Psychological need to be accepted: If someone persistently refuses to agree with the group, he or she is frequently rejected and ignored. Humans have the need to be in groups and have people to relate to, we all need some form or companionship, and for this reason most of us tend to tweak our attitudes slightly if these cause people to not want to be around us.
Psychologists have been carrying out studies to investigate this since the 1930’s to investigate how this occurs and what affects these behaviours.
Conformity:
The main experiment carried out to analyse the way in which people conform was the one carried out by Solomon Asch first carried out in 1951; this experiment was put in place to investigate how people follow the group norm even though they know that the group was obviously in the wrong this is how the experiment took place:
The participants were given with an unmistakable task, a line judgement task. Participants were presented with two cards. One had on it a 'standard' line: on the other were three comparison lines. They were asked to judge which of the comparison lines were equal in length to the standard line.
Below I have included the image they where presented.
This was done with a control group of 37 people, where the pressure to conform was removed. It was also done with an experimental group containing 6-8 confederates and 1 participant, who was second to last to answer. At first the confederates gave the correct answer, and then they changed to giving the same agreed wrong answer.
The results where that, in the control group 35 of the participants made no errors, 1 made a single error. Only 0.7% of the judgements were incorrect.
In the experimental groups 37% of the judgements were incorrect. Of the 125 participants, only 25% gave the correct answer every time, compared to the 95% result from the control group.
This was clearly a case of normative social influence, as participants did not want to stand out or to risk group disapproval. It was a case of public compliance. The power of majority influence was shown as participants sweated and squirmed.
Current affairs:
A good current affair example of conformity could be the incidents which took place in Abu Ghraib which I discussed in detail within task 1.It is possible that not all the soldiers that got involved in these horrendous activities would of done this if they hadn’t felt a group pressure to do so.
Obedience:
Obedience can be easily confused with conformity and sometimes the meaning can seem very similar but the main difference is that in obedience differently to conformity you are actually instructed to do something and what you personally think about it or is you disagree is irrelevant whereas in conformity you aren’t told to do anything you are choosing to behave in a way that will most probably comply with what you believe that the majority would rather you do.
In obedience you are being told what to do by someone of a higher status than you. In conformity you feel the psychological need to be accepted by others.
I would personally define obedience as the action of following the instructions received by a superior, regardless of your personal feelings towards this.
Being ordered or instructed to behave in a specific way: Obedience involves a person in authority telling you to do something or to behave n a specific way. You may not want to do this but as you are in a lower rank to the person ordering you have to carry these activities out regardless of your personal views. An example may be for example within the RAF a person in a higher rank may say to you “Get rid of those side burns” and although you may not want to you will do this. This shows that you are moulding your behaviour to what you are told to, regardless of what you personally want.
Ordered by someone in higher authority: If somebody that was in the same social level s you and had the same authority as you, ordered you to do something you didn’t want to do, you would be much less likely to carry this request out. In obedience it is important that the person giving the order has authority over the person being ordered.
Involves social power and status: You are more likely to obey somebody’s commands if you believe them to have more social power and status than you. You will see them as higher class people and will want to be respectful and follow their orders. A great example of this is that within Milgram’s study it was found that people were more likely to obey if the person in charge was looked more professional or more important, in this case it was if they wore a white coat (doctors) this gave them a sense of importance and power.
I will now write about two social studies carried out to investigate how people obey to authority and what affects this. Firstly I will explain an experiment carried out by Milgram.
He placed a newspaper advertisement offering $4.50 for an hours work, in response to this an individual turns up to take part in a Psychology experiment investigating memory and learning. He is introduced to a stern looking experimenter in a white coat and a rather pleasant and friendly co-subject. The experimenter explains that the experiment will look into the role of punishment in learning, and that one will be the "teacher" and one will be the "learner." Lots are drawn to determine roles, and it is decided that the individual who answered the ad will become the "teacher." (The drawing of lots was rigged, so that the actor would always end up as the "learner.")
Your co-subject is taken to a room where he is strapped in a chair to prevent movement and an electrode is placed on his arm. Next, the "teacher" is taken to an adjoining room which contains a generator. The "teacher" is instructed to read a list of two word pairs and ask the "learner" to read them back. If the "learner" gets the answer correct, then they move on to the next word. If the answer is incorrect, the "teacher" is supposed to shock the "learner" starting at 15 volts.
The generator has 30 switches in 15 volt augmentations; each is labelled with a voltage ranging from 15 up to 450 volts. Each switch also has a rating, ranging from "slight shock" to "danger: severe shock". The final two switches are labelled "XXX". The "teacher" automatically is supposed to increase the shock each time the "learner" misses a word in the list. Although the "teacher" thought that he/she was administering shocks to the "learner", the "learner" is actually a student or an actor who is never actually harmed.
It was found that at times, the worried "teachers" questioned the experimenter, asking who was responsible for any harmful effects resulting from shocking the learner at such a high level. Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to accept the response and continue shocking, even though some were obviously extremely uncomfortable in doing so.
The theory that only the most ghastly monsters on the merciless fringe of society would submit to such cruelty is disclaimed. Findings show that, "two-thirds of this studies participants fall into the category of ‘obedient' subjects, and that they represent ordinary people drawn from the working, managerial, and professional classes (Obedience to Authority)." Ultimately 65% of all of the "teachers" punished the "learners" to the maximum 450 volts. No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts.
Here I have included an image of how the experiment was laid out:
Milgram also conducted several follow-up experiments to determine what might change the likelihood of maximum shock delivery. In one condition, the touch-proximity condition, the teacher was required to hold the hand of the learner on a "shock plate" in order to give him shocks above 150 volts.
The most interesting finding from this follow-up experiment is that 32% of the subjects in the proximity-touch condition held the hand of the learner on the shock plate while administering shocks in excess of 400 volts. Further experiments showed that teachers were less obedient when the experimenter communicated with them via the telephone versus in person, and males were just as likely to be obedient as females, although females tended to be more nervous.
There was another main study carried out to analyze obedience in a real life scenario, this was done in a hospital with nurses. It was conducted in the following way the study was set in a psychiatric hospital in the America. The participants were 22 nurses on night duty.
An unknown 'doctor', who was a confederate, telephoned the hospital and spoke to a nurse. He instructed them to give medication to a patient. The medication was a drug with a maximum dosage of 10Mg (which was shown on the label of the bottle). The doctor instructed the nurse to give a dosage of 20Mg to the patient and said that he would sign the relevant authorisation papers when he arrived in the hospital in 10 minutes time. It was hospital rules to not take these kinds of orders on the telephone.
This was done with each of the 22 nurses. The result was that 21/22 of the nurses obeyed the telephone instruction and began to prepare the medication before they were stopped and the situation was explained to them.
