Over 60% of participants continued to shock the subjects even when they screamed out to stop. Also 65% went to levels that would have been lethal to the learners. This experiment just shows to what extreme people will go to when told to. They understood that they were in an experiment but they were led to believe that the shocks were real and they were still prepared to administer lethal electric shocks to strangers with a heart problem just because they were told to. Obedience clearly has a strong social influence.
Other experiments have been conducted in order to show how far people will obey outside of an experiment. In 1966 Hofling et al. conducted an experiment in a hospital. The experimenter would ring nurses acting as a doctor which they did not know. They then ordered the nurses to give a double dosage of a non-prescribed drug to the patients. On the bottle for the prescription it clearly stated that this dosage could be fatal. However 21 out of 22 nurses (95.5%) were stopped by an observer just before they were about to administer the drugs. When asked, the nurses responded by saying that nurses-doctor relationships are important and that doctors can be become angry when not obeyed. In another experiment carried out by Bushman in 1988, a woman at a parking meter was instructed to fumble for change, when other people approached they were order by the experimenter to give the first women a nickel. She constructed this experiment three different times, each time changing her clothes. The first time she was dressed in uniform, the second a suit and on the third occasion she was dressed as a panhandler. Most people gave the money when order by a woman dressed in uniform. These just show the power of a uniform. When we see a figure of authority we are less likely to question their orders even if we don’t agree with them.
There have also been a considerable amount of experiments carried out focusing on conformity. The most famous were Sherif’s study of social factors in perception and Asch’s study of group pressure on judgment. In 1937 Sherif carried out what he called the Autokenetic effect: when a stationary spot of light in a dark room appears to move. He found that when he put subjects on there own the estimates of movement for the light were widely differing and that they were able to come to their conclusions fairly quickly. However, when groups of 2 or 3 people where put into the same situation then there estimates were very similar as they all conformed to the group norms present. There was no reality involved and therefore no ‘right’ answer. The whole experiment was an illusion. When it is unclear how to behave, individuals look to others’ behavior. We conform to others behavior because we believe they know more about the correct way to behave. Once individuals had been in both conditions when returned to the isolated condition they retained the same group norms as before even though they were now alone.
Asch’s study in 1951 consisted of a group of 8 people all sat around a board with three different length lines on, they were then given a piece of paper each with one of the lines on. They were then asked to say which line matched the one on their piece of paper. Out of the 8 participants only one was real the others were part of the experiment. The real subject always sat in the seventh chair, Asch then went around asking everyone for their answer, they were to announce it publicly without any discussion. Each member was instructed to give the same wrong answer, so that when it came to the real participant he had to decide between giving the right answer or fitting in with the group and conforming to the norms. 12 out of 18 times the incorrect answer was given. In this case it shows that people conform because they want to feel part of a group and to be accepted or liked.
Obedience occurs in situations in which persons change their behavior in response to direct commands from others. Usually, the individuals who issue such orders have some means of enforcing submission to them; they hold power over those they command. Surprisingly though, direct orders can frequently be effective in altering others behavior even when person who employ them actually possess little or no authority over the other person. Conformity occurs when individuals change their behavior in order to comply with already existing social or group norms. This means that groups, clubs or societies possess the ability to mold its members. Throughout life people strive to be accepted and loved by others, from our earliest days we learn that agreeing with the people around us, and behaving like they do causes them to like us. We tend to praise when they see similarities with themselves in other people. Obedience and conformity are forms of social influence which are the basis of every day life. People don’t really know how they will behave in many situations; this is shown from the experiments. Most normal people don’t think they could administer electric shocks when merely told to do so. This just shows how the situation that people are faced with are extremely influential in determining their behavior. People are driven by social acceptance and so in order to gain these goals they conform to those around them in the same way people are openly obedient to those they believe to be I a position highly than that of themselves.
References
Robert A. Baron, Exploring Social Psychology (1988)
Colin Fraser, Introducing Social Psychology (1986)
Nicky Hayes, Principles of Social Psychology (1995)
Margaret Wetherall, Identities Groups and Social Issues (1996)
Alfred Lindesmith Social Psychology (1999) 8Ed.
