Seven people give the same wrong answer. Do you go along with them?

Going along with the majority

• Conformity is changing your behaviour or opinions to match a group, because of real or imagined group pressure.
• Majority influence: a larger group pressures one person, or a few, to adopt its view.
• You may go along to fit in and avoid looking odd, or because you think the group must know better.
• Conformity is not obedience: obedience means following a direct order from an authority figure.

The group and the task

• These are situational factors: features of the situation, not the person.
• Group size: with one other person giving a wrong answer, almost nobody conformed; with two, about 13% of answers; with three, about 32%. More than three made little difference.
• Anonymity: answering privately, e.g. in writing, reduces conformity.
• Task difficulty: when the lines are closer in length, conformity rises. Unsure people look to others.

What the person brings

• Dispositional factors are features of the person, such as personality.
• Self-esteem: people with low self-esteem conform more; confident people trust their own judgement.
• Locus of control: people who feel outside forces control their lives (external locus) conform more.

A stranger in uniform gives you an order. Why is it so hard to say no?

Following orders

• Obedience is following a direct order from an authority figure, someone with the power to give orders.
• Conformity is pressure from a group of equals; obedience comes from someone of higher status.
• People obey when they see the authority as legitimate: it has the right to give that order, like a police officer or a teacher.
• Symbols such as a uniform or an official building make authority look legitimate.

Agents of authority

• Milgram's Agency theory: in the autonomous state you act on your own conscience and feel responsible for what you do.
• Faced with a legitimate authority, you shift into the agentic state: you act as the authority's agent and feel they are responsible.
• This agentic shift explains why people obey orders they believe are wrong: "I was only following orders."

Authority, distance and culture

• Authority: obedience is higher when the authority looks legitimate (uniform, lab coat, official building).
• Proximity: obedience falls when the victim is closer or the authority is further away.
• In Milgram's variations, 65% obeyed fully; 40% with the learner in the same room; 20.5% with orders by phone.

The authoritarian personality

• Adorno's theory: some people have an Authoritarian Personality, which makes them highly obedient.
• Traits: strong respect for authority, rigid "black-and-white" thinking, and hostility towards people seen as lower status.
• Cause: a strict upbringing with harsh discipline and love that depended on good behaviour.
• It is measured with a questionnaire, the F-scale. People who scored high tended to be more obedient.

A man collapses on a train. Does a cane or a bottle change who helps?

When others are watching

• A bystander sees an emergency but is not directly involved. Bystander intervention is when a bystander helps.
• The bystander effect: people are less likely to help when others are present.
• One reason is diffusion of responsibility: with others around, each person feels less responsible for helping.
• The presence of others is a situational factor.

Weighing up the cost

• Bystanders weigh the costs of helping (danger, effort, time, embarrassment, disgust) against the costs of not helping (guilt, blame).
• The higher the cost of helping, the less likely people are to help.
• The cost of helping is a situational factor.
• Piliavin et al.'s arousal: cost–reward model: seeing an emergency is upsetting, and people choose whatever reduces that feeling at the lowest cost.

Who is more likely to help

• Personal factors are features of the bystander.
• Similarity to victim: we are more likely to help people we see as like us, e.g. the same age, gender or group.
• Expertise: people with relevant skills, such as first aid or medical training, are more likely to help, and to help well.
• Other personal factors include the bystander's mood and gender.

In a crowd, polite people do things they'd never do alone. Why?

Crowds can harm or help

• Collective behaviour is how people act together as part of a group or crowd.
• Anti-social crowd behaviour harms people or property, e.g. rioting, looting or fighting at a football match.
• Pro-social crowd behaviour helps others, e.g. a crowd cheering on charity runners, or strangers working together to help in an emergency.
• The same crowd processes can push behaviour either way.

Lost in the crowd

• Deindividuation: losing your sense of personal identity in a crowd.
• Anonymity (masks, uniforms, darkness, a big crowd) means you are unlikely to be identified, and responsibility feels shared.
• With lower self-awareness, you follow the crowd's norms instead of your own standards.
• The norms matter: in one study, anonymous people dressed in robes like the Ku Klux Klan gave stronger shocks than people dressed as nurses.

Personality and morality

• Locus of control: people with an internal locus (who feel in control of their actions) are less easily swept along by a crowd than those with an external locus.
• Morality: people with a strong sense of right and wrong are less likely to join anti-social crowd behaviour and more likely to help.

Most people go along. A few refuse. What helps someone resist?

Not alone

• A unanimous majority or authority is hard to resist. One other person who refuses breaks the pressure: this is social support.
• In Asch's line test, one ally giving the right answer cut conformity to about 5%.
• In a Milgram variation, when two fellow "teachers" refused, only 10% went to 450 volts, compared with 65% normally.
• A resister shows refusing is possible, so you don't stand out alone.

Preventing blind obedience

• Blind obedience: obeying without asking whether the order is right.
• Education: people who know about obedience research are more likely to question orders.
• Disobedient role models: seeing others refuse makes refusing easier.
• Personal responsibility: reminding people they are responsible for their actions keeps them in the autonomous state.
• Question legitimacy: organisations can encourage staff to ask whether an order is right, and to speak up safely.

Social and cultural issues

• Society: a community of people who share laws, institutions and customs.
• A social issue is a problem that affects many people in a society, e.g. crime, riots or prejudice.
• Culture: the shared beliefs, values, norms and customs of a group, passed between generations.
• Social influence research helps explain social issues, e.g. deindividuation in riots, or the bystander effect when nobody helps.
• Findings from one culture may not apply in another.

Big ideas

• Conformity is changing your behaviour or opinions to match a majority, even when the majority is clearly wrong.
• Situational factors (group size, anonymity, task difficulty) and dispositional factors (personality, such as self-esteem and locus of control) affect how much people conform.
• Key question, how do others affect you? A majority can change what you say, even about something obvious.
• Obedience is following a direct order from an authority figure; symbols such as uniforms make an authority look legitimate.
• Key question, how do others affect you? The situation (a legitimate authority, how close the authority and victim are) and personality (the authoritarian personality) both affect obedience.
• The bystander effect: people help less when others are present, because of diffusion of responsibility; the cost of helping also matters.
• Personal factors such as similarity to the victim and expertise make some people more likely to help.
• Key question, how do others affect you? Piliavin et al. (1969) found more help for an ill victim than a drunk one, and no diffusion of responsibility, supporting the arousal: cost–reward model.
• Crowds can produce pro-social or anti-social collective behaviour.
• Deindividuation: anonymity and shared responsibility lower self-awareness, so people follow the crowd's norms.
• Key question, how do others affect you? Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) showed uniforms and roles changed behaviour within days.
• Social support: one other person who resists makes it much easier to resist a majority or an authority.
• Ways to prevent blind obedience: education, disobedient role models, personal responsibility and questioning legitimacy.
• Debate, social and cultural issues: social influence research explains social issues such as riots and bystander apathy, but findings from one culture may not apply in another.