Study Points Conformity AS ALWAYS BE ABLE TO APPLY ALL OF THESE CONCEPTS TO YOUR LIFE 1 Is conformity a good or bad thing Conformity is both a good and bad thing Good Bad Standing in line for your turn Leaving a tip for service Showing team spirit at a game joining in racist behavior drinking and driving Sometimes indifferent wearing black to a party 2 How is conformity culturally specific views are culturally dependent Ex wearing kilts to a wedding if your Scottish middle eastern women dressing conservative 3 Why would we have evolved the tendency to conform we enjoy people acting in similar ways keep us with the group Informational influence our behavior is shaped by the evidence about reality that we get from other people E g how do I use the subway in Tokyo Likely to result in acceptance 4 How do mirror neurons relate to conformity brain is activated when we watch others 5 What is the chameleon effect picking up behaviors accents expressions etc Participants set up to work with an experimenter Half the time experimenter was neutral Other half experimenter mimics the participant Ps like the mimicker significantly more 6 What are mass delusions How are the examples from the textbooks examples of mass delusions Know the specific types mentioned collective delusions spontaneous spreading of false beliefs This appears as mass hysteria the spread of bodily complaints within a school or work place with no organic basis for the symptoms ex hysteria of children at school for dizziness headaches and drowsiness After investigators checked they found nothing Weeks after 9 11 children were breaking out with hives with no apparent cause The rash spread by line of sight People got the rash as they saw other people getting it dry skin acne eczema amplified by anxiety In Europe in the middle ages there were reports of imitative behaviors At one time humans believed animals could possess them and one nun began to meow like a cat Also flying saucer example Mass Psychogenic Illness the belief you will get or already have an ailment someone else has You give it to yourself by believing it s there The rash Flying Saucers Windshield damage Hijackings Suicides 7 What were the methods and findings of Sherif s vision experiment Vision perception experiment Subjects sat in a dark room and viewed a light Alone in groups of 3 viewed a yellow light Took advantage of autokinetic effect Gave estimates of movement at the end of each day In groups of three they were able to talk to each other Indiv estimates varied Group sessions over time began to conform to one group norm 8 What were the methods and findings of Asch s conformity experiments You join 6 others sitting at a table for a visual perception task Indicate which of 3 comparison lines is identical to a standard line there are three lines give answers outloud first two trials are unanimous right decreased participants began to conform the wrong answer even if they knew they were when asked to write answers instead of say outloud conformity was greatly Subjects went along with incorrect majority 37 of the time 75 of participants conformed at least once 9 What factors decreased conformity in Asch s experiments when it was a private answer rather than outloud outloud social acceptance 10 What are the two types of conformity when do they happen and what type of conformity do they create Informational People assume majority is correct Private acceptance Normative People fear social rejection Public compliance 11 How and why do the following affect conformity a Group size A small group can have a big size 3 to 5 people will elicit much more conformity than just one or two Increasing the number of people beyond 5 yields diminishing returns b Unanimity All you need is that one other person c Cohesion extent to which members of a group are bound together We are more influenced by those we feel close to Family affiliations Ethnic affiliations Activity related affiliations d Status Higher status people have more impact e Public response People conform more when responses are given publicly Think about this as it effects Jury decisions Voting behavior Survey responses g Prior Commitment from text After making a public commitment people stick to it Prior commitments restrain persuasion too 12 What were the methods and findings of the staring at the sky study Milgram 1969 Confederates simply looked up at a 6th Story Window in the middle of crowded NYC street Varied number of confederates looking up As Figure 6 6 shows the percentage of passersby who also looked up increased as the number looking up increased from 1 to 5 persons 13 What does the book say about reactance and what are some examples of it The theory of psychological reactance that people act to protect their sense of freedom is supported by experiments showing that attempts to restrict a person s freedom often produce an anticonformity boomerang effect In one field experiment many nongeeky students stopped wearing a Livestrong wristband when nearby geeky academic students started wearing the band Likewise rich Brits stopped wearing Burberry caps after the caps caught on among soccer hooligans Reactance may contribute to underage drinking A survey of 18 to 24 year olds by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse 1997 revealed that 69 percent of those over the legal drinking age 21 had been drunk in the last year as had 77 percent of those under 21 In the United States a survey of students on 56 campuses revealed a 25 percent rate of alcohol abstinence among students of legal drinking age 21 but only a 19 percent abstinence rate among students under 21 Engs Hanson 1989 14 What do the Galinsky 2008 and Quinn 2002 studies say about whether conformity always works What are their methods and results Does conformity always work Galinsky et al 2008 Ps assigned complete power prime or control All Ps complete sentence completion task DV Rating of sentence completion task Some participants see others ratings highest percentage had ratings from others Quinn Schlenker 2002 When held accountable for outcome P s did not conform to wrong 15 What major 20th century event influenced the ideas behind Milgram s obedience decision studies Holocaust Nazis 16 What were the methods and findings of Milgram s obedience study One person is the teacher the other is the learner Rigged so that the P is always the teacher Procedure teacher shocks the learner for errors Shocks increase in 15 volt increments up to 450 How far will
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