In What Culture Is an Individuals Status More Likely to Be Conferred by Group Membership?

Group Behavior

Groups influence individual conclusion-making processes in a variety of means, such every bit groupthink, groupshift, and deindividuation.

Learning Objectives

Give examples of groupthink, groupshift, and deindividuation

Central Takeaways

Central Points

• Inquiry has identified a few common requirements that contribute to recognition of a grouping: interdependence, social interaction, perception as a group, commonality of purpose, and favoritism.
• There are both positive and negative implications of group influence on individual behavior. This influence is useful in the context of piece of work and team settings; however, it was also evident in Nazi Germany.
• Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the grouping results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome.
• Groupshift is the phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual members of a group are exaggerated toward a more extreme position.
• Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the losing of self-sensation in groups. Theories of deindividuation propose that it is a psychological state of decreased cocky-evaluation and decreased evaluation apprehension that causes abnormal collective behavior.

Cardinal Terms

• deindividuation: Individuals' loss of self-sensation when in a group.
• groupthink: A psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people, in which the desire for harmony in a decision-making grouping overrides a realistic appraisement of alternatives.

"Group behavior" refers to the ways people behave in big- or small-group situations. People join groups for a multitude of reasons, most oft because membership satisfies a need of the individual. Grouping membership can provide companionship, survival and security, affiliation status, power and control, and achievement. In that location is currently no universal description of what constitutes a group, though research has identified a few mutual requirements that contribute to recognition of a group:

• Interdependence—Individual members must depend, to some caste, on the output of the collective members.
• Social interaction—Accomplishing a goal requires some form of exact or nonverbal communication amidst members.
• Perception of a group—All members of the commonage must hold they are office of the group.
• Commonality of purpose—All members of the collective come together to attain a common goal.
• Favoritism—Members of the same group tend to be positively prejudiced toward other members and discriminate in their favor.

How Groups Influence Individual Behavior

Individual beliefs and decision making can be influenced past the presence of others. There are both positive and negative implications of group influence on individual behavior. For example, grouping influence tin ofttimes be useful in the context of work settings, team sports, and political activism. Even so, the influence of groups on the individual tin likewise generate negative behaviors.

While at that place are many means a group can influence beliefs, we will focus on three key phenomena: groupthink, groupshift, and deindividuation. Groupthink happens when group members, faced with an important choice, become so focused on making a smooth, quick decision that they overlook other, mayhap more fruitful options. Groupshift is a phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual members of a group are exaggerated toward a more extreme position. Deindividuationhappens when a person lets go of self-consciousness and control and does what the grouping is doing, unremarkably with negative goals or outcomes. We will discuss these more in detail below.

Groupthink

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs inside a grouping of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the grouping results in an wrong or deviant decision-making outcome. It has been further defined as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.

Group members try to minimize disharmonize and reach a consensus conclusion without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. Several conditions must take identify for groupthink to occur: the group must be isolated from outside influences;  loyalty must prevent individuals from raising controversial issues of alternative solutions; there must be a loss of individual creativity and contained thinking; and the group must feel the "illusion of invulnerability," an inflated certainty that the right decision has been fabricated. Typically the group is under a high level of pressure to brand a determination, and it lacks an impartial leader. These factors can lead a group to brand a catastrophically bad conclusion. Nazi Germany is often cited equally a prime example of the negative potential of groupthink because a number of factors, such as shared illusions and rationalizations and a lack of private accountability, allowed for a few powerful leaders to enlist many otherwise "normal" people in committing mass acts of violence.

While groupthink is generally accepted as a negative miracle, it has been proposed that groups with a strong ability to work together are able to solve problems more efficiently than individuals or less cohesive groups.

Groupthink: This image outlines the requirements, symptoms, and defects of groupthink in detail. Groups must be cohesive, insulated, lack an impartial leader, and homogenous, equally well as exist in a provocative, high stress situation, in order for groupthink to occur.

Groupshift

Groupshift is the phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual members of a group are exaggerated toward a more extreme position. When people are in groups, they assess take chances differently than they do when they are alone. In the group, they are likely to make riskier decisions as the shared chance makes the private take a chance seem to be less.

