Exam 8: Social Behavior

A review of 19 Milgram-type studies in nine countries found that levels of obedience were consistently higher in tight, collectivistic societies.

What happened when a man posing as a doctor called 22 nurses at two hospitals and told them to administer a phony drug called Astroten to a patient?

A cognate is an idea or concept that comes to mind easily and quickly when a person enters a specific cultural setting.

Thomas Blass, an expert on Milgram-type studies around the world, believes obedience to authority is a pan-cultural universal. The author of Culture Conscious agrees. What is the evidence to support their conclusion? In the 10 studies conducted in the United States, the average rate of full obedience (administering the most intense shock available) was 61%. In the nine studies conducted in eight other countries, the average rate of full obedience was very similar, 66%. High and low rates of obedience were found in individualistic, moderately loose societies. High and low rates were found in tight, collectivistic societies. The lack of a pattern suggests that levels of obedience are not affected by two cultural dimensions, individualism-collectivism and tightness-looseness. Some situations are so strong they override almost everything else that affects human behavior. Milgram-type studies place subjects in a powerful situation that makes it psychologically difficult to withdraw from the experiment. They are asked to administer shocks gradually. They are physically and psychologically distant from the learner. The experimenter repeats the commands and says he will take responsibility for whatever happens. Because Milgram-type studies create a powerful situation, most people obey, regardless of their individual personality or cultural background.

According to social psychologists Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen, why are Southerners in the United States-and members of other honor cultures-especially polite and courteous?

In their meta-analysis of Asch-style conformity studies, Bond and Smith recorded key pieces of information about 133 studies in 17 countries. For each study, they noted its publication date, the ambiguity of the perceptual stimulus, the size of the majority, the gender of participants, and the percentage of conforming responses. Identify four findings from Bond and Smith's meta-analysis.

In 2016, Esther Guillaume and her colleagues asked 5,400 university students in 20 countries to describe what they were doing at 7:00 the evening before. What were the findings of their study? Be specific.

The term "disposition" refers to an internal characteristic of a person that does not change much over time.

In Asch's original studies of conformity in the 1950s, participants almost always went along with the group majority, even when the majority was clearly incorrect.

According to Triandis, individuals conform more when their collective self is richly developed and easily comes to mind.