1. Obedience
1.1. Acting in accordance with a direct order or command by someone in a position of authority
1.1.1. Sometimes involves denial of responsibility of one's actions and a willingness to hand it over to authority
1.1.2. People can also be profoundly troubled by what they're doing and have internal/external debates about the justification of what they're doing
1.2. Mostly a good thing, but people can violate ethical principles and break laws in the name of 'following orders' or 'just doing my job'
1.2.1. At the heart of some of the worst of human behaviour - massacres, atrocities, genocide
1.2.2. see Milgram's Shock Experiment
1.3. Factors of Obedience
1.3.1. Victim's distance
1.3.1.1. It is easiest to abuse someone who is distant or depersonalised eg. over the internet, hoods over heads, inside gas chambers
1.3.2. Authority's closeness and legitimacy
1.3.2.1. Over the phone commands incite less obedience vs physically close or even touching
1.3.2.2. People follow familiar scripts eg a doctor (legitimate authority) orders; nurse obeys
1.3.3. Whether or not the authority was part of a respected institution
1.3.3.1. Authorities backed by institutions wield social power
1.3.4. The liberating effects of a disobedient fellow participant
1.4. 'Blame-the-victim'
1.4.1. In Milgram's Shock Experiment, many subjects harshly devalued the 'learner' - 'he was so stupid and stubborn he deserved to get shocked' -
1.4.1.1. Once having acted against the learner (shocking him), the teacher found it necessary to view him as an unworthy individual, whose punishment was made inevitable by his own deficiencies of intellect and character
1.4.2. This is also used to train torturers
1.4.2.1. External behaviour, attitudes
1.5. Social Context
1.5.1. Societal Structure
1.5.1.1. Some social structures have an inbuilt injustice - the people in power and their followers have their benefits and protect the status quo by any means -- the injustice becomes natural and the rule rather than the exception
1.5.1.1.1. eg. Apartheid, Nazi Holocaust
1.5.2. Situational forces are powerful influences
1.5.2.1. Where we are, who we're with, what we're doing and the social context we're in make a huge impact on our behaviour.
1.5.2.2. Trying to break social norms and constraints can make us realise how strong they are
1.5.2.3. Our behaviour is a product of our social histories and current environments
1.5.2.3.1. Most people continue to believe in the fundamental attribution error
1.5.2.4. As Milgram noted, ordinary people simply doing their jobs and without nay particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process
1.5.2.4.1. even nice people can be corrupted as they construct moral rationalisations for immoral behaviour
1.5.3. Fundamental Attribution Error
1.5.3.1. tendency to interpret others' actions as expressing their dispositions rather than the situation they're in
1.5.3.1.1. we assume bad people do bad things and good people do good things
1.5.3.1.2. an underestimation of social forces
1.5.3.2. To conquer an enemy it's always a good idea to try and understand their motives and way of thinking, as opposed to demonising them as mad monsters without any human qualities
1.5.3.2.1. If we know why people behave as they do, we can argue against their thinking rather than just react to their behaviour
2. Conformity
2.1. Acting and believing in accordance to social norms, to relieve the internal tension caused by real or imagined social pressure
2.1.1. How we become socialised and thus guides our attitudes and behaviour
2.1.2. A change in behaviour/belief to accord with others or be affected by others against one's own beliefs
2.1.3. The key to whether or not someone is conforming is whether the behaviour and belief would be the same apart from the group
2.2. Inherent tendency toward mimicry
2.2.1. we often mimic the gestures, body posture, language, talking speed etc of the people we interact with
2.2.2. increases the connection between people, and allows interaction to flow more smoothly
2.3. Triggered due to
2.3.1. Normative Influence
2.3.1.1. Concern about what other people think of us
2.3.1.2. Don't want to look out of place, or become the target of criticism - fear social rejection
2.3.1.3. Brings rewards such as camaraderie and compliments
2.3.1.4. see Asch's Conformity Experiment
2.3.1.5. Often leads to Compliance
2.3.2. Informational Influence
2.3.2.1. Descriptive Norms
2.3.2.1.1. The perception of what most people do in a given situation
2.3.2.1.2. eg.
