•GROUP BEHAVIOUR

Conformity: Influencing Behaviour

• Conformity: A change in behaviour due to real / imagined influence of other people

• History has shown that people will conform in extreme ways

Examples?

Jonestown

Jim Jones

Jonestown

• People’s Temple was formed in Indianapolis during the 1950’s

• Cult Leader-Jim Jones• After several investigations, Jones decided to

create a “utopian community in Guyana, where he would further cement his power over his members and far way from U.S. authorities

• In 1978, Jones leased 300 acres from the Guyana Government, creating Jonestown

Jonestown

• Jonestown population increased from 50 members in 1977, to 900 in 1978

• Many members of the Peoples Temple believed Guyana would be as Jones promised a “paradise”

• Instead there was very hard work and lack of food

• Armed guards patrolled the compound

Jonestown

• Members who attempted to escape were drugged to the point of incapacitation

• Imprisoned 2 by 1.2 by 1 m plywood box• Children and adults were made to address Jones

as “Dad” or “Father”• Children were only allowed to see their parents at

night briefly• Congressman Leo Ryan visited in 1978, to

investigate claims made by families

Jonestown

• Jones instructed followers to not speak to Ryan, except a few trusted people

• Jones gave permission to members to leave who wanted to

• Jones’s armed guards opened fire on the plane, killing Ryan and one defector

• After the shootings, Jones decided to start a mass suicide

Jonestown

• As they knew the Guyanese Defence Force would be coming soon

• Many who tried to escape were killed by Jones armed guards

• Hours after the mass suicide 913, of the 1110 inhabitants were dead, including 276 children

Heaven’s Gate

• Was the name of a cult co-led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles

• Created in 1970’s

• Applewhite convinced thirty-eight followers to commit suicide

Heaven’s Gate

• Heaven's Gate members believed that Hale-Bopp, an unusually bright comet, was the sign that they were supposed to shed their earthly bodies (or "containers") and join a spacecraft traveling behind the comet that would take them to a higher plane of existence.

Comet-Hale-Bopp

WHAT MAKES US CONFORM?

Conversions

A sudden shift in meaning of their lives based on new knowledge they have received from a group.

• New beliefs are seen as a better solution to life’s problems

Crisis

• An individual is faced with a frightening, potentially dangerous situation to which he/she is ill-equipped to respond

War of the Worlds

• The day that panicked America

• October 31, 1938

Hurricane Katrina

Conformity

Contagion• Rapid transmissions of emotions or

behaviour through a crowd (riots, mobs)

• Any time an individual is faced with ambiguous situation, they will most likely rely on interpretations of others

• Conformity: A person changes attitude or behaviour on his/her own to fulfill social norms

• Compliance: Person changes attitude or behaviour in response to another's direct request

• Obedience: Person obeys a direct order from another to perform an action

Conformity (2 types)

• Informational Social Influences (ISI) #1

• Normative Social Influences #2

Informational social influences (ISI)• When we do not know how to behave, we copy other

people. • They thus act as information sources for how to

behave as we assume they know what they are doing.

• Because we care a great deal about what others think about us, this provides a safe course of action as they cannot criticize us for our actions.

• Private acceptance occurs when we genuinely believe the other person is right. This can lead to permanent changes in beliefs, values and behaviours.

• Public compliance occurs when we copy others because we fear ridicule or rejection if we behave otherwise.

• Ex: Cliques

Informational Social Influence occurs most often when:

• The situation is ambiguous

• There is a crisis

• Others are experts. If we accept the authority of others, they must know better than us.

• Examples: Sherif

Sherif Experiment

• Sherif's experiment involved the so-called autokinetic effect whereby a point of light in an otherwise totally dark environment will appear to move randomly.

• You may have experienced the effect yourself when looking at the stars.

• Subjects were invited to estimate the amount of 'movement' they observed. They made their estimates in groups where each member could hear the others' estimates. Ultimately, the group members' estimates converged on a middle-of-the-road 'group estimate'. This would appear to show an urge to conform.

When informational conformity

backfires

• Look at War of the Worlds

• Mass psychogenic illness When groups of people (such as a

class in a school or workers in an office) start feeling sick at the same time even though there is no physical or environmental reason for them to be sick.

Resistance to ISI

• War of the Worlds – Some checked other stations and realized

that this was just a well-done show

• We decide to conform based on our definition of reality (if you accept another’s definition of the situation, you will see world as they do and vice versa)

Normative Social Influence

• The need to be liked, accepted by others.

• Where we conform to what we believe to be the social norms of the group in order to be accepted by them.

