Exam 8: Conformity: Influencing Behavior

In a variation of his standard experiment, Solomon Asch (1957) found that when participants could write their responses on a piece of paper, conformity dropped dramatically. This finding indicates that participants exhibited ________, not ________, during the standard experiment.

After checking in to a hotel, Emma suddenly hears pounding on her door. A man in a uniform is standing there telling her that there is smoke on a lower floor and the electricity is possibly going to shut off. She should prop her door open and evacuate as quickly as possible. Later, she returns to find her laptop and jewelry have been stolen. She has fallen victim to informational social influence. Explain why she conformed.

Which situation below best exemplifies the tenet of social impact theory that immediacy is directly related to conformity?

Even though Gerald isn't religious, when he attends church on Christmas with his family, he donates money when ushers pass around a collection basket because everyone else puts something in. It is likely that Gerald is

Reynald is participating in a research study where he is watching a dot of light in a dark room. In time it appears to move. Later, he finds out that it was really stationary. This phenomenon is

Because of the societal pressures to be very thin, there is a so-called epidemic of eating disorders. Compared to females who developed eating disorders in the past, those who develop eating disorders today tend to be

There have been great examples of social influence and terrible examples of social influence. As an example, what do the Heaven's Gate followers and the "Freedom Riders" in the American civil rights movement have in common? They

The authors of your text report instances of teens "surfing" on the tops of electric trains in Brazil, and on cars in the U.S. and Australia. Which of the following best explains such dangerous behavior?

During the Middle Ages, victims of the imaginary illness "dancing manias" lost all inhibitions and whirled wildly through the streets. During the twentieth century, modern Americans fell prey to the misdeeds of a "phantom anesthetist" who entered homes and gassed the inhabitants. According to your text, how is mass psychogenic illness most different today from how it was in the Middle Ages?

It could be argued that participants in Muzafer Sherif's (1936) study converged in their estimates of the amount of movement of a point of light because they were avoiding public embarrassment or social censure from other participants. Sherif demonstrated that this was unlikely when he found similar results

In a famous social psychological experiment, participants were led to believe they were to deliver electric shocks of increasing potency to a "learner" for a memorization task. Participants were encouraged to continue even though the learner was clearly in pain, and most participants, in fact, did continue shocking the learner. What famous study is this describing?

In an alternative version of his original experiment, Milgram used two experimenters, who began to disagree with each other when the participants administered 150 volts and the learner began to complain. In this variation, participants refused to continue. According to the authors of your text, this variation demonstrates the importance of ________ in influencing obedience.

Emilio is designing an ad aimed at increasing seat belt use. He decides to incorporate slogans like, "It's great to buckle up!" rather than "35 percent of adults do not regularly wear a seat belt." Emilio is using ________ in this ad.

Recall that in an Asch-type conformity experiment (Frager, 1970), Japanese students were less conforming than were North Americans. According to researchers, these findings suggest that

The authors of your text discuss several factors that led to the high degree of obedience in the Milgram experiment. All of the following are implicated except

What is the relation between idiosyncrasy credits and normative conformity? Provide a concrete example of this relation.

People are especially likely to conform due to informational social influence

Discuss the role of both informational and normative influence in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Research by Baron et al. (1996) on the importance of accuracy indicates that the more important it is for people to be accurate, the

According to research presented in the text (Baron et al., 1996), participants were asked to select perpetrators after a lineup in conditions of high ambiguity; the perpetrator wore different clothing in the lineup than in the original photo, and the slides were shown very quickly. Recall also that some participants were told that the task was one that was being designed for use by the police department and were offered $20 if they were the most accurate, while others were told that it was just a laboratory task under development. This study demonstrated that