Social Influences: Conformity, Compliance, And Obedience
In a society where each individual is held up against unrealistic expectations it is undeniable that people often compromise themselves to fit into the social norms of society. Social roles and social norms are the root in which much of social influence takes place. Social influence is the act by which an individual's emotions, attitudes, and behaviors are altered when interacting with another individual or a group who are perceived to be similar or desirable. Social influence dictates many areas of our lives and various greatly from one culture to another.
Social influence has three main components: conformity, compliance, and obedience. Conformity occurs when an individual changes their behavior to be consistent with the social norms. …show more content…
When a person is conforming they are being influenced to change their attitudes and or beliefs, even though they might find it inappropriate. There as several reasons as to why someone might conform to a certain group. Some of the reasons include: need to feel wanted and liked by a group and desire to be a part of the "in" group. An example of this aspect of social psychology is an experiment done by Solomon Asch (1950s). Asch conducted an experiment to investigate whether people would conform to the majority when given questions with obvious answers. For his study participants were asked to identify which of the three comparison lines on the right matched the length of the line in the left photo. In each test group there was only one true participate, while the remaining participants were confederates. The confederates were told to give the wrong answer for a majority of the trail. Asch's study showed that 75% of the true participants conformed to the majority on at least one trail ("Simple Psychology", n.d). This study showed that an individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group, this is known as public conformity. Even though an individual might privately disagree with the group they feel the need to pretend to agree in public. Asch believed that people do this so they don’t feel like the "odd man out" or stupid in front of their peers.
The concept of compliance is very similar to conformity. Compliance is a type of social influence that involves a direct request from one individual to another. This request can be either verbal or non-verbal, but can be effective either way. Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist, found that people may use different methods of gaining compliance known as the "weapons of influence". These different methods are based on six principles which are; friendship and liking, commitment or consistency, scarcity, reciprocity, social validation, and authority (McLeod, 2014).
Within these six principles there are four techniques a person can use to ensure compliance.
The foot-in-the-door technique begins with a small request which leads to a larger request. An example of this technique could be a friend asking for a ride home after practice, this could be a small reasonable request. A couple weeks go by and you’ve noticed that you’ve been driving your friend home almost every day after practice. The lowball technique is when a target accepts a "low-cost" offer only to find out later there are additional hidden costs. An example of this technique could be buying a phone on sale and later on finding out you have to pay a cancellation fee, installation fee, and an additional insurance fee. The next technique is the door-in-the-face technique in which the requester makes an offer that it much larger than the target offer in hopes that the final offer will have the appearance of the requester doing the target person a favor. An example of this would be a car sales man selling a car twice the initial price in hopes that if they drop the price the target person would buy it. The fourth compliance technique is that’s-not-all-technique in which an initial request is followed by adding something that makes the offer more attractive. An example of this technique would be going to the store and seeing a “two for the price of one” sign. This technique makes you feel as if something extra is getting thrown in for free but in reality it’s
not.
The last component of social influence is obedience. Obedience is the compliance with the orders of an authority figure. Stanley Milgram took it to himself to study why and how an authority figure could have so much control over a group. His study was generally aimed towards the Holocaust and why Germans were so willing to kill Jews. Milgram study tested whether or not people would obey an authority figure when given the instructions to harm another human being ("Simple Psychology", n.d). To test this he put a “teacher” and a “learner” into separate rooms. The teacher was asked by the experimenter who wore a lab coat (the authority figure) to administer electric shocks whenever the learner gave a wrong answer. Each time the learner gave a wrong answer the shock voltage increased, from 15 to 450 volts. The results of his experiment were that 65% of all participants, the teachers, were willing to go all the way up to 450 volts. Milgram’s work gives social psychologist a better insight to why people under Hitler authority were so willing to kill Jews when given the order. Another thing that Milgram gained from this experiment was that when participants were told that the authority figure will take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they almost always participated. But when participants were told that they have responsibility for their own actions almost all didn’t obey.
Jim Jones and the members of the Peoples Temple serve as a haunting example of just how far obedience can go. In 1978, Jones convinced his followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid which led to nearly a thousand of his followers committing mass suicide in the Guyanese capital (Gritz, 2011). Jones was a cult leader who influenced innocent people with his outrageous ideas. This proves that obedience depends on the perceived level of authority.
