Destructive obedience: resisting its effects (LO 8.13)

1. If one is reminded that they, not the authority figure, will be held responsible for their actions, they are much less likely to obey.

2. One also needs to be reminded that once they reach a certain point, blind obedience is no longer appropriate. The use of disobedient models can help, because these individuals refuse to give in to the authority figure’s demands to obey.

3. If one begins to question the motives of the authority figure, they may be better able to resist obedience.

4. In addition, knowing the findings of obedience research in social psychology can help people resist the harmful effects of unquestioned obedience.

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8A: Conformity in College (LO 8.2)

Have your students reflect on their experience with adhering to social norms. What are the current norms for college students? Is the pressure to conform implicit or explicit? Would they define peer pressure the same now as when they were in high school?

8B: Facing a Unanimous Majority (LO 8.8)

Asch’s (1951) studies clearly illustrate the impact that an ally can have on resisting conformity. Facing a unanimous majority alone can be a daunting experience, especially a hostile majority. For example, take the case of Shannon Faulkner, the first woman admitted into the all-male military academy, The Citadel.

After quitting The Citadel, she was quoted as saying, “Even if just one female had been there with me, there would have been someone to share it [stress] with….”

“People don’t know how much hell I’ve been through.” (1995, August 28). Newsweek. p. 40.

8C: Three Basic Appeals Used in Advertising (LO 8.10)

Makosky (1985) suggests asking students to bring in magazines so they can identify the three basic appeals used in advertising. The first of these appeals is “the appeal to or creation of needs.” It is based on four of the needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. Examples include:

• “Snickers: get a hungerectomy” (physiological needs)

• “Carbonite computer backup: safe, simple, always on” (safety and security needs)

• “Axe touch body spray: she’ll want your touch ” (belongingness and love needs)

• “Fuji Flim: You don’t have to be a pro to take pictures like one.” (self-esteem and status needs)

The second group is “social and prestige suggestion” appeals—buy it because all kinds of people do.

Examples include:

• the “Pepsi generation”

• Michael Jordan for Wheaties, various famous athletes for light beer

The third, and most subtle, kind of appeal is “loaded words and images.” Examples include:

• ads with attractive, athletic people touting snacks like Snickers candy bars

• the use of buzzwords such as “green” for beauty products or foods

• “light” in order to make all kinds of foods seem dietetic

• the BMW emblem, which suggests wealth and status

When discussing the ads, other questions for groups to consider are: What kinds of ads appeal to men and

Makosky, V P. (1985). Identifying major techniques of persuasion. Teaching of Psychology,12, 42-43.

8D: Messages Behind Today’s Cults (LO 8.10)

To discourage stereotyping cult members as gullible losers looking for eternal salvation, Zimbardo (1997) offers the following observations based on his years of research on cults:

• No one ever joins a “cult.” People initially join groups that fulfill their needs. Groups become more cult-like when they begin using deceptive and dangerous tactics on their members.

• Cults offer people values that may be missing in society. Thus, in some cases, society may be failing its citizens.

• Many people today live in a transitional state—thus a cult offers a false sense of stability.

• Anyone is vulnerable to engage in immoral, destructive behavior if the situation overrides their individual dispositions.

• Cults do not use exotic forms of mind control; rather they use common compliance strategies with greater intensity and persistence.

Zimbardo, P.G. (1997, May). What messages are behind today’s cults? APA Monitor, 29, p. 14.

8E: Everyday Examples of Compliance Strategies (LO 8.10)

Ask your students to generate a list of compliance strategies they have experienced in their everyday lives. For example, has anyone tried to buy a car and once they have a deal with the salesperson, the manager changes it? Has anyone given in to “one-day sales” for fear that prices would skyrocket the day after the sale?

8F: How Banning Items Can Have the Opposite Effect (LO 8.10)

When I (D. Miller) was younger I received a telephone call from one of my friends. He told me that he just heard on the news that Wal-Mart was removing a particular album from its stores because of explicit lyrics. He also told me that he went to our local record store to buy the above mentioned album before this store also removed it from their shelves, even though he had never heard of the album or the particular artist. Discuss with your class how banning albums or video games can actually make them more attractive to children because of scarcity and reactance.

