive for conformity)
c) what happens to the
person’s private belief after the
conformity.
d) the experiment(s) that
illustrated this type of conformity.
4. What is the
difference between private and public acceptance?
When are they elicited?
5. What are the two
dramatic forms of informational social influence?
Describe each, point out when each tend of occur,
and give an example. (hint: both start with C)
6. In 1945, many people
in Mattoon, Il claimed that they have been
attacked by an “anesthetist” that would
go to their homes and spray them with
anesthetics. In reality, there were no such
person and all of the attacks were imagined.
Which social psychological principle(s) is(are)
applicable in explaining this phenomenon?
7. Research has found
that group size is an important factor in social
influence. Discuss the following issues:
a) In normative influence,
how does group size affect the degree of
conformity?
b) According tot eh Social
Impact Theory, what characteristics of the group
can increase conformity?
c) What happens when it is
the minority of the group that is trying to
influence the majority? Which type of social
influence (normative/informational) does it
involve? What does it take for a minority to be
influenctial?
8. Ellen Langer did an
experiment where secretaries were sent either a
signed (signed “sincerely, John Smith”)
or an unsigned memo that said, “This paper
is to be returned immediately to Room 238 through
interoffice mail”. Room 238 was the
sender’s office on the same floor. What were
their finding? And what is the main point of this
experiment?
9a. What is the door in
the face technique? Why does it work? Describe an
example.
9b. What is the foot in the
door technique? Why does it work? Describe an
example.
9c. Which one of the above
techniques for eliciting compliance lasts longer?
10. A few specific
questions about the design of Milgram’s
study:
a) What were the
participants asked to do (cover story)?
b) What happens when they
express that they want to stop?
c) Before the experiment,
what results did people predict?
d) What are the actual
results (general…. Not actual %)
11. What was the role of
normative influence in Milgram’s study
(original design)? What did they find when they
added confederates to the study?
12. What was the role of
infomational social influence in Milgram’s
study? What did they do in 2 modifications of the
experiment to investigate the role of
informational social influence? What were the
results?
13. What additional
factors made people obey the experimenter even
when they were asked to administer extreme
shocks?
-
Last
updated Oct 28 1999
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