Transcript of Audio Lecture
Welcome to lesson seven,
module three. In this module we’re going to be talking about conformity
and obedience.
Let’s move to slide two
and begin. Compliance. This again is the idea that one agrees that what
one is doing is actually right. We know that compliance is key and
highest when there’s a high degree of friendship or liking, also that
there’s more compliance due to the commitment or consistency norm. That
is, foot in the door and low balling both rely on the idea of commitment
and consistency to gain compliance. The scarcity principle also leads to
compliance. We know that people who play hard to get often have people
very willing to date them and in some sort of pursuing behavior. In
addition, the deadline technique also gains compliance. If they tell you
they’re almost sold out of something, calls tend to increase, as well as
sales if they say there’s only ten minutes left before the item will be
off the market. Compliance is also likely due to the norm of reciprocity,
using both the door in the face and that’s not all persuasion technique.
Door in the face entails making a large request followed by a smaller
request. It is expected that the large request will be shot down. For
example asking people if they would be willing to paint their house a
bright green in order to promote environmental issues. Most people will
refuse this, but feel like due to the norm of reciprocity, they owe you a
yes at some point, so if you then follow up with a smaller request to sign
a petition, they’re more likely to comply. So "that’s not all idea"
continues to give you free gifts and samples and throwing in other things
into a purchase, which then makes you feel like you should comply or
concede and purchase the product. Compliance also has something to do
with social validation, that is what we think others would do makes us
comply with what we think others would do. Authority. This is the idea
that we’re more likely to comply if there’s someone with some legitimate
authority telling us that we should do some specific behavior.
Let’s move to slide three
and discuss one technique in particular. The pique technique. In this
study, a female pan handler who was a confederate was asked to make
several requests of individuals on the street. Specifically she was asked
to ask strangers if they could spare some change, spare a quarter, spare
17 cents, spare 37 cents and then they counted how many people complied
with that request. If she asked for 17 or 37 cents, she received the most
compliance, while requests for change were complied with only 40% of the
time. The specific amount is called the pique technique. The idea here is
that there must be a very good reason for asking for such an odd amount of
change. Therefore, we’re more likely to comply if we believe the request
is somehow legitimate.
Let’s move on to slide
four. We should be well aware of Milgram’s shock study by this point
in your psychology studies. Obviously this involves three
individuals; the learner who is an actor pretended to be shocked and a participant who
was delivering the punishment for shock and finally the experimenter who
indicated that one must go on, even when the learner was carrying on quite
a bit and in some experiments, the participant deliver the orders that you
must go on instead of the experimenter or if the participant explained
when and how much shock must be delivered and even though this person was
your equal, you continue to shock. In fact, 37 of 40 went to 450 volts of
shock. Some explanations involved the lab coat equaling responsibility.
Whoever was wearing the lab coat, that is the experimenter, was
responsible and therefore these people didn’t have to feel guilty or
anything else about shocking the learner who was in some cases crying and
screaming to be let go. In addition, participants tended to develop an
external locus of control, that is they felt others were responsible for
what went on in this experiment rather than them.
This concludes lesson
seven, module three. Thank you very much for listening.
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