What appears to happen in groups is that discussion leads to a meaning shift in the position of the members to a more than farthermost position in the management they were all already leaning. A group of moderate liberals may shift from moderate to strongly liberal views when in a grouping together. A group of mildly racist people may go viciously racist when together. The theory behind this shift is that the group dynamic allows the individual members to feel that their position is correct or supported, and they will experience more comfortable taking on more extreme views, every bit other members of the group back up their initial ideas. The extreme ideas seem less risky as it appears the view is held by numerous like-minded people.

Deindividuation

Deindividuation is exactly what the word implies: a loss of i'south individuality. Instead of acting as individuals, people experiencing deindividuation become lost in a group. This often means that they will proceed with whatsoever the group is doing, whether it be rioting, looting, lynching, or engaging in cyberbullying. Some people posit that this happens because individuals experience a sense of anonymity in a group. The larger the group, the college the incidence of deindividuation, which is characterized by an individual relinquishing self-consciousness and control and doing what the group is doing. This occurs when people are moved by the grouping experience to do things that, without the group for support, they would non usually do.

It is important to distinguish deindividuation from obedience (when a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authorization figure), compliance (when a person responds favorably to a request from others) and conformity (when a person attempts to match his attitudes to group norms, versus the total relinquishing of individuality seen in deindividuation).

Obedience

Obedience is a form of social influence that occurs when a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure.

Learning Objectives

Explain how the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments informed our understanding of human obedience

Primal Takeaways

Primal Points

• Obedience is more often than not distinguished from compliance (behavior influenced by peers) and conformity (behavior intended to match that of the majority).
• In Milgram'due south experiments on obedience, 65% of participants administered a 450-volt shock to an unresponsive amalgamated, out of obedience to the experimenter, even though most of the participants felt hesitant to do so.
• In the Stanford prison experiment, participants were selected to accept on randomly assigned roles of prisoner or baby-sit in a mock prison, and they adapted to their roles beyond the experimenter's expectations.
• Higher levels of perceived prestige and closer proximity to the dominance figure are associated with increased obedience. Deindividuation and lack of expertise in the participants were as well associated with college levels of obedience.

Primal Terms

• obedience: A form of social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure.
• confederate: Someone who is office of an experiment, but who pretends to be a participant in the study.
• authority: The person or source of ability that enables the enforcement of rules and/or gives orders.
• deindividuation: A concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the losing of cocky-awareness in groups.

Obedience, in homo behavior, is a form of social influence. It occurs when a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure. Obedience is by and large distinguished from compliance (behavior influenced past peers) and conformity (behavior intended to match that of the majority). Post-obit the Second World War—and in item the Holocaust—psychologists set out to investigate the phenomenon of homo obedience. Early attempts to explicate the Holocaust had focused on the idea that there was something distinctive about High german culture that had immune the Holocaust to have place. They quickly establish that the majority of humans are surprisingly obedient to authority. The Holocaust resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies, and communists; it has prompted us to have a closer expect at the roots of obedience—in function, so that tragedies such every bit this may never happen again.

Enquiry on Obedience

Milgram

The Milgram experiment on obedience to dominance figures (1963) was a series of social psychology experiments conducted past Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. These experiments measured the willingness of written report participants to obey an authorization figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

The experiments involved a "teacher" who conducted the experiment, a participant, and a confederate who pretended to exist a volunteer. A confederate is someone who is a part of the experiment, but who pretends to be a participant in the written report. The participant believed his role was randomly assigned.

Milgram experiment setup: Analogy of the setup of a Milgram experiment. The experimenter (E) convinces the subject (T) to give what he believes are painful electric shocks to some other bailiwick, who is actually an actor (L). Many subjects continued to give shocks despite pleas of mercy from the actors.

The participants were instructed that they had to shock a person in some other room for every wrong answer on a learning job, and the shocks increased with intensity for each wrong respond. If participants questioned the procedure, the researcher would encourage them further. The person receiving the "shock" would make noises of pain, complain of heart pains, and even demonstrate seizure-like behavior.

At this point, many participants indicated their desire to finish the experiment and bank check on the amalgamated; however, most of them continued later on being assured they would not be held responsible. If at any time the participant indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was verbally encouraged to continue. If the participant all the same wished to stop after all the verbal prods, the experiment ended. Otherwise, information technology was merely halted later on the participant had given the maximum 450-volt shock iii times in a row.