8G: Can People Influence us When They are Not Even Present? (LO 8.11)

Throughout this chapter, we have been talking about how others can influence us to behave in certain ways, but can these people influence us when they are not even present. Surprisingly the answer seems to be yes! For example, how often have you decided to say home and study instead of going out with friends because you thought that was what your parents would like you to do. Thus, your parents didn’t even have to be there to tell you to study to influence your behavior, just thinking about what they would like you to do influenced your behavior. This type of social influence is known as symbolic social influence.

8G: Can People Be Trained to Become Torturers? (LO 8.13)

Numerous studies in social psychology have shown how everyday people can commit unthinkable acts caused by the step-by-step power of the situation. Many of the same mechanisms manipulated in

laboratory studies have been shown to underlie the origins of human torture and slaughter (Staub, 1989).

In one study, Gibson and Haritos-Fatouros (1986) investigated the procedures used to train Greek military police to become willing torturers. They discuss such foot-in-the-door techniques as:

basic training

• physically brutal initiation rites

• swear allegiance to symbol of authority reducing sensitivity to torture

• recruits had to endure torture and scream chants about violence and killing systematic desensitization and social modeling

• recruits gradually exposed to prisoners (bring food)watch veterans torture and get rewardedparticipate in group beatingseventually perform solo beatings

Gibson, J.T., & Haritos-Fatouros, M. (1986). The education of a torturer. Psychology Today, 20, 50-58.

Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

8H: Personality and Obedience (LO 8.13)

Are certain people more likely to obey an authority figure? Researchers (e.g., Adorno, 1950) found that people high on authoritarianism—tendency to adopt a submissive attitude toward authorities and an intolerance for weakness—were more likely to show obedience. A quick measure of authoritarianism consists of the following items:

1. What young people need most of all is strict discipline by their parents.

2. Most people who don’t get ahead just don’t have enough willpower.

3. A few strong leaders could make this country better than all the laws.

4. People sometimes say that an insult to your honor should not be forgotten.

Christie, R. (1992). Authoritarianism and related constructs. In J. Robinson, P. Shaver, & L. Wrightsman (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes. San Diego, CA: Academic Press (pp. 501-572).

8I: How Psychology Can Help Explain the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse (LO 8.13)

Americans were shocked by the photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, and many wanted to know why “seemingly normal” people could have behaved so sadistically. Have your students talk about what the Stanford prison and Milgram experiments tell us about what happened in Iraq. How do these experiments help to explain what was seen in the photos out of the Abu Ghraib prison?

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A8.1: Conforming to Voice Amplitude (LO 8.2)

This exercise can demonstrate the often subtle nature of conformity.

Procedure

Note: Tape the session without students’ knowledge by placing a tape recorder where you can see it, but the students cannot.

1. Begin a lecture talking in an unusually low voice approaching a whisper.

2. While the tape is running, elicit questions and comments from class members.

3. As the lecture continues, slowly begin to raise your voice until it goes well above its normal level, again asking for questions and comments.

Results & Discussion

• Before playing back the tape, ask the students if they are, at this point, aware of conforming to subtle pressure applied by you.

• Pick out a few students you have on the tape and ask each if he or she felt any pressure to conform to your voice amplitude. If they deny it, play the tape back for her or him.

A8.2: Norm Formation Using a Time Estimation Task (LO 8.4)

To demonstrate how norms are formed, Montgomery and Enzie (1971) suggest doing a quick test of time estimation. Have your students do the following:

Procedure

1. Ask them to remove their watches and refrain from looking at the clock and from counting to themselves.

2. For the first trial tell them, “I am going to give you a time interval and I want you to write down how long you think it was on a piece of paper” (use a 45-second interval).

3. For the second trial, use the same 45-second interval, but this time ask your students to give their responses publicly, one by one, and write them down in a column on the board.

4. Collect the papers from the first trial and write down the estimates in another column on the board.

Results & Discussion

• Typically, you find much lower variation in the public condition. You can discuss such issues as normative and informational social influence, as well as potential variations to this

exercise (e.g., friends vs. strangers, high vs. low status, etc.).

