Should Research into social influence be banned?

Paul Anstey 02/05/07

Should Research into social

influence be banned?

In this report I will look at whether conformity studies are justifiable, both ethically and scientifically, and what conclusions can be drawn from them. I will be looking in detail at experiments carried out by Milgram, Ash, Moscovici and a few others, and discussing whether they are ecologically, ethically and scientifically valid. In doing this I will consider the ethical guidelines and try to decide whether there was a need for them to be broken and if it was essential for the experiment.

The key guidelines are consent/informed consent, deception, and protection from harm. In some experiments however it is hard to decide whether a guideline has been broken or not and which one it would be. I will describe and explain each experiment in some detail and then come to a conclusion at the end of the report explaining my view on whether research into social influence should be banned.

Milgram 1963 (Teacher/Learner)

Aim: To investigate how far people will go to obey an authority figure.

Method:

Subjects were gathered using applications in a newspaper, and were all voluntary. They were told the nature of the experiment was to investigate the effects of punishment on learning. The subjects were always ‘Teachers’ (chose by a fixed lottery) and who they thought were other participants as the ‘Learners’ were actually actors. There were 40 males from ages 20-50 and were paid $4.50 just for turning up.
The subjects were put into a generator room where they had a switch board type thing in front of them with a number of buttons all with increasing levels of voltage upon each of them, going up to 450 volts.
They were told to give the participant in the other room a shock of electricity for every wrong answer to a memory question. The shocks increased in voltage after every question.
The learner would give a response to the shocks i.e. a scream, depending on the voltage and the subject would hear it through an intercom.
At 300volts the learner (an actor) was to thump on the wall followed by no further reply.
The experimenter finished whenever the subject reached 450volts, or they no longer wished to carry on.
The subject was then debriefed thoroughly as to the real nature of the experiment, and re-introduced to the learner in a friendly way, to show there was no actual damage to him, as he hadn’t actually received any shocks at all.

Apparatus:

Two rooms in Yale University were used, one for the learner- containing an electric chair, and an answering device. The other was for the teacher and the experimenter with an electric shock generator.

The generator didn’t actually give electric shocks, however it was convincing because it had a row of 30 switches ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, and was marked with effects such as- ‘slight shock’ through to ‘danger: severe shock’ and ‘ XXX’

Results:

The experimenters asked psychology and professional colleagues what they thought the percentage of people that would administer the highest level of shock-450volts, would be and they came up with 1-3 percent, with a mean of 1.2%.

The levels of obedience actually shown were; 65% of participants administered 450 volts, and no subject stopped before 300volts.

They asked the subjects how painful the last shocks you administered to the learner were? And 13.42 out of 14 said ‘extremely painful’ on the scale.

Also the experimenter was close to the participant and when he gave instructions over the telephone, obedience dropped. As well as when there was a group of teachers in the room the obedience dropped because the experimenters power was spread amoungst them all. This is called Diffusion of Impact.

This is also seen where there were two subjects and only one of them would read the questions.-they felt less responsible.

Also when the subject was put into the same room as the learner the obedience decreased because they could see the learner and his responses.

Theories:

Milgram suggests that when faced with commands from legitimate authority figures we lose our sense of responsibility for our own actions and become the ‘agents’ of others’ wishes. This is known as the Agency Theory. Thus the high levels of obedience found in Milgram’s experiment was due to the experimenter taking responsibility ...

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This is also seen where there were two subjects and only one of them would read the questions.-they felt less responsible.

Also when the subject was put into the same room as the learner the obedience decreased because they could see the learner and his responses.

Theories:

Milgram said that agency involves a cognitive shift in viewpoint that results in people changing from an Autonomous state where they feel in control and responsible of their own actions, to an Agentic state where they regard themselves as an ‘instrument for carrying out another persons wishes’.

The point of the Agentic State is to allow human hierarchy social systems to work properly, because if people didn’t automatically yield to those of a higher status then society would be unorganised and unable to achieve its collective goals properly, or not at all. The Agentic State Theory is just a definition of what we see in every day life and in nature all the time. Animals follow this also, and it has been observed, as has it in the human species.

Milgram proposed that the Agentic State was a product of evolution and pointed out how we constantly submit to those in authority from the moment we are born, e.g. parents.

The Agentic state can account for the horrific acts committed in the name of obedience- soldiers who have committed atrocities, arguing they were only following orders and were not responsible for their actions.