Milgram's senior-level psychology students hypothesized that only a very small fraction of participants (1%) would inflict maximum voltage. In Milgram'south first set up of experiments, 65% of participants administered the total 450-volt daze, even though well-nigh were very uncomfortable doing and then. Most participants paused and questioned the experiment at some indicate, only 26 out of twoscore however administered the full shock, even subsequently the amalgamated ceased to respond. These results demonstrate that participants were willing to obey an authority figure and administrate extremely harmful (and potentially lethal) shocks.

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a report, conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in 1971, of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard and. Twenty-four males students were selected to accept on randomly assigned roles of prisoner or guard in a mock prison house situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adjusted to their roles across the experimenter'south expectations. The guards enforced disciplinarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological and physical torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to preclude it. The experiment fifty-fifty affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue.

A fraction of the way through the experiment, Zimbardo announced an end to the study. It has been argued that the results of the study demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing credo, forth with social and institutional support. The results betoken that environmental factors take a meaning touch on behavior. In add-on to environmental factors, Zimbardo attributes many of the guards' actions to deindividuation afforded past the authority position and even the anonymity of the uniforms. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal has been interpreted based on the results of this report, suggesting that deindividuation may besides accept impacted the guards' behavior in that state of affairs.

Factors Influencing Obedience

After running these experiments, Milgram and Zimbardo concluded that the following factors affect obedience:

• Proximity to the dominance figure: Proximity indicates physical closeness; the closer the potency figure is, the more obedience is demonstrated. In the Milgram experiment, the experimenter was in the same room every bit the participant, likely eliciting a more obedient response.
• Prestige of the experimenter: Something every bit unproblematic as wearing a lab coat or not wearing a lab glaze tin affect levels of obedience; potency figures with more prestige arm-twist more than obedience; both researchers have suggested that the prestige associated with Yale and Stanford respectively may have influenced obedience in their experiments.
• Expertise: A subject area who has neither the ability nor the expertise to make decisions, particularly in a crisis, volition leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy.
• Deindividuation: The essence of obedience consists in the fact that people come to view themselves not as individuals but as instruments for carrying out others' wishes, and thus no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions.

Controversy and Obedience Experiments

The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments stand equally dramatic demonstrations of the power of authority and other situational factors in human being behavior. While nosotros accept learned and continued to learn from their results, they have been incessantly controversial. At that place is e'er controversy over exactly how to interpret social psychology experiments. Man behavior is extremely complex, then there are always numerous variables to consider when interpreting such studies. Merely the ethical considerations raised past these studies are even more than controversial. Specifically, the subjects were exposed to significant short-term stress, as well as potential long-term trauma. Additionally, neither Milgram nor Zimbardo informed subjects ahead of time of the nature of their participation. While a follow-upwardly of Milgram'south participants indicated that they did not experience any long-term distress, Zimbardo'southward prison participants did. Largely as a result of these experiments, ethical standards accept been modified to protect participants.

Compliance

"Compliance" refers to a response, specifically a submission, made in reaction to an implicit or explicit request.

Learning Objectives

Explain how certain strategies and group attributes may influence compliance

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Social psychologists view compliance every bit a means of social influence used to attain goals or attain social or personal gains.
• Group strength, group size, immediacy, and similarity are all factors that tin influence compliance in an individual.
• There are a number of techniques used to gain compliance, including the foot-in-the-door technique, the door-in-the-face up technique, low-balling, ingratiation, and the norm of reciprocity.

Key Terms

• persuasion: The act of influencing one'due south opinions or beliefs.
• compliance: The trend of conforming with or agreeing to the wishes of others.

In social psychology, "compliance" refers to an private'southward amenability in response to a asking from a peer. Information technology is generally distinguished from obedience (behavior influenced by say-so figures) and conformity (behavior intended to match that of a social majority).

Compliance is considered a social miracle, meaning that the words, deportment, or mere presence of other people often plays a role in someone's conclusion whether or not to comply with a given request. The request may be explicit (directly stated) or implicit (subtly implied); the target may or may not recognize that he or she is being urged to deed in a particular fashion.

Compliance affects everyday behavior, especially in social interactions. Social psychologists view compliance as a means of social influence used to accomplish goals or attain social or personal gains. In studying compliance, social psychologists aim to examine overt and subtle social influences and their relationship to compliance. Individuals can be coaxed into compliance in a number of means, which we will talk over side by side.

