Conformity and Obedience - Related Studies and Their Relevance in Modern Society.

by louise761 (student)

Task 2

This essay will look at social influence and explore the concepts of conformity and obedience looking at related studies and their relevance in modern British society. The term social influence refers to the way social situations can influence our behaviour and beliefs. This essay will focus particularly on the reasons and the extent to which people conform to group pressure or majority influence and obey the orders of authority figures.

David Myers (1999 cited in Cardwell et al. 2004, p.155) described conformity as “a change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure” this is something most people can identify with; the feeling that we are under pressure to act a certain way so that we are accepted or do not stand out of the group. There are two main reasons why people conform; Normative Social Influence – wanting to be liked or accepted by the group and Informational Social influence – not wanting to be wrong or seem out of place.

In Asch’s original 1951 experiment he wanted to test whether people would give an incorrect answer because of the influence of the group even though there was a clear correct answer (Lawton et al, 2011, p155). To test this Asch used 50 male college students as naïve participants. Believing that they were taking part in a vision test, the participants were put into groups with 6 other male students who were confederates of the experimenter. They were each shown two cards; one test card showing one vertical line and another showing three vertical lines of varying length. One of the three lines was always obviously of equal length to the test line. They were asked to call out in turn which of the three lines they thought was the same length as the test line. The naïve participants were always last but one to answer. In 12 of 18 trials the confederates gave a unanimous incorrect answer, these 12 trials were called the critical trials. Participants conformed on 32 per cent of the critical trials, 74 per cent of participants conformed at least once and no participant conformed on all of the critical trials. In post-experimental interviews Asch found that some participants said they conformed because they didn’t want to look silly or be the minority even though they knew they were giving an incorrect answer. These participants were affected by normative social influence; they conformed so that they would be accepted by the group. However most participants said they conformed because they thought that their perception of the lines must have been inaccurate as everyone else had seen something different. This is informational social influence; the participants questioned their own judgement because they felt the majority could not be wrong.

Although Asch’s study provided a controlled way of measuring conformity, there are some criticisms of his research. This type of situation is unlikely to occur in everyday life, showing the experiment lacks ecological validity. Another criticism is Asch’s limited sample of participants. Not only does this sample not represent cultural differences; non-Western cultures like Japan and China are generally more likely to conform than Western cultures like the USA (Gross and Rolls, 2003). But also, a group of all male college students may be more or less likely to conform because they are among their peers. As people in ...

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Zimbardo et al (1971) conducted an experiment that aimed to investigate how readily people would conform to social roles and whether brutality of prison officers was due to the individual’s personal characteristics or the prison environment (Simply Psychology [online]).

Zimbardo et al (1971) selected healthy, emotionally stable, male volunteers to take part in a two week experiment. The volunteers were randomly assigned roles of prisoner or guard. Prisoners were then arrested by local police, blindfolded and taken to a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University where they were issued with prison uniform and a prison number. The guards wore military-style uniforms with reflective sunglasses and carried a truncheon and handcuffs.

The experiment was abandoned after just six days as the guards conformed so enthusiastically to their role, becoming aggressive and abusive towards the prisoners. After guards tackled an initial rebellion two days into the study the prisoners because submissive and began to develop signs of depression and anxiety. Some prisoners showed such severe symptoms that they were released from the experiment early.

Zimbardo’s study was very effective with high ecological validity; it showed the power of the situation over an individual. Although Zimbardo et al produced an informed consent contract which explained what would happen in the experiment, they could not have predicted the results and therefore the participants were not fully protected against psychological harm, raising ethical issues. Even Zimbardo himself began to conform to his role as prison supervisor showing a loss of objectivity, many feel that the experiment should have been stopped before sixth day. The work of Zimbardo et al is still relevant in modern society; the recent prisoner abuse by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib shows how situational factors can influence an individual. None of the soldiers had previously shown any signs that they were capable of this type of behaviour but Zimbardo argues that “the same psychological processes – deindividualization, anonymity of place, dehumanisation, role-playing and social modelling, moral disengagement and group conformity – that acted in the Stanford Prison Experiment were at play in Abu Ghraib” (Dittmann, 2004 [online])

Obedience is when a person “…acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure” (Cardwell et al, 200, p.154). We are taught from a young age that we should obey the orders of authority figures; in school for example we obey the orders from our teacher. Blind obedience is when a person follows an order without thinking about the consequences, this often happens because the person following the order feels that the authority figure is somehow responsible for their action. This is called agentic shift.

