27th October 2023

Group Behaviour

Notable examples

We’ll start by looking at some of the more universal phenomena exhibited in group interactions before looking at some of the more notable studies that you may be asked about in Paper A!

Common group phenomena

There are a number of phenomena in group interactions that are important to know for your exams; they are:

• Groupthink – Is a phenomenon where a group decision is made by prioritising maintenance of conformity and harmony within the group, and so critical decision-making is not undertaken – Initial research performed by Irving Janis.
• Groupshift or ‘Risky shift’ – Is a phenomenon wherein, due to a perceived diminished responsibility by the individuals within a group, they are more prone to extreme or risky decisions due to the perceived sharing of risk.
• Group polarisation – A group can serve to reinforce and intensify a direction that the group individuals were previously leaning, leading to opinions more extreme than previously held.
• Deindividuation – Controversial to define but commonly felt as a loss of self-awareness by individuals when within a context in which they cannot be readily identified, such as a mob or the internet.
• Bystander effect – A theory that the likelihood that a person will intervene to help in a situation is inverse to the number of people present, often felt as an extreme example of diffusion of responsibility.

Conformity – Asch

Perhaps the most famous (but by no means infamous, that one comes later!) study into group conformity came from Solomon Asch in the 1950’s.

The premise is simple: a group of college students were invited into a room and asked to perform a simple perceptual task. The most common one is below:

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (2014). Asch experiment, Licensed under a creative commons licence. Available for free at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asch_experiment.svg (Accessed on: 18 October 2023).

The group were shown a sequence of variations of the above two cards and asked which line on the comparison card was equal in length to the reference card on the left. In normal circumstances, it was expected to have a near 100% correct identification rate.

However, these were not normal circumstances.

In fact, every single one of the college students except one was an actor. Their task was simple. To correctly identify the line on the comparison card for the first 2 comparisons in the sequence, but then to all give the same incorrect answer on the third comparison. They would then go on to intentionally all agree on the same wrong answer for 11 of the remaining 15 comparisons.

The results are as follows:

• 5% of people agreed with the actors every single time.
• 25% of people disagreed with the actors every single time.
• The remainder showed some degree of conformity, with an overall majority of responses being correct (63%), but a sizable proportion of incorrect answers were given in agreement with the actors (37%).

After the experiment concluded, many participants stated that they didn’t truly agree with the other participants but felt an overwhelming need to not ‘rock the boat’ or appear unusual when faced with a clear group norm.

This study goes some way to explain the contemporary theory of normative influence, with many of us regularly being influenced by the unconscious desire to remain ‘normal’ and belong to the wider social group.

Conformity & social norms – Sherif

A study into group conformity and social norms was performed in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif, a social psychologist. The study involved the use of the autokinetic effect, specifically the phenomenon of a lone dot of light in an otherwise dark room, which can be perceived to ‘move’ if there is no frame of reference.

A common example of this in exams is the ‘standby’ light on electrical devices in the middle of the night, appearing to move independently. This is a normal experience of what is commonly known as an optical illusion and not indicative of mental illness.

However, in Sherif’s study, three participants were subjected to the autokinetic effect together by looking at the same dot of light at the same time, all within the same dark room. They were sequentially asked to estimate, out loud, the distance that the dot had moved without discussion. The sequence of estimates was repeated several times.

After repeated estimates, the groups of three would consistently come to a consensus estimate. Some groups’ consensus was high, and some groups were low, but within the groups, they consistently agreed on an estimate. There was a ‘social norm’ answer established within the groups. Interestingly, if the individuals were invited back at a later date to repeat the study alone, they answered similarly to their previously established ‘social norm.’

This has been thought to suggest that social norms are more than simply performative and can individually alter our understanding of perceptions.

Suggestibility – Guðjónsson

The Guðjónsson suggestibility scale (GSS) was created in 1983 by Icelandic psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson.

It centres around the concept of interrogative suggestibility, normally in the context of legal proceedings and the suggestibility of witnesses.

The GSS involves reading a short story to a participant, usually revolving around a fictional criminal event, for example, a woman being mugged outside a bus station. Following this, either immediately or after a certain period of time has elapsed, the participant is asked to recall as much of the story as they can.

Afterwards, the participants are asked a series of ‘neutral’ and ‘yield’ questions about the story:

‘Neutral’ questions are questions where the correct answer is yes.

‘Yield’ questions, however, are a mixture of leading, affirmative and false alternative questions:

• Leading questions – Worded to seem plausible and suggest an affirmative answer, i.e., ‘Did the lady’s bag strap break while it was being pulled?’
• Affirmative questions – Include facts not previously included in the story but framed in a way to again imply the correct answer, i.e., ‘The men ran off down West Street, correct?’
• False alternative questions – Includes a choice where neither answer is correct, such as ‘Did she bruise her arm or her face?’ in a story where no bruising has been mentioned at all.

After the initial round of questioning is complete, the participant is told in a disapproving manner that there are a multitude of mistakes in their initial responses and asked to repeat the questions. The amount this influences their answers to change is referred to as ‘the shift.’

In reality, the GSS has limited usefulness on a case-by-case basis. It, however, highlights the problems with the suggestibility and fallibility of the human memory and the significant consequences this has for many legal systems so heavily reliant on the weight of witness testimony.

Obedience – Milgram

Following the downfall of the Nazi regime, many psychologists were interested in the concept of obedience and ‘Just following orders’ as this was a common stance taken by those who felt responsible for a large proportion of the atrocities in World War 2.