Criticisms:

The experiment breaks ethical guidelines of informed consent, deception and protection from harm.
Some of the participants suffered long term effects.
The experiment only studied young male Americans, which isn’t a full representation of society.
Done quite a long time ago and society has changed since then with more emphasis on the individual.
The experimenter could have given the participants ‘cues’ as to what the experiment was about and how to act, as he was stern and pressured them.
It could be argued that not all was done to minimise the effects as someone actually had a heart attack and caused people to have seizures.
The experiment was carried out in an unnatural environment and we could say that the results were not a true reflection on obedience.

Ethical Problems and Defence:

Informed Consent- Participants should give their full consent to the experimenter that they agree with what is going to occur during the experiment, which is what they all did in Milgram’s experiment, however they only agreed to what they thought was going to happen and to what they thought that the experiment was about, which turned out to be incorrect as it wasn’t about how punishment effects learning. However there are ways in which one can overcome this guideline.

One way was to obtain views about the experimental procedures and aim etc. from other people and find out what they think. You can then presume that if the others say it is acceptable, that, that is what the participants would say. Therefor you don’t actually have to ask them. Another way is to thoroughly debrief the participants about the real nature of the experiment etc. Milgram did both of these before he carried out his experiment.

Deception- Participants were not told about the real nature of the experiment at the beginning of it, and were instead told that it was a study of how punishment effects learning. However as Milgram argued, the experiment would lack realism if this wasn’t the case. Also it is said that ‘The ends, justifies the means’. This says that if the end result (what you gain from the experiment is of significant importance) and justifies the means (The procedure of obtaining this) then the experiment is acceptable. Brown confirms this.

Protection from Harm:

Baumrind was one who criticised Milgram for the severe distress he caused as one person had a heart attack and another had a severe seizure. He said all other participants could have suffered from guilt or loss of self-esteem.

However participants recovered well and 84% of original participants said they were glad to have taken part in the experiment and Milgram arranged for 40 to see psychiatrists who reported that there were no signs of them having been harmed.

Very few complained however this could be due to ego and not wanting to sound silly. In other words they wanted to conform to the ‘norm’.

Justification:

The results from Milgram’s study are very important to society and prove that people do conform to authority. They also tell us how people might resist social influence, as there were low percentages of it. People have independent behaviours, which involves the true rejection of social influence to behave in accord with one’s own internal attitudes regardless of whether they coincide with the influences.

Anti-conformity involves resisting social influence by deliberately opposing the majority and refusing to behave like them. This behaviour is still affected by society however.

We may do this for reasons like Group Identity, psychological reactance, and Socialisation.

Scientific Justification:

Orne and Holland (1986) argued that the experiment lacked experimental validity as the subjects thought the learner would not actually come to harm. They suggested that they were involved in ‘pact of ignorance’ with the experimenter and obeyed in the same way a person would put their head under a guillotine which has just sliced a cabbage in two. However the participants genuine distress, their ratings of shock pain and their comments during debriefing count against this. As does the study done by Sheridan and King (1972).

Some psychologists have suggested that the experiment is an artificial test of obedience and therefor lacks ecological validity. Milgram argues that while there are important differences between experimental and real life obedience, there is a fundimental similarity in the psychological process at work-especially the process of Agency.

The subjects were also American, male and volunteers which is an unrepresentative sample that may have already been more obedient and helpful.

Asch 1950’s – (Line Comparison)

Aim: To see whether people conformed to social influence when the task is unambiguous and clear.

Method:

Participants were given two cards, one containing a single line and the other contained 3 separate lines all different lenghts but one was the same as the line on the other card. E.G.

They were asked to simply say aloud which line they thought was the same size as the separate one.
A control group was used first with no stooges (people who say the wrong answer) of 37 participants.
In the experimental situation there was only 1 participant and all the others were confederates working with Asch. There were usually 6-8 of these.
The participant was seated at the end of the table and was second from last to give his answer. To start with they all said the correct answers as they were obvious anyway.
On one of the comparison tasks, they all gave the same wrong answer, and continued to do this on 12 of the 18 pairs of cards.
The experiment was repeated over time with other participants.

Results:

-In the control group only 0.7% of the judgements were incorrect.

-In the real experimental situation 37% of judgements made by participants were incorrect.

-Of the 125 participants in the experimental groups, only 25% gave the correct answer in every case compared with 95% in the control group.

-The results also showed that there were participants who thought or knew that they were correct but they conformed anyway so that they wouldn’t stand out in the crowd.

Theories:

The participants could of been doing what they thought the experimenter wanted them to do, which he did, but they were also paid which is an motive. They might of thought as they were getting paid for this, they should do what they think should happen.

The experiment was done after the first World War and so there was an emphasis on being united etc, so they would conform wouldn’t they.