A key study of obedience is that of Milgram (1963). Milgram wanted to test how far ordinary people would go to follow orders, would they cause harm to another individual because they were ordered to do so? 40 males aged between 20 and 50 were paid $4.50 to participate in what they believed to be a test of the effects of punishment on learning. The naïve participants were given the role of teacher and a confederate played the role of learner. The teacher watched as the learner was strapped to an electric shock device and was then taken into another room where he would test the learner’s ability to memorise pairs of words. The teacher would administer increasing electric shocks for each incorrect answer starting at 15volts and increasing to 450volts. If the teacher hesitated the researcher would encourage him to continue. The confederate never actually received any electric shocks but pleaded with the teacher not to continue as he had concerns about his heart condition. All the participants gave a shock of at least 300volts and 65 per cent gave the maximum shock of 450volts. Most participants displayed signs of anxiety (nervous giggling, twitching and tapping) but continued to obey the researcher.

Milgram’s experiment provided the basis for further research into obedience, helping to establish reasons for obedience and factors which affect obedience levels. The study was criticised for being unethical due to the stress caused to participants, however during follow up procedures many participants claimed they were “glad they had taken part because they had learned something important about themselves” (Cardwell et al, 2004, p.173). Another interesting find was the effect of the encouragement from the authority figure, when the researcher reassured participants that they were not responsible if anything happened to the learner, they were more willing to continue with the shocks. This shows that agentic shift may have played a part in the participants obedience, the participants seemed to up their responsibility in the belief that if anything went wrong it would be the fault of the authority figure who gave the order.

Hofling et al (1966) conducted an experiment to investigate the obedience levels of nurses in a hospital environment. Hofling et al (1966) arranged for an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses at different hospitals in the USA and tell them to administer a 20mg dose of ‘Astroten’ to patients. Astroten (which was not actually a real drug but a harmless placebo) was not included on the wards stock lists, and had clear instructions on the label that the maximum dose was 10mg. 21 of the 22 nurses obeyed the order from the unknown doctor and administered the 20mg dose despite the fact that this was double the maximum dose of a drug that was not permitted for use on their wards and it was not policy to accept instructions over the telephone.

Hofling’s study had high ecological validity (Cullis, T. Dolan, L. & Groves, D. 1999, p324) as it was conducted in a real-life setting; the nurses were acting as they would normally act and so it produced very reliable results that supported Milgram’s research. It was criticised for its lack of informed consent as none of the nurses were aware that they were part of an experiment. Although Hofling’s research provided some interesting results we should acknowledge that cultural factors would have had a huge affect on Hofling’s findings. This study was conducted in 1966, a time when woman would have been more accustomed to obeying the orders of men due to gender inequality. Also, the training that nurses receive now is of a much higher standard than in the 1960s.

These key studies give us an insight into the way social situations affect the individuals’ behaviour. The change in culture since these studies were conducted has been quite significant, we are a much more liberal and individualist society, meaning these studies are not as relevant as they once were. However it is interesting to see that this research is still very significant, especially that of Zimbardo et al (1971). Recent events such as Abu Ghraib show individuals can and indeed are influenced by the situation and those in authority. As a society our respect for authority figures is not as great as it was in the 1950s and 1960s but perhaps our desire to be accepted by both our peers and those in authority has not changed as much as we might think.

Louise Weatherall

Access to HE

Psychology – Task2