Factors Influencing Compliance

Factors that influence compliance include the post-obit:

• Group strength: The more important the group is to an individual, the more likely the private is to comply with social influence. For instance, an private is more likely to comply with the requests of her sorority than her biology classmates.
• Immediacy: The proximity of the grouping makes an individual more probable to comply with group pressures. Pressure to comply is strongest when the group is closer to the individual and made of up people the individual cares about. For example, compliance with parents' wishes is more than likely if they live in the same city than information technology is if they live in another state or country.
• Number: Compliance increases every bit the number of people in a grouping increases. Importantly, the influence of adding people starts to subtract every bit the group gets larger. For example, adding one person to a big group (from threescore to 61) is less influential than calculation one person to a minor group (from iii to four).
• Similarity: Perceived shared characteristics crusade an individual to be more probable to comply with a request, particularly when the shared feature is perceived as unplanned and rare (such equally a shared birthday).

Techniques to Attain Compliance

In improver to these factors, the following techniques accept been proven to finer induce compliance from another party.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

In using the foot-in-the-door technique, the subject area is asked to perform a small request, and later on agreeing, a larger asking is made. Because the subject complied with the initial request or requests, he or she is more likely to experience obligated to fulfill additional favors. For example, Timmy asks his mom for permission to get over to John's house for an hour. She says yes, and later on he asks if he can stay the night.

Door-in-the-Face Technique

This technique begins with an initial large asking that the subject is non expected to comply with. The big request is then followed past a 2nd, more than reasonable, request. For instance, Jane asks her parents to pay for her vacation to Australia. They flat-out refuse, because it is extremely expensive. She then says, "Well, if you lot won't pay for me to become to Australia, volition you at to the lowest degree pay for me to go to New York?" Her parents are more than probable to comply with the more reasonable request, after having rejected the initial, extreme request. The same asking fabricated in isolation, however (simply request for a trip to New York), would non have been as constructive.

Low-Ball Technique

This technique is frequently employed by motorcar salesmen. Low-balling gains compliance by offering the discipline something at a low initial price. The cost may be budgetary, time related, or annihilation else that requires something from the private. Subsequently the bailiwick agrees to the initial toll, the requester increases the cost at the last moment. The subject is more probable to comply with this modify in toll since he or she feels like an understanding has already occurred.

Low-balling: Low-balling is a tactic frequently used past salesmen. They volition initially quote a deceptively depression offer and raise the price dramatically after an informal agreement has taken place but earlier a contract is signed.

Ingratiation Technique

This technique involves gaining someone'southward personal approval so they will be more likely to agree with a asking. Ingratiation can include flattery, stance conformity, and self-presentation (presenting one's ain attributes in a way that appeals to the target). For example, before Anna goes to ask for time off from her managing director, Anthony, she does a little research and discovers that he enjoys golfing. When she sees Anthony next fourth dimension, she starts out talking about her golfing trip last weekend, and later in the conversation she requests time off. Since Anna has now ingratiated herself with Anthony, he is more likely to comply with her asking.

Norm-of-Reciprocity Technique

This is based on the social norm that people will return a favor when ane is granted to them. Compliance is more probable to occur when the requester has previously complied with one of the target'southward requests.

Conformity

In psychology, conformity is defined as the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.

Learning Objectives

Explain how sure motivators and factors may influence conformity

Key Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• The 2 major motives in conformity are: 1) normative influence, or the trend to accommodate in order to gain social credence; and ii) informational influence, which is based on the want to obtain useful data through conformity and reach a correct or advisable result.
• Several factors are associated with increased conformity, including larger group size, unanimity, loftier group cohesion, and perceived higher status of the grouping.
• Other factors associated with conformity are culture, gender, age, and importance of stimuli.
• Minority influence is the caste to which a smaller faction within the group maintaining a different position on an result influences the group during decision making. This influence is primarily informational.

Central Terms

• conformity: The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.
• amalgamated: An actor who participates in a psychological experiment by pretending to exist a field of study while in actuality working for the researcher.
• norm: A rule that is enforced by members of a community.

Conformity is the most mutual and pervasive grade of social influence. It is informally defined as the tendency to act or think like members of a group. In psychology, conformity is defined as the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to grouping norms. While conformity is often viewed as a negative characteristic in American civilisation, it is very common. While high levels of conformity can be detrimental, a sure amount of conformity is necessary and normal, and even essential for a community to function. It is generally distinguished from obedience (behavior influenced by authority figures) and compliance (behavior influenced by peers).

