Myers Chapter 7: Conformity and Obedience Questions and Answers 2023

Describe the automaticity of social influence. - -Automaticity refers to control of one's internal psychological processes by external stimuli and events in one's immediate environment, often without knowledge or awareness of such control; automatic phenomena are usually contrasted with those processes that are consciously or intentionally put into operation. -Define, compare, and contrast conformity, compliance, and obedience - -Compliance is when an individual gave in to an expressed request from another person or other people, whereas obedience refers to doing as told by someone and as for conformity is giving in to group pressure or going along with the majority -Compare normative and informational influence. Explain each in the context of Sherif's and Asch's studies, and in relation to public and private conformity. - -Normative Influence is conformity based on one's desire to fulfill others' expectations and gain acceptance (Myers, 2009). Informational influence is conformity under acceptance of evidence about reality which has been provided by others (Myers, 2009) -Identify and explain each of the factors that have been shown to predict levels of conformity, including group size, awareness of norms, having an ally, age, and gender. - -Group size- conformity increases with group size, UNTIL A CERTAIN POINT! Then the size of the group no longer has an effect on the amount of conformity taking placeAwareness of norms- a person will be more likely to conform to some act, such as tossing garbage on the ground, if the norm is brought to their awareness. So, if someone is in a messy parking lot and they see someone litter, the act of littering becomes the norm and they will be more willing to act the same.Having an ally- a person will feel more willing to dissent from conformity if they have someone else there to agree with them.Gender- gender cannot determine level of conformity without also examining the comfort level of the task at hand, as well as social pressure from others. If someone is comfortable with a task, they will be more willing to conform, and women seem to conform more when placed in a group that feels inferior. -Explain the relationship between culture and conformity - -In addition to gender differences, there is also evidence that conformity is greater in some cultures than others. They found a significant relationship: conformity was greater in more collectivistic than in individualistic countries. -Differentiate between majority and minority influence - -majority influence- the process by which people in a group influence others to conform to the group's norms or ideas, whether they are correct or ity influence- the process by which dissenters produce change within a group -Explain the role of the norm of reciprocity in such efforts to elicit compliance - -We treat others as they have treated us. "An eye for an eye". If others treat us poorly we will treat them poorly, if others treat us nice, we will go out of our repay to repay the kindness. -Define and explain the sequential request strategies known as the foot-in-the-door technique, low-balling, the door-in-the-face technique, and the that's-not-all technique. Explain why each works. Address strategies for resisting these strategies. - -The foot-in-the-door technique (or FITD) is a strategy used to persuade people to agree to a particular action, based on the idea that if a respondent will comply with an small initial request then they will be more likely to agree to a later, more significant, request, which they would not have agreed to had they been asked it