Conformity is defined by David Myers 1999 as ‘a change in behaviour or belief as a results of real or imagined group pressure’ But Zimbardo defines it as a ‘tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of other members of a group’Different people maybe agree with one definition more so than with the other but it is generally thought as the act of going along with conforming to the social norms that their groups and societies have evolved.Minority social influence is when small minorities, or even dissenters, have influenced majority opinion. These people maybe dismissed initially by the majority as eccentrics or extremists.
However, under certain circumstances, these small groups or individual can eventually become very influential.Obedience is a type of social influence where somebody acts in response to a direct order from another person Cardwell 1996. Obedience may sometimes be destructive, as when people comply with the orders of a malevolent authority. Milgram comments on the happenings from 1939 – 1945 in Germany; a perfect example of obedience.
Where people were slaughtered on command, gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, etc. These policies originated in the mind of a single man but they were carried out by millions who followed his orders.b Outline the procedures and conclusions of one study of obedienceMilgram carried out several studies of obedience but his original was the most shocking.Milgram got 40 male participants by paying them $4. 50, to take part, in 1960. The men thought that they were taking part in a study to do with learning and memory, and in what way punishment was involved.It took place in a university in the USA. The experimenter wore a grey lab-coat to reinforce his authority.
The participant was introduced to someone else and it was ‘randomly’ chosen who would be the ‘teacher’ and who would be the ‘learner’. It was arranged so that the participant was always the teacher.The learner was asked questions and everytime he got one wrong the participants job was to shock him. The shocks ranged from 15volts to 450volts, the voltage increased with 15volts every time the learner got a wrong answer.
The learner was not really being shocked. The teacher was told that the shocks were painful but not dangerous, even though the 450volts button was labelled ‘Danger: severe shock XXXConclusions included that obedience levels could be manipulated by controlling the situational variables, for example when the experiment was tried in seedy offices in a nearby town 47.5% of the participants obeyed.When participants were unsure of what the consequences were they tended to obey, when the participants were forced to see as well as hear the consequences of their actions, they were less likely to obey.
When they were less closely supervised, when they were given support from other ‘teacher’, and when the experimenter instructed from another room obedience levels also declined, however when some one flipped the switches for him obedience levels soared.c Describe two psychological processes that might be involved in obedience.One of these Psychological processes in Gradual Commitment. This means that the participants were sucked gradually into the experiment, slowly giving greater and greater levels of shock.
They found it difficult to decide when to disengage from the procedure because each voltage increment was fairly small. This is explained by the desire to appear consistent. There is the possibility that participants felt ‘contracted’ to help out with the study. They saw themselves as helpful individuals lending a hand to scientific research, but by refusing to comply they might have to re-evaluate this flattering self-perception.
Another psychological process we can refer to is the use of buffers. In this case the word is referring to any aspects of the situation that protected people from having to confront their actions.Along with other factors buffers helped people, reducing the strain of obeying immoral or unethical comments, and so facilitating obedience.In the original Milgram study, the ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’ were in different rooms, the participant did not have to see the learner so he did not have to witness the consequences of his actions.
‘Not only does research into the psychology of obedience have little application to the horrors seen in wartime, but the abuse of the human participants in such research must also be ethically unjustifiable’To what extent might we justify obedience research such as that carried out by Milgram and others?Critics of Milgram have accused him of deception and subjecting the participants in his obedience studies to psychological harm. Others have defended his actions by referring to the importance of his findings and to the extensive debriefing and follow up procedures he employed.Orne and Holland are two of which had many arguments against Milgram’s study. They thought that the situation within Milgram’s laboratory bore little resemblance to real-life situations where obedience is needed.
But there are several studies that indicate otherwise. For example Hofling et al 1966, which showed that blind obedience could occur just as readily in real life.They arranged for nurse participants to get a call from a ‘doctor’, someone that they wouldn’t recognise, and were told to give a patient 20 miligrams of a drug called astroten, so that it would take effect before he arrived. By obeying what this stranger told her to do she would be breaking four hospital rules; giving twice the maximum dose for that drug, giving a drug not on the ward stock for that day,taking a telephone instruction from an unfamiliar person,acting without a signed order from a doctor.
Despite this, 95% of the nurses started to give the patients the medication. When asked about it later they all said that they had asked to do that sort of thing before and doctors got annoyed if they didn’t do it.Rank and Jacobson repeated this experiment adjusting a few things; the nurses were told to give an overdose of a common drug, valium, they were allowed to interact and the Doctor on the phone gave the name of a real doctor who worked at the hospital. Only two out of 18 nurses started to give the drug.
Rank and Jacobson concluded that ‘nurses aware of the toxic effects of a drug and allowed to interact naturally will not administer a medication overdose merely because a physician orders it.’Baumrind 1964 brought up the argument that the Milgram study was unethical; the participants could not give informed consent to be part of the experiment because the true nature of it was not to be revealed, they were deceived and it is possible that they may suffer long-term psychological damage, because of the lethal shocks that they were willing to give to people. They would also probably not trust psychologists or people of authority in the future.
On the other hand when Milgram collected questionnaires that he had given out after the experiment he found that 84% were glad they had been involved and claimed it had been an enriching and instructive experience, 74% said they had learned something of personal importance, only 1.3% reported negative feelings. Further more, a year after the study took place a psychiatrist interviewed the participants and no psychological damage was reported.
After each experiment Milgram explained to the participant the true nature behind the study. He explained to obedient participants that they were normal, as the majority of people conformed and he explained to the disobedient participants that they’re behaviour was socially desirable because they stood up against a malevolent authority figure, telling them to do something that they felt was wrong.When the study was carried out there were no ethical guidelines to be followed so Milgram, it seems, did his best to protect his participants from harm.