Montgomery, R.L., & Enzie, R. F. (1971). Social influence and the estimation of time. Psychonomic Science, 22, 77-78.

A8.3: Symbols for the Study of Aesthetics (see Handout 8-1) (LO 8.2-8.4)

Before getting into the conformity material, tell your students that you would like to replicate an experiment on “aesthetics.”

Procedure

1. Tell them you are interested in comparing results of an aesthetics study from this class with the results from previous classes.

2. Prior to distributing Handout 8-1, pick one symbol for each row (e.g., 1-C, 2-A, etc.).

3. After distributing the handout, tell the students that for each row, previous students tend to find one symbol more interesting than the others. Tell them which symbol (randomly chosen by you) was rated highest for each row.

4. Then ask the students to pick the symbol they think is the most interesting and intriguing for each row. Then ask the students to exchange sheets and score each other’s sheets.

5. Beginning with row 1, call out the “previous students’ favorite” and tell them to circle the number for each row that matches the previous students’ favorites.

Results & Discussion

• After collecting the sheets, explain that actually the symbols were picked at random. Report to the class the percentage of students who “agreed” with the “phantom” student responses at least six out of ten times.

• Similar to Asch, you may find that at least 30 percent of students will have “gone along” in a majority of the ten cases. Explain to them how the previous students may have been exerting subtle pressure on them to make the same choices they supposedly made.

A8.4: How Do We Treat Nonconformists? (see Handout 8-2a and 8-2b) (LO 8.2-8.4)

To determine how nonconformists are treated, Schachter (1951) asked a small group of subjects to determine the fate of Johnny Rocco, a juvenile delinquent. One of the subjects was confederate (a young Bibb Latané) who was instructed by Schachter to pick a deviant, unpopular response and refuse to give in to group pressure. Needless to say, Bibb’s nonconformity led the group to dislike him the most.

To replicate this finding, Goethals (1998) suggests having your class work on a similar scenario. The step-by-step procedure is as follows:

Procedure

The Set-up (do this the class before you do this exercise)

1. At the end of class as students are leaving, wait until there are a handful of students remaining (these will be your confederates). Ideally you want one confederate in each group (5 people per group).

2. Briefly explain to them the scenario (i.e., Reggie is a juvenile delinquent who has gotten into trouble with the law—you must determine the severity of his punishment) (see Handout 8-2a).

3. To ensure the confederates pick an unpopular response, tell them to choose the most severe punishment (#7; see Handout 8-2b).

4. Tell them they will be discussing the level of punishment in small groups, and that no matter how much pressure they feel to conform, they should stick with their initial, extreme response. (To help them, I suggest arming them with arguments such as: society needs to be protected, punishment is needed to unlearn the crimes, and Reggie took advantage of the system.)

The Big Day

5. Instruct your students to get into small groups of five (make sure each confederate is in a different group).

6. Distribute Handout 8-2a and Handout 8-2b to each student and have them read the scenario individually. Then ask them to discuss as a group what punishment Reggie should receive. Tell them their goal is to try to reach consensus as a group.

8. Tell each student to individually rank each member of the group from highest to lowest on “who you would most likely want to serve on a jury with.”

9. When everyone is finished ranking, ask them “how many of you ranked #5 lowest?”

Results & Discussion

• Typically I (G. Schreer) find that over 80% rank #5 the lowest. After telling the class that I planted a nonconformist in each group (much to their surprise), an insightful discussion ensues on how we treat those who dissent from the majority. Below, one nonconformist sums up the feelings of many:

“I became quite uncomfortable when peers that I respect, became a bit disgusted by my stubborn answer. I completely agreed with every idea that the group brought to the table, yet I had to pretend that I did not care. I refused to conform, and the process was unexpectedly discomforting. I felt extremely nervous and just wanted everyone else to know that I was not a cruel, heartless person. When the class discussed the results, it was a relief to finally give my true feelings, and the

‘thick air’ began to dissipate.”

Adapted from Goethals, G.R. (1998, January). Presentation at the 20th National Annual Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg, FL.

Schachter, S. (1951). Deviation, rejection, and communication. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46, 190-207.

