Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL ROLES 
Another way in which conformity infl uences behavior is through social roles. Social 
roles are the behaviors that are associated with people in a given position. For exam-
ple, the role of “student” comprises behaviors such as studying, listening to an 
instructor, and attending class. Like a theatrical role, social roles tell us what behav-
ior is associated with a given position. 
In some cases, though, social roles infl uence us so profoundly that we engage in 
behavior in entirely atypical—and damaging—ways. This fact was brought home in 
groupthink 
A type of thinking in 
which group members share such a 
strong motivation to achieve consensus 
that they lose the ability to critically 
evaluate alternative points of view.
Groupthink may explain the poor dec-
ision making of NASA engineers that led 
to the destruction of the space shuttle 
Columbia.
feL82795_ch17_576-615.indd Page 592 8/5/10 3:21 PM user-f465
feL82795_ch17_576-615.indd Page 592 8/5/10 3:21 PM user-f465
/Users/user-f465/Desktop
/Users/user-f465/Desktop

---

 
Module 53 
Social Infl uence and Groups 
593
an infl uential experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo and colleagues. In the study, 
the researchers set up a mock prison complete with cells, solitary confi nement cubi-
cles, and a small recreation area. The researchers then advertised for participants who 
were willing to spend 2 weeks in a study of prison life. Once they identifi ed the 
study participants, a fl ip of a coin designated who would be a prisoner and who 
would be a prison guard. Neither prisoners nor guards were told how to fulfi ll their 
roles (Zimbardo, Maslach, & Haney, 2000; Zimbardo, 1973, 2007). 
After just a few days in this mock prison, the students assigned to be guards 
became abusive to the prisoners by waking them at odd hours and subjecting them 
to arbitrary punishment. They withheld food from the prisoners and forced them 
into hard labor. On the other hand, the students assigned to the prisoner role soon 
became docile and submissive to the guards. They became extremely demoralized, 
and one slipped into a depression so severe he was released after just a few days. In 
fact, after only 6 days of captivity, the remaining prisoners’ reactions became so 
extreme that the study was ended. 
The experiment (which, it’s important to note, drew criticism on both method-
ological and ethical grounds) provided a clear lesson: Conforming to a social role 
can have a powerful consequence on the behavior of even normal, well-adjusted 
people and induce them to change their behavior in sometimes undesirable ways. 
This phenomenon may explain how the situation in which U.S. Army guards at the 
Iraq Abu Ghraib prison found themselves could have led to their abusive behavior 
toward the prisoners (Zimbardo, 2007; Haney & Zimbardo, 2009).
Compliance: Submitting 
to Direct Social Pressure
When we refer to conformity, we usually mean a phenomenon in which the social 
pressure is subtle or indirect. But in some situations social pressure is much more 
obvious with direct, explicit pressure to endorse a particular point of view or behave 
in a certain way. Social psychologists call the type of behavior that occurs in response 
to direct social pressure  compliance. 
Several specifi c techniques represent attempts to gain compliance. Those fre-
quently employed include:
• Foot-in-the-door technique . A salesperson comes to your door and asks you to 
accept a small sample. You agree, thinking you have nothing to lose. A little 
later a larger request comes; because you have already agreed to the fi rst one, 
you have a hard time turning it down. 
The salesperson in this case is using a tried-and-true strategy that social 
psychologists call the foot-in-the-door technique. In the foot-in-the-door tech-
niqu e, you ask a person to agree to a small request and later ask that person to 
comply with a more important one. It turns out that compliance with the more 
important request increases signifi cantly when the person fi rst agrees to the 
smaller favor. 
Researchers fi rst demonstrated the foot-in-the-door phenomenon in a 
study in which a number of experimenters went door to door asking resi-
dents to sign a petition in favor of safe driving (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). 
Almost everyone complied with that small, benign request. A few weeks later, 
different experimenters contacted the residents and made a much larger 
request for the residents to erect a huge sign on their front lawns that read, 
“Drive Carefully.” The results were clear: 55% of those who had signed the 
petition agreed to the request to put up a sign, whereas only 17% of the 
people in a control group who had not been asked to sign the petition agreed 
to put up a sign.