Motivations Underlying Conformity

Conformity may issue from either subtle, unconscious influences or direct and overt social pressure level. Information technology does non require the physical presence of others to occur—that is, knowledge of public opinion may cause an individual to conform to societal norms even when lone. There are two major motivators to conformity: normative influence and informational influence. Normative influence occurs when an individual conforms in order to gain social acceptance and avoid social rejection. For example, men's and women'due south views of what the ideal body epitome is accept changed over fourth dimension. Both men and women will conform to current norms in order to be accepted by society and avoid social rejection.

Informational influence occurs when individuals seek out members
of their ain group to obtain and have accurate information about reality. For instance, if Susan lands a really prestigious, high-paying job, she is more likely to be offered similarly high-paying jobs in the future because potential employers will be influenced by their peers' previous decisions about her. The opposite outcome is true besides: if Susan has been unemployed for a long time, employers may presume it is because others take not wanted to hire her. They volition, therefore, try harder to detect flaws in her and her application.

A number of factors are known to increase the likelihood of conformity inside a grouping. Some of these are equally follows:

• Group size—larger groups are more likely to arrange to similar behaviors and thoughts than smaller ones.
• Unanimity—individuals are more probable to conform to grouping decisions when the residuum of the grouping'south response is unanimous.
• Cohesion—groups that possess bonds linking them to one another and to the group every bit a whole tend to display more conformity than groups that do not have those bonds.
• Status—individuals are more likely to conform with high-status groups.
• Culture—cultures that are collectivist exhibit a higher degree of conformity than individualistic cultures.
• Gender—women are more likely to conform than men in situations involving surveillance, but less probable when there is no surveillance. Societal norms establish gender differences that bear on the ways in which men and women accommodate to social influence.
• Age—younger individuals are more likely to suit than older individuals, perhaps due to lack of experience and status.
• Importance of stimuli—individuals may conform less frequently when the task is considered of import. This was suggested past a study where participants were told that their responses would be used in the pattern of shipping prophylactic signals, and conformity decreased.
• Minority influence—minority factions within larger groups tend to take influence on overall grouping decisions. This influence is primarily informational and depends on consistent adherence to a position, the degree of defection from the majority, and the status and self-confidence of the minority members.

Research on Conformity

Asch

Solomon Asch's conformity experiments are one of the best-known illustrations of conformity. His initial experiment in 1951 was set every bit follows. The research participant was told he was participating in a simple "perceptual" task. The participant would enter a room and sit at a table with several other people. These people were confederates, or individuals who were posing as other participants merely were really working for the researchers. The participant and confederates would be shown a series of cards that had a reference line and another card that had three comparison lines. Over the class of several trials, subjects were required to select the comparison line that corresponded in length to the reference line. The participant and confederates were instructed to provide their answers out loud, and the confederates were told to sometimes unanimously provide a right answer and sometimes an wrong answer. When Asch had the confederates all choose the same obviously incorrect answer, participants likewise chose the incorrect line 37% of the fourth dimension. In a control group with no pressure to conform, participants had an error rate of less 1%.

Solomon Asch and conformity: The image shown is an example from Solomon Asch's landmark experiment in conformity (1951). An individual was asked to country which line, A, B, or C, matched the offset line. If the other members of the grouping gave an obviously incorrect response, the participant was more than likely to as well give an obviously incorrect response (A or B).

Asch repeated this experiment with unlike experimental variables and identified several factors that influence conformity. Presence of a true partner, who was another existent participant and gave the correct response, decreased levels of conformity. Removing this partner halfway through the study caused increased levels of conformity after their deviation. Group size also influenced levels of conformity such that smaller groups resulted in less conformity than larger groups. Public responses, those that were spoken in the presence of the confederates, were associated with higher levels of conformity than private, written responses.

Sherif

Muzafer Sherif was interested in knowing how many people would change their opinions to bring them in line with the opinion of a group. In his experiment (1936), participants were placed in a dark room and asked to stare at a small dot of light 15 anxiety away. They were and so asked to guess the corporeality it moved; still, there was no existent motion. Perceived motion was caused by the visual illusion known as the autokinetic effect. On the kickoff day, each person perceived unlike amounts of movement, as they participated in the experiment individually. From the 2nd through the fourth solar day of the report, estimates were agreed upon by the group. Considering there was no actual movement, the number that the grouping agreed on was a direct effect of group conformity. Sherif suggested this was a reflection of how social norms develop in larger society.

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