• We are social beings and positive interactions are crucial

• Ex: Asch

Asch Experiment

Asch Experiment

• In Asch's experiment, a group of people were seated around a table. Of these all but one were actually the experimenters confederates. The group was shown a display of vertical lines of different lengths and were asked to say which of the lines (card B) was the same length as another standard line (card A). One after another, the members of the group announced their decision. The confederates had been asked to give the incorrect response. The subject sat in the next to last seat so that all but one had given their obviously incorrect answer before s/he gave hers/his. Even though the correct answer was always obvious, the average subject conformed to the group response on 32% of the trials and 74% of the subjects conformed at least once.

Fashion and Fads 50s, 60s, 70s,

80s

90s

2000’s

?

Compliance

• A change in behaviour due to a direct request from another person

• It is more efficient for us to follow social norms quickly and automatically; causes fewer hassles

• Following such norms is called “mindless conformity”

Cialdini’s 6 principles of Compliance

Cialdini studies compliance techniques and suggested that there are 6 well-known norms on which many compliance techniques are based.

1. Reciprocity

• Norm: if someone does you a favour, reciprocate.

• Lending money

 2. Social Validation/Social Proof

• Norm: If you are unsure of how to act, do what everyone else is doing.

• TV show laugh tracks• Ex: everyday, people just like you are…• Millions have tried the ___• Any ad that has actors playing “regular people”

3. Consistency

• Norm: People should be true to their attitudes and prior behaviors, and not contradict themselves.

• Four-walls technique:• Surround people with their own attitudes • To sell Encyclopedias:• -Are your children important to you?• -Is your children’s education important to you?• Would you do whatever you could to aid in

your child’s education?• Then how could you not buy these

encyclopedias?

3. Consistency

• Foot-in-the door technique:

• Get the person to commit to a less expensive product, then change to a more expensive product (more quantities)

4. Liking

• Norm: If you like someone you should help him or her out.

• Ad examples: sports stars

• Canadian Elections study (1974)

5. Scarcity

• Norm: Scarce things are more valuable

• Scarcity has been called the principle that drives all economic behaviour.

• Ex: Limited time offer…• Act now, while supplies last…• Limit 2 per customer…• One-day sales…• Before time runs out…

6. Obedience to Authority

• Norm: do what authority figures say

• Ad example: 9 out of 10 dentists agree

• Using athletes to sell sport-specific products

Obedience to Authority

• Usually refers to people's willingness to obey direct requests or commands.

People will often obey those who are in authority over them.

Sometimes this type of behaviour is cause for concern.

• Milgram experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

• 1960’s, Stanley Milgram, Psychologist, Yale University

• Conducted a series of experiments on obedience • Volunteers were told they were part of a new

experiment to test the effects of punishment on learning

• They were to teach a list of 40 matching words to a learner who was to memorize them

Stanley Milgram Experiment

• The learner was strapped to an “electric chair” in an opposite room, where the teacher could hear the responses with an intercom

• Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to administer an electric shock starting at 30 volts for the first error and increasing with each error, up to 450 volts

Stanley Milgram Experiment

• The series of switches on the “shock generator” were labeled from “Slight Shock” through “Danger: Severe Shock”

• 300 volts=more than twice the household AC Voltage

• The teachers were told that the shocks might be painful but were not dangerous

• Unknown to the teachers, the learners were fake participants coached by Milgram

Stanley Milgram Experiment

• If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

• Please continue. • The experiment requires that you continue. • It is absolutely essential that you continue. • You have no other choice, you must go on.

Stanley Milgram Experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

• What were the results:

• Did teachers actually try to shock the learners? Explain Using p.268-269

Obedience to Authority

• Can be serious and tragic.

• Atrocities in the 20th Century include Germany, and Rwanda

What happens when people don’t conform?

• Three steps: monitoring, convincing, rejecting takes place

Jury wanted one juror removed and the foreperson wrote: “On behalf of the 11 jurors, we are in agreement that Juror No. 373 cannot comprehend anything that we’ve been trying to accomplish. We tried patiently to talk and work with her, all to no avail! She doesn’t use common sense. Lastly, just when we’ve made progress in final decisions, she is totally oblivious to what we’ve discussed and decided.”

When Do We Not Conform?

• Behaviour that greatly restricts the need to be an "individual"

• Some people are very reactive to infringements upon their individuality or need to be in control.

• Behaviour that shows that you are exactly like others is avoided

• Behaviour that greatly restricts degrees of personal freedom

How Do We Perceive Our Own Conformity?

• Invariably we come up with justifications for it

• Examples: It was for the greater good of the

group

Didn't want to embarrass others

ASSIGNMENT:JOURNAL ENTRY

Day of Nonconformity

• Your challenge will be to live each minute of a day in a way that is as uninfluenced as possible by conformity pressures: to appear cool, fit in with a group, or go along with others to be liked or accepted. In other words, for a full 12-hour period you should live in a way that is true to yourself, while not infringing on the rights of others.