People feel comfortable with people they know therefor wouldn’t mind getting the answer wrong. However they were in a group full of strangers so they would feel less comfortable and would be more likely to conform to the group and not stand out. This is what is known as Public Compliance.

Criticisms:

The experiment took place in America in the 1950’s when conformity was high. This wasn’t a full range of people from all over, as people in Australia at that time wouldn’t of just come out of war and wouldn’t feel united.
The participants didn’t give informed consent about the experiment as they didn’t know what the experiment was really about.
The participants were deceived again as they didn’t know all the other people there were stooges.
The fact that it was such a long time ago means for today’s society it wouldn’t be true, because now we are encouraged to express individuality.
Did the participants do what they thought the experimenter wanted?
Didn’t have ecological Validity as it was carried out in a laboratory and not outside in every day life.
Experimenter bias was an issue as well because if they were friendlier the participants would of felt more relaxed and therefor gave the answer which they thought was correct.

Ethical Problems and Defence:

The main problem with this experiment is that it breaks the guidelines of informed consent and deception. At the start of the experiment the participants were not told about everything which the experiment was about and what would occur etc. It could be argued however that if this wasn’t the case the experiment wouldn’t have worked properly because they would then know what the experimenter wanted to happen and could of then changed their behaviour.

There weren’t many other factors which could of effected the participants like stress or seizures so Asch didn’t really need to minimise them.

Scientific Justification:

The experiment could have been effected by the way that the stooges and Asch acted towards the participants which could of caused them to be at ease or to be under more pressure. This would effect the way they answered.

It also doesn’t have much ecological validity because it was done so long ago and it was done in the laboratory.-it wasn’t a reflection on society.

Justification:

Asch’s experiment produced results which prove that people still conform when the task is clear and unambiguous. It also shows that even if a person knows that they are correct in what they are saying but the rest of the group of piers dissagrees then they will usually conform so that they won’t stand out. This is known as public compliance.

Moscovici 1969 (Blue/Green slides):

Aim: To prove that minority influence actually exists.

Method:

Participants were told the experiment was about colour perception.
32 groups of 6, each with 2 stooges were shown 36 slides of different shades of blue.
The group was asked to say aloud what colour they thought was being shown on the slides.
The stooges were told to consistently say that the slide was green.

Results:

8.4% conformity was shown, with 32% of people conforming at least once.
When stooges were inconsistent the conformity was lowered to 1.25%.
Moscovici concluded that minorities can be influential only when they are consistent.

Theories:

If some stooges kept saying they saw green it might cause the other participants to doubt whether they were right.

The inconsistency might have caused the participants not to notice it therefor not effecting their answers.

The colours Blue and Green are sometimes very similar and the participants might have actually seen what they thought was green and weren’t conforming. E.g. is Turquoise Blue or Green?

The participants could of thought that the stooges were suffering from a sight impediment of some kind.

Criticisms:

- Blue and Green are often very similar and could easily be mistaken for one another.

The levels of conformity are very low and could be due to other reasons.
The participants were deceived and the experimenter couldn’t get informed consent because it would jeopardise the whole thing.
The study was that of an irrelevant subject. I.e. it has nothing to do with every day life. It lacks ecological validity.
Demand characteristics could have made the participants answer in a way that they thought the experimenter wanted them to.

Ethical problems and Defence:

The experiment breaks ethical guidelines of Deception and Informed consent however if it wasn’t to do this, the whole experiment would be pointless.

It doesn’t have ecological validity because it is such a random subject and has no comparison to every day life.

People’s perception of colour isn’t really important and has no real use apart from that minorities can effect the majority.

Eyesight can vary from person to person and is therefor too vague.

Experimenter bias could of also played a part in the conformity and the type of attitude the stooges had would of effected the way the participants answered.

For example if the stooges were aggressive then the participants would have been more likely to conform with them so that they didn’t feel out of place or different from the rest.

The levels of conformity were so low that these other explanations to why people conformed are more reliable.

Should research into social influence be banned?

All of the experiments above have broken some guideline, and all have broken that of informed consent. However it can be argued that if this had not been so, the experiments would have no meaning as the participants would know how to act.

These experiments however help to:

explain social situations.

They give us an insight into why people conform to others beliefs or actions because they do not want to be different to society and stand out. Living examples of this are, in World War Two German soldiers killed innocent people because they were following orders.

The information the experiments give us.

The information could be used in marketing to sell a brand or type. Brands are just popular names which the public buy. People buy brands because they are ‘the best’.

school situations.

Teachers could understand students and what to do when some students are obviously following a crowd to fit in even though the person isn’t like the others.

Conformity is a hard subject to measure, and there needs to be lots of experiments to do this.