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Obedience and Conformity
• Rock musician, Peter Gabriel, showed his
admiration for Stanley Milgram in his
album, "So," (1986), which includes a
piece titled, "We do what we're toldMilgram's 37."
• What does the "37" refer to?
Summary of Milgram Studies
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% Obeying
Teacher does not deliver shock, but helped out. 93%
Victim pounds on wall then becomes silent
65%
Victim heard protesting (movie version)
50%
Victim in same room
40%
Teacher has to put victim's hand on shock plate 30%
Victim says at outset that he will do study
only if he is let out when he wants to be
40%
Study done in Bridgeport, CT
48%
Experimenter in remote location
19%
Teacher told to select the level of shock
(experimenter legitimizes all levels)
3%
Milgram’s 37
• Represents the number of fully obedient
subjects when the naïve subject helped
out a confederate who actually
administered the shocks. 37 out of 40
people (93%) continued to the end, the
highest obedience rate in any of Milgram’s
studies.
• Experiment 18 “A peer administers
shocks” in Milgram’s book Obedience to
authority: An experimental view (pp. 121122).
Personalizing the victim
• Markedly reduces obedience
Gender
• Are men or women more obedient in
Milgram’s paradigm? Or are they equally
obedient?
Other replications
Hofling et al. (1966)
• Unknown doctor called nurses and asked
them to administer 20 milligrams of the
drug "Astroten" to a patient on the ward.
Violated hospital policy. (Labeled dosage
10 milligrams)
• 21/22 (95%) of the nurses were about to
administer the drug, before being stopped
and debriefed by one of the researchers
How well can people predict their
own obedience?
• The researchers told a group of nurses
and nursing students about the study and
asked them how they would react.
• Nearly all said they would not have given
the medication as ordered.
Another replication
Sheridan & King (1972)
• Replicated Milgram exactly, except that (a)
participants were male & female college
students, (b) victim was a "cute, fluffy, puppy,"
and (c) the shocks were real.
• Participants instructed to deliver a shock each
time the puppy failed to learn a discrimination
task, which was actually unsolvable
• Percent delivering the maximum amount of
shock similar to percent in Milgram’s studies.
Would Milgram find less obedience if he
conducted his experiments today?
• Thomas Blass
– Examined Milgram studies and replications
during a 25-year period from 1961 to 1985.
Correlated year of publication and the amount
of obedience. No significant correlation.
Relevance of the FAE
• How is the fundamental attribution error
relevant to Milgram’s research?
Historical insights
• How might Milgram’s research offer
insights into historical events such as the
Holocaust and the My Lai massacre?
– People need not be unusually cruel to obey
orders to harm someone else
– Situational pressures can be powerful
determinants of behavior
– Does not mean that people are not
responsible for their actions
Conformity
• Conformity: A change in one’s
behavior due to the real or imagined
influence of other people.
• Unlike obedience, conformity does not
require commands or coercion by an
authority.
Normative Social Influence
• Conformity and Social Approval:
The
Asch Line Judgment Studies
Asch (1951, 1956) tested whether people
would conform in situations in which the
group’s judgments were obviously incorrect.
Participants in the Asch line study showed a
high level of conformity, given how obvious it
was that the group was wrong in its
judgments.
Normative Social Influence
• Conformity and Social Approval:
Asch Line Judgment Studies
The
Normative Social Influence
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Conformity and Social Approval: The Asch Line
Judgment Studies
76% conformed on at least one of the trials
Asch studies of conformity
• What was the role of…
– Public versus private conformity?
– Unanimity of the group?
– Normative influence? (don’t want to look silly)
Private vs. Public conformity
• Private conformity: change of beliefs that
occurs when a person privately accepts the
position taken by others.
• Public conformity: superficial change in
overt behavior, without a corresponding
change of opinion, produced by real or
imagined group pressure.
• Asch studies demonstrate PUBLIC conformity
Normative social influence
• Normative influence: Conformity occurs
when a person fears the negative
consequences of appearing deviant.
• If write answers privately, conformity drops
markedly.
Unanimous group
• When the group’s position is unanimous,
conformity is greater.
• If one person dissents (an ally), conformity
drops.
Normative Social Influence
• When Will People Conform to
Normative Social Influence?
Asch’s research shows that conformity
does not increase much after group size
reaches 4 or 5 other people.
Social Norm group exercise
Normative Social Influence
• Resisting Normative Social Influence
The first step in resisting normative social
influence is to become aware that we are
doing it. The second step is to find an ally
who thinks like we do.
Normative Social Influence
• Resisting Normative Social Influence
Additionally, if you conform to group norms
most of the time, you earn idiosyncracy
credits that give you the right to deviate
occasionally without serious
consequences.
Normative Social Influence
• Minority Influence: When the Few
Influence the Many
Moscovici (1985) argues that a minority can
affect change in the majority. The key to
this is consistency over time and consistent
unanimity among members of the minority.
Obedience and Conformity in
Everyday Life
• Candid Camera Video (For each episode,
think about why people might be
conforming and what kinds of social
influence strategies might be operating.)
• Face the Rear: Why are people
conforming?
• Influence Tactics (kids and ice cream)
• Picketing against everything with nothing:
• Delaware closed today:
Who is most likely to conform?
• Adolescents
• Women are slightly more likely than men, but the
difference is very small and depends on the
specific type of situation.
• Cultures valuing interpersonal harmony (e.g.,
some cultures in Asia, Africa, and South
America)
• People with low self-esteem are more likely to
conform than those with high self-esteem.
Age and Conformity
• Adolescents are most likely to conform.
• Berndt (1979): Students in grades 3, 6, 9,
and 12 reported on how they would react if
their friends tried to get them to see a
movie, help a new kid on the block, cheat
on a test, soap windows on Halloween, or
do other things. Conformity increases
from 3 to 6th and peaks at 9th grade. A
little lower by 11-12th grade (but not much)
Gender and conformity
• Gender: Might think women would be
more easily influenced than men. But it
turns out that whether gender differences
occur depends on how comfortable
men OR women are with the task.
• More masculine content, women conform
more.
More feminine content, men conform
more.
Compliance
• Mindlessness/Automatic Pilot
• Langer & colleagues (1978):
• IV: How phrased request:
– Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the
xerox machine? (No reason) (60%)
– ....because I’m in a rush. (real reason) (94%)
– ...because I have to make some copies (illusion of
a reason) (93%)
• DV: Percent agreeing to request
Compliance
• Regan (1971) Norm of reciprocity
• IV: Confederate acts likable or dislikable
• IV: Confederate buys P a Coke without being
asked OR does not buy P a Coke OR E buys
P a Coke
• DV: Whether or not Ps buy raffle tickets and
amount spent on them
• Results: Ps bought more raffle tickets when
confed did a favor, regardless of whether
confed was likable or dislikable.