From this, one of the more controversial studies in psychology was born. The Milgram experiment was first undertaken in 1961 by Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist.

Its purpose was to assess to what degree people will obey authority even when it conflicts with their personal values.

In the study, the participants were recruited under the false pretence of being involved in an experiment looking at the relationship between learning and punishment.

The participant met with the researcher and an actor, who they were led to believe was another potential participant.

Both participants and actors were given pieces of paper seemingly at random to determine whether they would be a ‘teacher’ or a ‘learner.’ In reality, the actors were always given the ‘Leaner’ role and the study participant was always given the ‘teacher’ role. At this point, the actor would mention that they had an underlying heart condition.

The actor was then taken into an adjoining room where they could communicate with the participant but not be directly seen by them.

The researcher then informed the participant that the study involved the ‘teacher’ asking the ‘learner’ questions. If the answer was incorrect, the ‘teacher’ was to use a mechanism to deliver an electric shock to the ‘learner’. The participant was then given an unpleasant 45 volt electric shock as a sample of what they would be inflicting on the ‘learner.’

The participant was informed that the voltage would increase by 15 volts every time a shock was administered.

The study commenced, and the actor would gradually begin to get answers wrong, and the participant would inflict electric shocks on them. However, after multiple voltage increases, the actor would begin to shout, scream and bang on the wall to communicate with the participant that they are distressed and remind the participant about their underlying heart condition. After repeating this multiple times through successive shocks, the actor would fall silent, meaning any further questions were classed as incorrect due to no answer. In reality, the ‘learner’ received no electric shocks; all of their distress was an act.

Throughout the experiment, many of the participants voiced significant distress at the harm they perceived to be inflicting on the ‘learner’ and wished to halt the experiment. At this point, they were reassured that they would not be held responsible and told the following statements in order and separately.

• Please continue.
• The experiment requires you to continue; please go on.
• It is essential that you continue.
• You have no choice, you must continue.x

If any of the above orders persuaded the participant to continue, then the experiment continued, with the participant needing to push through all four of the above verbal orders in succession for the experiment to be halted early.

Otherwise, the experiment was halted once the participant had given three maximum voltage (450 volt!) shocks in succession.

• Every single ‘teacher’ expressed distress and a desire to stop the experiment at some point during the process.
• All of the participants gave shocks up to 300 volts.
• 65% of the participants completed the experiment by giving the final 450 volt shocks.

The study has been repeated in multiple different cultural contexts worldwide, and meta-analysis of the results suggests that the percentage of participants who continue to deliver shocks under duress until the experiment finishes is consistently around 65%.

This study is often cited as one of the most controversial in psychology, given the significant emotional distress experienced by the participants involved.

Situational attributions – Zimbardo

Another controversial experiment was the Stanford Prison experiment of 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo.

The US Navy had noted a high degree of conflict and poor conditions in their prisons and funded Zimbardo to investigate the hypothesis that those employed as prison guards were self-selecting for the role due to hostile and neglectful tendencies or whether it was a product of environmental influences.

Zimbardo recruited 24 study volunteers from a pool of 70. The 24 recruited were those who scored the highest on measures of maturity and psychological stability.

The 24 participants were randomly allocated to be either ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’ in the experiment.

The experiment took place in a mock jail constructed in the basement of the Stanford psychology department.

Both groups were given very little formal instruction on how to conduct themselves; other than that, guards were allowed to come and go from the prison, whereas prisoners had to remain in the prison for the duration of the experiment. The guards were also explicitly told the use of physical violence was forbidden.

Despite the relatively lax boundaries established for the experiments, some components were controlled. For example, the guards were given a military-esque uniform and mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact. The prisoners were all required to wear a plain prisoner uniform with a number embroidered that they would be referred to as (instead of their name) for the duration of the experiment.

The experiment was intended to last two weeks.

Remarkably quickly, despite no external encouragement to do so, guards began to inflict cruel and humiliating punishments on the prisoners, and the prisoners largely accepted it. Prisoners were denied bathroom privileges, soiling their clothes and their cells. Prisoners were forced to exercise repeatedly, and stress positions were inflicted. Even psychological warfare was used by the guards by sowing dissent among the prisoners by creating the false impression that some of them were informants.

After six days, a researcher not previously involved in the study attended the prison and remarked on the seriousness of the squalor and abuse evident in the jail, highlighting the lack of morality in letting it continue further. For this reason, the experiment was terminated after just six days.

This study remains controversial for its obvious ethical issues due to pervasive emotional distress, but also its applicability to wider contexts and lack of reproducibility has been debated. Many critics highlight that the guards were likely acting out models of how they believed guards should behave from pre-existing stereotypes.

However, supporters of the study feel that it shows evidence towards the concept of situational attributions, that robust character traits such as kindness do not exist, and that most human behaviour is a result of multiple situational factors dependent on the context in which we find ourselves.

References

• Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. Groups, leadership and men; research in human relations. 177–190.
• Sherif, M. (1935). A study of some social factors in perception. Archives of Psychology. 27(187).
• Gudjonsson, GH. (1984). A new scale of interrogative suggestibility. Personality and Individual Differences 5(3), 303–314.
• Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioural Study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 67(4), 371–378.
• Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology & Penology, 1(1), 69–97.
• Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment. Cognition, 2(2), 243–256.