The Hazards of Conformity: Understanding Social Influence

1. Conformity I PSY 300

3. Conformity • Defined as changing one’s behaviour or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit (whether real or imagined) pressure from others.

4. Topics 50mins • Intro (5) • The Hazards of Social Influence • VIDEO: candid camera: “face the rear” (10) • Sherif’s Informational Social Influence (15) • Solomon Asch’s studies (20)

5. VIDEO: “Face the rear” segment from Candid Camera.

6. Sherif’s experiments • Muzafer Sherif (1906-1978) • 1936 experiment on Informational Social Influence: • Wanted to see how people use other people as a social ‘frame of reference’ • Used the autokinetic illusion • Subjects gradually made use of other’s responses as Social Information

7. Sherif’s experiments

8. The Asch Experiment • 1951 – 2nd most famous study in social psychology • Ostensibly a simple perceptual discrimination task – choose the matching line

10. The Asch Experiment number of confederates conformity level

11. The Asch Experiment • Reasoning is normative, rather than informational social influence. • Notably, if one confederate breaks the unanimity, if there is one dissenting voice, the dramatic effects of conformity are erased, and participants feel free to give the correct answers that seemed obvious all along.

12. Conformity II PSY 300

13. Topics • The hazards of social influence [cont] • Stanley Milgram’s studies (30) • Relation to real events – WWII and the Nuremburg trials (10) • Philip Zimbardo’s study (5) • Relation to real events - Abu Ghraib (5)

14. The milgram experiments

15. The milgram experiments • Results – proximity of experimenter • Exp. 1: Standard methodology: • No subject stopped before 300 volts (just before “extreme intense shock” label) • 26/40 (65%) ‘completed’ the experiment, going to 450 volts • Exp. 2: Experimenter communicates by phone: • Full compliance drops to 21% • Some participants ‘faked’ continuing to the experimenter • Indicates that proximity from authority figure increases dissent

16. The milgram experiments • Results – proximity of victim • Exp. 3: Proximity - Learner in same room: • Full compliance drops to 40% • Exp. 4: Touch Proximity – Teacher physically places learners hand on the shock plate: • Full compliance drops to 30% • Some participants ‘faked’ continuing to the experimenter • Together, experiments 3 and 4 indicate that proximity to victim increases dissent

17. The milgram experiments • Results – authority • Exp. 10: Moved from Yale to non-descript building: • Full compliance drops to 47.5% (still quite high) • Exp. 13: Ordinary Man (confederate) gives orders: • After experimenter leaves, a second ‘subject’ suggests that shock level moves up • Full compliance still 20% • Exp 13a: Ordinary Man takes over, Subject as Bystander: • All 16 participants protested, with 4 physically restraining him

18. The milgram experiments • Results – dissent • Exp. 15: Two authorities giving contradictory commands • Good cop/Bad cop routine • 18/20 stopped when they first disagreed • Exp. 17: Two peers (confederate) rebel, n=40 • 1st peer refuses at 150-volts, 3/39remaining quit • 2nd peer refuses, 12/27remaining quit • 4/20 (20%) fully comply

19. “behfel ist behfel”:experiment 18 • The Nuremburg trials of 1945-1949 • 24 Nazi leaders accused of: • Crimes against peace • War crimes • Crimes against humanity • Exp. 18: Peer (confederate) administers shocks • Subjects were accessory to shocking, but not pressing the button • 37/40 (92.5%) fully complied with their complicit role

20. Philip zimbardo and The stanford prison experiment • “Guards” and “Prisoners” recruited from Stanford university undergraduate population • Were paid today’s equivalent of $76/day • Zimbardo picked the 24 most ‘psychology stable’ of the 70 respondents • “Prisoners” were picked up by police, booked, and locked in the mock jail in the Psych dpt. • Role playing was so intense that experiment was cancelled after 6 days, instead of planned 2 weeks

21. Zimbardo and abu ghraib a few bad apples or a barrel of vinegar?

22. Conformity III PSY 300

23. Topics(50) • What has changed? (15) • The Wisdom of Crowds? • Interpreting Asch, Milgram and Zimbardo (15) • The logic behind the conformist bias (15) • Lessons: The value of nonconformity, the power of the situation, and the malleability of the person (5)

24. Ever since asch:What has changed? • Would Milgram happen today? • Would Asch happen today? • 1996 Meta-analysis by Bond and Smith shows a steady decline in conformity since the original Asch studies • Why? • What do these studies tell us about how we should live our lives?

25. The wisdom of crowds? • The applicability of the conformity experiments • The disingenuousness of the studies • Milgram’s strange use of authority. • Asch’s strange use of confederates. • Sherif’s misleading autokinetic illusion task.

26. The wisdom of crowds? The slaughtered Ox By rembrandt

27. The wisdom of crowds?

28. Factors influencing collective wisdom • Diversity of opinion: • Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts. • Independence: • People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them.

29. lessons • The perils and promises of social influence: • The freedom of ideas and the diversity of opinion is a social good – a benefit to everyone. Restrictions, legal or simply normative, on this freedom costs everyone. • A balance must be struck between obedience to social norms and civic life, and retaining the integrity to dissent from illegitimate authority – to see “no sir, I will not continue, and if you ask me once more, you’d better put your glasses down”