There is a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role. Zimbardo
In a society where each individual is given unrealistic expectations it is undeniable that people often compromise themselves to fit into the social norms of society. Experiments from Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Philip Zimbardo all show the effects and consequences social influence has on individuals.
Social influence has three main components: conformity, compliance, and obedience. Conformity occurs when an individual changes their behavior to be consistent with the social norms. …show more content…
When a person is conforming they are being influenced to change their attitudes and or beliefs, even though they might find it inappropriate. There as several reasons as to why someone might conform to a certain group. Some of the reasons include: need to feel wanted and liked by a group and desire to be a part of the "in" group. An example of this aspect of social psychology is an experiment done by Solomon Asch (1950s). Asch conducted an experiment to investigate whether people would conform to the majority when given questions with obvious answers. For his study participants were asked to identify which of the three comparison lines on the right matched the length of the line in the left photo. In each test group there was only one true participate, while the remaining participants were confederates. The confederates were told to give the wrong answer for a majority of the trail. Asch's study showed that 75% of the true participants conformed to the majority on at least one trail ("Simple Psychology", n.d). This study showed that an individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group, this is known as public conformity. Even though an individual might privately disagree with the group they feel the need to pretend to agree in public. Asch believed that people do this so they don’t feel like the "odd man out" or stupid in front of their peers.
The concept of compliance is very similar to conformity. Compliance is a type of social influence that involves a direct request from one individual to another. This request can be either verbal or non-verbal, but can be effective either way. Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist, found that people may use different methods of gaining compliance known as the "weapons of influence". These different methods are based on six principles which are; friendship and liking, commitment or consistency, scarcity, reciprocity, social validation, and authority (McLeod, 2014).
Within these six principles there are four techniques a person can use to ensure compliance.
The foot-in-the-door technique begins with a small request which leads to a larger request. An example of this technique could be a friend asking for a ride home after practice, this could be a small reasonable request. A couple weeks go by and you’ve noticed that you’ve been driving your friend home almost every day after practice. The lowball technique is when a target accepts a "low-cost" offer only to find out later there are additional hidden costs. An example of this technique could be buying a phone on sale and later on finding out you have to pay a cancellation fee, installation fee, and an additional insurance fee. The next technique is the door-in-the-face technique in which the requester makes an offer that it much larger than the target offer in hopes that the final offer will have the appearance of the requester doing the target person a favor. An example of this would be a car sales man selling a car twice the initial price in hopes that if they drop the price the target person would buy it. The fourth compliance technique is that’s-not-all-technique in which an initial request is followed by adding something that makes the offer more attractive. An example of this technique would be going to the store and seeing a “two for the price of one” sign. This technique makes you feel as if something extra is getting thrown in for free but in reality it’s
not.
The last component of social influence is obedience. Obedience is the compliance with the orders of an authority figure. Stanley Milgram took it to himself to study why and how an authority figure could have so much control over a group. His study was generally aimed towards the Holocaust and why Germans were so willing to kill Jews. Milgram study tested whether or not people would obey an authority figure when given the instructions to harm another human being ("Simple Psychology", n.d). To test this he put a “teacher” and a “learner” into separate rooms. The teacher was asked by the experimenter who wore a lab coat (the authority figure) to administer electric shocks whenever the learner gave a wrong answer. Each time the learner gave a wrong answer the shock voltage increased, from 15 to 450 volts. The results of his experiment were that 65% of all participants, the teachers, were willing to go all the way up to 450 volts. Milgram’s work gives social psychologist a better insight to why people under Hitler authority were so willing to kill Jews when given the order. Another thing that Milgram gained from this experiment was that when participants were told that the authority figure will take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they almost always participated. But when participants were told that they have responsibility for their own actions almost all didn’t obey.
Jim Jones and the members of the Peoples Temple serve as a haunting example of just how far obedience can go. In 1978, Jones convinced his followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid which led to nearly a thousand of his followers committing mass suicide in the Guyanese capital (Gritz, 2011). Jones was a cult leader who influenced innocent people with his outrageous ideas. This proves that obedience depends on the perceived level of authority.
There is a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role. Zimbardo
In a society where each individual is given unrealistic expectations it is undeniable that people often compromise themselves to fit into the social norms of society. Experiments from Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Philip Zimbardo all show the effects and consequences social influence has on individuals.