Cult Classics
Learning Objectives
- Describe some of the active and passive ways that conformity occurs in our everyday lives.
- Compare and contrast informational social influence and normative social influence.
- Summarize the variables that create majority and minority social influence.
- Outline the situational variables that influence the extent to which we conform.
- Describe and interpret the results of Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority.
- Compare the different types of power proposed by John French and Bertram Raven and explain how they produce conformity.
Introduction
| The people of England think themselves free but they choose what is customary in preference to their inclination until it does not occur to them to have any inclination except for what is customary. |
|
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty |
Think about all of the things you believe in. How many of those beliefs are actually your own and how many are due to the influence of others? Even things you think of as scientific fact (such as the earth orbiting the sun or the universe being made out of atoms) are not verified facts that you discovered; they are beliefs you have because other people have told you about them. We have some confidence in their veracity because they have been through the scientific process of peer review and replication (or multiple independent observations). But what about other ideas that come to you through social conformity and group conformity? This chapter is going to look into some of those influences and the factors that can help us fight against such influences.
