Chapter 7: Conformity Part 2: Oct. 15, 2010

Minority Influence on Conformity: – How can nonconformists influence others? – Style: consistency hypothesis – Personality predictors of conformity?

Compliance Make direct requests of us & hope we comply – Differs from conformity: – Sometimes we mindlessly comply Strategies for compliance? – Use the reciprocity norm – repay someone a favor Immediate vs. delayed effects?

Sequential Requests: – Foot-in-the-door technique: start w/small request Example? Based on self-perception? – Lowballing technique: get agreement 1 st then change the deal (increase request) Example? – Door-in-the face technique: start w/big request likely to be rejected, then smaller request Contrast effect?

Obedience Compliance through direct orders. – Examples of people who have followed strong leaders & engaged in disturbing behaviors… Milgram’s research on obedience: – Controversial set of experiments on obeying authority and causing others’ pain (1963) – 1 subject, 1 confederate, 1 experimenter at Yale for study on punishment & learning – Subject must ‘teach’ confederate list of words – Punishment?

What were the ‘teachers’ instructions? How did confederate (‘learner’) react? – What happened if confederate protested? Results? Next study - confederate with “heart problem” – What % still complied?

See Fig 7.7 – Impact of situation on obedience rates: Location Experimenter characteristics Closeness to victim Disobedient others