Social Psychology – May 6

Obedience and Conformity

Conformity – or peer pressure describes how we adjust our behavior or
thinking in order to go along with a group; involve us changing how we think
Obedience – how we follow orders and obey authority; the act of following
directions or instructions or orders without questions and without
protesting them; usually done to avoid negative consequences associated
with disobeying
Kinds of Conformity and Obedience
1. Compliance – rewards and punishment
2. Identification – desire to be like another person
3. Internalization – don’t conform publicly the behavior but we conform it
privately, stronger than the others
Kinds of Social Influence
Social Norms/ Normative Social Influence – type of social influence that we
feel when we want to avoid social rejection or we’re worried of group
disapproval and because of this we might go along with a group outwardly,
but internally we might believe something very different
Informational Social Influence – defer to the judgements of others because
we feel that they’re more knowledgeable than us about a certain topic.
Because we think they’re right, or because we think that they know
something that we don’t.
Factors that influence obedience and conformity
1. Group Size – more likely to conform when they’re in groups of three to
five, 2. Unanimity - when the opinion of the group is unanimous or when
everyone in the group agrees upon a certain opinion
3. Group status – id we admire group status we are also more likely to go
along with them
4. Group cohesion – if we have no connection or feel no connection with the
group, we feel less of a need to go along with that group
5. Observed behavior – whether or not believe when our behavior is being
observed
Internal Factors
1. Prior Commitments – if we state something upfront, then were less likely
to go against it later on
2. Feelings of Insecure – makes less comfortable about our own knowledge,
which increases the likelihood that were going to follow the judgements of
others
Factors of obedience depend on the:
1. Type of authority
2. Closeness - we are more likely to accept orders from someone we know
and respect than someone who we don’t
3. Physical proximity – participants in the Milgram’s study were much more
likely to obey the commands of the experimenter when they were standing
right behind them, as compared to when they were standing in the back of a
room or standing in a different room
4.Legitimacy – people more likely to obey commands in the Milgram study
when the experimenter was wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard, as
when they did not
5. Institutional Authority – Milgram’s study took place at a well-respected
university and you don’t really expect such places to give your harmful
commands
6. Victim distance – In Milgram’s study, participants were in a different room
than the learner or the victim so they couldn’t see him

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7. Depersonalization – when the learner or victim is made to seem less
human, possibly through stereotypes or prejudices, people are less likely to
object acting against them.
8. Role models for Defiance - were more likely to obey order when we see
others doing the same
Mood
Status
Culture