A8.5: Resisting Conformity (LO 8.8)

One way to resist conformity is to increase the need for individuation or personal freedom. Bernstein suggests you can show this by telling your students, “I can easily demonstrate how predictable and compliant people are. Everybody raise your pens and when I say drop them, drop them in unison.”

Usually the majority of the students will resist conforming.

A8.6: Foot-in-the-Door Technique (2 separate classes needed) (LO 8.10) This exercise can illustrate the foot-in-the-door technique.

Procedure

1. Control Group: Ask students to write their phone numbers on the cards and place them in a receptacle by the door as they leave. Then ask if they are willing to “donate two out-of-class hours of their time to a colleague’s research project.”

2. FITD Group: In another class, ask your students to stay beyond class time for a few minutes to help you with your research. After class, simply write a phone number on the board and indicate a time to call that is convenient to you or your assistant. Make sure that this process only takes a couple of minutes. To those who call, ask whether they are willing to “donate two out-of-class hours of their time to a colleague’s research project.”

Results & Discussion

• Compare the number of cards you collected with the number of affirmative answers from both groups. Theoretically, the number of students who volunteer to participate in the two-hour out-of-class “research” should be greater for the FITD group because they were exposed to the multiple requests.

A8.7: Using Compliance Techniques for Flu Shots (LO 8.10)

Despite the fact that many companies absorb the $8-10 cost per flu shot, the majority of employees still refuse to get them (USA Today, Oct 9, 1997). After discussing the different compliance techniques with your students, ask them to get into small groups and develop a strategy for getting more employees to

“roll up their sleeves.” Students in my classes have come up with great examples utilizing foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, contrast effect, cognitive dissonance, ingratiation, systematic processing, and reactance.

A8.8: Blind Obedience (LO 8.12)

At the start of class, arbitrarily start reseating students to new locations. Giving no reason, order some students to sit in the front row and others to sit in the back, the aisles or in the center portion. Then reshuffle them again, until someone asks “Why?” Discuss what was going through their minds as they were arbitrarily pushed and pulled about and, more importantly, why they complied (e.g., to save themselves or you from embarrassment).

An interesting twist on this exercise might occur if someone other than the instructor (e.g., a colleague) conducts this “rearrangement” of the class. How far will students comply or obey when a “stranger” gives them orders? Ask students to consider under what circumstances are obedience and resistance to

obedience more likely to occur.

A8.9: Milgram’s Obedience Study (see Handout 8-3) (LO 8.12)

To introduce the study of obedience, read the following scenario used in Milgram’s studies:

Procedure

1. Read the following scenario:

Imagine you and another participant arrive at a laboratory for an experiment called “The Effects of Punishment on Learning.” After being greeted by an experimenter, he randomly assigns you to be the “teacher”

and the other participant to be the “learner.” The learner is led to another room and hooked up to a machine that will give the learner a shock for each mistake that they make. Your job as teacher is to read a list of word pairs to the learner, and the learner’s job is to remember these pairs. After reading the list of word pairs, you will go back though the list and read the first word of the pair followed by several word options. The learner will attempt to come up with the right answer. If the learner gives the right answer, go on to the next word pair. If the learner gives the wrong answer, you must press a lever on the shock generator. With each mistake the learner makes, you are to move to the next lever.

2. After reading the scenario, distribute Handout 8-3 that asks students to predict at what point they would refuse to continue shocking the learner, and at what point the average college student would disobey.

Results & Discussion

• Typically, most students will pick low levels of shock (slight to moderate), and many will assume their peers would go higher.

• To help students appreciate the powerful situational determinants used in this study, discuss

A8.10: Estimates of Level of Obedience (see Handout 8-4) (LO 8.12) As an alternative to the exercise above, do the following exercise:

Procedure

1. Show the students one segment from the film Obedience (1965) focusing on one subject in the standard experiment, but do not reveal Milgram’s overall findings.

2. Distribute Handout 8-4, which asks the students to estimate how many out of 100 would obey and whether they personally would obey. Define “obey” as “go all the way to the last switch”

2. Distribute Handout 8-4, which asks the students to estimate how many out of 100 would obey and whether they personally would obey. Define “obey” as “go all the way to the last switch”

In document Instructor’s Manual Social Psychology R. Baron (Page 130-142)