Obedience
Obedience can be defined as __________
following an order given by someone who has a recognized authority over you.
(other relevant responses accepted)
Conformity is _______________
The way we adjust our behavior to align or agree with the majority.
Behavior that benefits others at a potential cost to ourselves is known as ________________.
Prosocial Behavior
__________ and __________ factors can help explain collective and crowd behavior.
social
dispositional
What is the difference between an agentic state and an autonomous state?
Agentic state = when we see ourselves as an agent or representative of a legitimate authority who is responsible for our actions.
Autonomous state = when we see ourselves as independently and freely carrying out actions that we, ourselves, are responsible for.
In his research on Conformity, Solomon Asch identified two kinds of influences. _________ which is based on the desire to be correct, and ________ which is based on the desire to be liked / fit in with the group.
Informational Social Influence
Normative Social Influence
_______ and ________ are two dispositional factors that influence bystander intervention.
Similarity to the victim (how much we identify with the person in need) and expertise (how capable we feel in dealing with an emergency)
Identify and briefly describe 2 dispositional factors that can influence human behavior in crowds.
Personality: internal (individual responsibility) vs external (circumstances and situations are responsible) locus of control.
Morality: our sense of right and wrong based on our culture values and/or what the individual believes to be just.
According to Milgram's Agency Theory, when a legitimate authority instructs us to do something that we are uncomfortable with, it causes _____ _____ which induces us to make an _______ ______ or assume that the authority is taking responsibility for our actions.
moral strain
agentic shift
In Asch's conformity studies he identified 3 social factors that influence conformity to the majority. 1) _________. 2) __________. 3) ___________.
1) Group Size (positive correlation between group size and conformity levels)
2) Anonymity (if one is allowed to respond anonymously, conformity levels drop dramatically)
3) Task Difficulty (positive correlation between task difficulty and conformity levels)
What are two social factors that influence prosocial behavior in bystanders?
The Cost of Helping (a cost-benefit analysis around how much time / effort will it take and how dangerous it is to help)
The Presence of Others (there is a negative correlation around the number of other people present and how likely we are to help)
Identify and briefly describe 2 social factors that influence behavior in crowds.
Deindividuation: Occurs in crowds when an individual can be more anonymous, feels themselves as part of a crowd, and may surrender their will and/or personal responsibility.
Culture: Individualistic cultures (ex: U.S., Britain) where individuals are expected to be more independent vs Collectivist cultures (ex: China, Vietnam) where group harmony is the main value.
Social Loafing: People are more likely to be less responsible when part of a group.
According to Milgram's theory, what are 3 social factors that influence obedience?
Authority (the natural respect we have for legitimate authorities such as the police, parents, teachers, etc.)
Culture (collectivist cultures are focused on social harmony and tend to respect authority figures more, whereas individualistic cultures value freedom and independence more).
Proximity (distance from the authority figure tends to influence levels of obedience)
Describe Asch's research on conformity:
Aim: Asch investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority would result in conforming behavior.
Method: Asch put a naive participant in a room with 7 confederates. He used a task in which participants were asked to match a single line on the right with one of 3 lines on the left (A, B, or C). The answer was always obvious. On the "critical trials", all 7 confederates would intentionally give a wrong answer. Asch measured the number of times the naive participants would conform to the majority (even though they knew the answer was wrong).
Results: Naive participants conformed to the majority at least once 75% of the time.
Describe Piliavin's (1969) 'Subway Study':
Aim: To investigate prosocial behavior based on the type of victim ("drunk" or "injured")
Method / Procedure: A field experiment with over 103 trials (over 2 months) on a 7.5-minute subway ride in NYC. A confederate "victim", either "sick" or "drunk", would collapse while 2 other confederates sat on the train observing. A 4th confederate would step in to help the "victim" if no one helped after 70 or 150 seconds.
Results: The "ill victim" with a cane received spontaneous help 95% of the time and the "drunk victim" received spontaneous help 50% of the time.
Conclusions: Bystanders feel empathy for people in an emergency but also tend to do a cost-reward calculation depending on the "victim's state".
If you were designing a field experiment to investigate prosocial behavior / bystander behavior, how would you set it up (Aim / Procedure)?
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According to Adorno's Authoritarian Personality Theory, what are the dispositional factors that influence obedience? How did he measure this?
Adorno asserted that it was our upbringing that influenced how likely we are to be obedient to authority (how strict, rigid, and demanding our parents were). Adorno measured authoritarian characteristics with his F-Scale Test.
Evaluate the research method used in Asch's conformity study:
Strengths of Lab/True experiments are that they are high in internal validity as they control for extraneous variables and can demonstrate cause and effect relationships. Asch was able to use social pressure (the 7 confederates giving the wrong response on an obvious question) as an IV to measure its influence on the DV which was the number of times a naive participant conformed despite knowing the answer was wrong. A weakness of lab experiments is that they are low in ecological validity. Asch used an artificial task (the line matching exercise) which doesn't reflect real-world situations.
Evaluate the research method used in Piliavin's Subway Study:
Field experiments are high in ecological validity and mundane realism (external validity). Piliavin was able to observe and quantify how people naturally reacted to the confederate (drunk vs. injured condition) and the context in which strangers exhibit prosocial behaviors. However, this research method cannot control for extraneous variables or the sample of (unwitting) participants that happened to be present (low internal validity) in the subway cars during the experiment. Also, a lack of reliability/repeatability and ethical considerations around deception are also potential weaknesses.
If you were designing an experiment to investigate social loafing, what research method would you use? Why? Write an alternative and null hypothesis for your study while operationalizing your independent variable(s):
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