2.3.2.1.3. Misperceived descriptive norms
2.3.2.1.4. Often leads to Conversion
2.3.2.2. We recognise other people have info we do not, and so relying on descriptive norms is a reasonable strategy when we are uncertain about how we're supposed to act
2.4. Predicted by
2.4.1. Group size
2.4.2. Group consensus
2.4.3. Privacy
2.4.4. Culture
2.5. Social Impact Theory
3. Key Terms
3.1. Deviance
3.2. Dissent
3.3. Compliance
3.3.1. Publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request, even if privately disagreeing
3.3.2. Insincere, outward conformity - to reap a reward or avoid a punishment
3.4. Acceptance
3.4.1. Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure
3.4.2. Sincere, inward conformity - genuine belief in what the group has persuaded one to do
3.5. Social norm
3.6. Conversion
3.7. Social learning
4. Noteable Studies
4.1. Asch's Conformity Experiment
4.1.1. Study into normative influence
4.1.1.1. A group of Others confidently gave an obviously wrong answer, one blind participant was asked the answer
4.1.1.1.1. 1/3 of the time, the blind partiipant also gave the wrong answer, to follow the group
4.1.1.1.2. They knew the answer was wrong, but their concern for how these Others might think about them overpowered their desire to to the right thing (answer correctly)
4.1.1.2. Conformity
4.1.1.2.1. occured more in teenagers than adults
4.1.1.2.2. occured significantly less when the blind participant believed the Others could not hear their responses
4.1.1.2.3. occured more with a higher number of Others (up to 5)
4.2. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
4.3. Milgram's Shock Experiment
4.3.1. Study into why everyday, otherwise decent Germans went along with Nazis during the Holocaust
4.3.1.1. Participants believed they were performing an experiment on learning and memory - the effects of punishment on learning
4.3.1.1.1. 3 people: blind participant, experimenter, pretend-participant
4.3.1.1.2. Blind participant ('teacher') asked pretend-participant ('student') questions through microphone, student answered by pressing one of the buttons - if correct answer lit up then he moved onto next question, if got the question wrong, start at the lowest shock lever then increase shocks for each successive wrong answer
4.3.1.1.3. As shocks increased, 'student' began to ask to stop experiment, if 'teacher' asked to stop, experimenter would say 'the experiment requires that you continue'/'you have no other choice, you must go on' etc
4.3.1.1.4. 'Student's' protests become more intense with each shock, when refused to answer any more questions, experimenter told that no answer was considered a wrong answer
4.3.1.1.5. After a certain amount of shocks the vehement protests from 'student' became silent, suggesting the 'student' was physically unable to respond
4.3.1.1.6. If 'teacher' protested 4 times, study was over
4.3.1.1.7. If 'teacher' pressed the last 'XXX' lever 3 times, study was over
4.3.1.2. 65% of normal, ordinary citizens followed the experimenter's instructions to administer what they believed to be excruciating and dangerous electric shocks to an innocent person
4.3.1.2.1. under the right circumstances, each of us may be capable of acting in some very uncharacteristic and very unsettling ways
4.3.1.3. Obedience
4.3.1.3.1. decreased when 'learner' was in the same room as the experimenter (opposed to when experimenter was in room with 'teacher')
4.3.1.3.2. decreased severely when 'teacher' had to physically touch 'learner' to administer shocks (30%)
4.3.1.3.3. decreased when they saw Other 'teachers' refuse to press the shock levers
4.3.1.3.4. decreased when instructions to continue came from someone the 'teacher' believed to be another participant, instead of an experimenter
4.3.1.3.5. women and men obeyed at the same rate
5. Five Steps of Social Identity that allow for acts of extreme inhumanity
5.1. 1. the creation of a cohesive ingroup through shared social identification
5.1.1. social identity tradition and self categorisation theory - a shared sense of category membership (social identity) is the basis of group action
5.1.2. cohesive and powerful collectives are essential to social presence and social being
5.1.2.1. this is why people are so attached to and so passionate about their group memberships
5.1.2.1.1. this is why they can kill and are prepared to die for their group
5.2. 2. the exclusion of specific populations from the ingroup
5.2.1. Us vs Them
5.3. 3. the constitution of the outgroup as a danger to the existence of the ingroup
5.3.1. The problems of the ingroup can be seen as the fault of the outgroups - their stupidity, aggressiveness, deviousness etc
5.3.2. come to see the destruction of the outgroup as an act of self-defence rather than an act of aggression
5.4. 4. the representation of the ingroup as uniquely virtuous
5.4.1. the ingroup is seen to be inherently good, moral, selfless, just etc
5.4.2. the more virtuous the ingroup appears, the more serious the outgroup threat becomes and the more it becomes acceptable to 'defend themselves' by eliminating the outgroup threat
5.4.3. Infrahumanisation
5.4.3.1. the belief that one's ingroup is more human than the outgroup
5.4.3.1.1. people view their ingroup and outgroup as essentially different, reserving the 'human essence' for the ingroup, denying it to the outgroups
5.4.3.2. By reducing the outgroup to less than human it is easier to justify treating them in a less than human manner eg describing outgroups as 'rats' or 'cockroaches'
5.4.3.2.1. Dehumanised descriptions of the outgroup provoke moral disgust, and often the metaphors are of disliked animals
5.4.3.3. People are less likely to help people they perceive to be members of an outgroup
5.4.3.4. Implications for judgement of our own behaviour
5.4.3.4.1. we judge our own transgressions as us being 'only human', while those of the outgroup are judged as reinforcement of their negativity and failure
5.5. 5. the celebration of outgroup annihilation as the defence of (ingroup) virtue
5.5.1. the 'Them' are seen as not only 'Us' but *against* Us - we represent good and they represent evil - extreme violence toward outgroups is possible
6. Deviance and Dissent
6.1. Jetten & Hornsey (2013)
6.1.1. 5 Motives
7. Evolving attitudes both follow and justify actions
7.1. People and groups make an initial commitment, supported by their beliefs, by their own authorities and by one another
7.1.1. Criticism produces contempt, which licenses cruelty, which, when justified, leads to brutality, then killing, then systematic killing.
7.1.1.1. Humans have the capacity to come to experience killing other people as nothing extraordinary
7.1.1.2. the most terrible evils evolve from a sequence of small evils
7.1.1.3. People do terrible things out of obligation, or because they believe that what they are doing is right or justified
7.1.2. Individuals and groups also have capacity for heroism
7.1.2.1. Initial helping heightens commitment, leading to more helping
7.1.2.2. Those most effective in doing good are those with most solidarity and most cohesion
7.1.2.3. Resistance against the bad (eg Nazis) is only possible at a collective level
7.1.2.3.1. Large crowds topple dictatorships and create revolution - many demonstrators may be killed, but the number of demonstrators grow - the belief is more important than life itself