Unit 2:

PERCEPTION, SOCIAL THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR

 Concept of Perception (धारणा)
• Perception is purely a cognitive process.
• In simple term, perception is an interpretation after interaction
with people, object, situation and environment.
• In other words, perception means giving a kind of impression
towards the people, object, situation and environment.
• Perception provides a unique picture of the world and such picture
may be quite different from reality.
• Perception is a mental process therefore; different people perceive
the things in a different way. Two individuals may perceive the
same situation differently.
Definitions
• According to Robbins and others, “Perception can be
defined as the process by which individuals organize
and interpret their sensory impression in order to give
meaning to their environment.”
• According to Fred Luthans, “Perception is a complex
cognitive process that yields a picture of the world, a
picture that is quite different from reality.”
In conclusion, the perception as the psychological,
subjective and intellectual process through which a
person collects, selects data from environment,
organizes, interprets, experience it obtains meaning from
it. It is based on people thoughts, beliefs, emotion or
mood, expectations or feelings.
Factors Influencing Perception
Perception is a complex cognitive or psychological
process that yields a unique picture of the world, a
picture which is different from reality. Perception is
influenced by nature and nurture. Nature is related
to heredity and nurture is related to environment.
Perceptual mechanism of individuals is affected by
following factors.
1. Factors in the Perceiver
2. Factors in the Target
3. Factors in the Situation
1. Factors in the Perceiver
Several characteristics of the perceiver can affect perception. When an
individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she,
that interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of
individual perceiver. The major characteristics of the perceiver
influencing perception are:
i. Needs and Motives:
Individuals’ perception is determined by their inner needs and motives.
They take the same thing differently according to their needs and
motives. Similarly people select different item to meet their needs than
addressing reality. Further, people with satisfied needs perceive the
object entirely different from those whose needs are not satisfied. This
means people will perceive only those items which suit their wishful
thinking. For example, in an organizational context, a boss who is
insecure perceives a subordinate's efforts to do an outstanding job as a
threat to his or her own position. Personal insecurity can be transferred
into the perception that others are out to "get my job", regardless of
the intention of the subordinates
ii) Self-Concept:
Self-concept means understanding oneself or self understanding.
Perception is guided by the notion that beauty lays in beholders
eyes. An individual with a positive self-concept tends to notice
positive attributes in another person. In contrast, a negative self-
concept can lead a perceiver to pick out negative traits in another
person.
iii) Attitudes: 
Attitudes are the belief system that directs thinking, feeling and
actions of people. Attitude evaluate or provide judgment based on
past information or impression. For example, suppose Mr. X is
interviewing candidates for a very important position in his
organization –a position that requires negotiating contracts with
suppliers, most of whom are male. Mr X may feel that women are
not capable of holding their own in tough negotiations. This
attitude will doubtless affect his perceptions of the female
candidates he interviews.
iv) Past Experience:
People’s perceptions are very much influenced by their past
experience. A person with successful past experience will
perceive the thing positively and vice versa. For example, A
person visits the restaurant frequently if he/she has the past
experience that serves fresh food with good taste.
v) Moods: 
A temporary state of mind or feeling is called moods. Moods
can have a strong influence on the way we perceive someone.
We think differently when we are happy than we do when we
are depressed. In addition, we remember information that is
consistent with our mood state better than information that is
inconsistent with our mood state. When in a positive mood, we
form more positive impression of others. When in a negative
mood, we tend to evaluate others unfavourably.
vi) Expectations:
The perception is based on the principle that “individuals see
what they want to see than what is reality.” They perceive the
same thing in different manner according to their
expectations. This means, optimistic persons perceive the
information in favorable ways whereas pessimistic person
perceive the same thing in unfavorable ways.
vii) Interest
The state of wanting to know or learn about something or
someone is called Interest. The focus of our attention appears
to be influenced by our interests. Because our individual
interests differ considerably, what one person notices in a
situation can differ from what others perceive. For example,
doctors, engineers, professors all observe to the object of
their own interest.
viii) Cognitive Structure: 
Cognitive structures are mental processes that
individuals use to process and understand
information. They organize information for learning
and recall. Cognitive structure, an individual's
pattern of thinking, also affects perception.
2. Factors in the Target
Characteristics in the target that is being observed can affect
what is perceived. Physical appearance plays a big role in our
perception of others. Extremely attractive or unattractive
individuals are more likely to be noticed in a group than
ordinary liking individuals, loud people are more likely to be
noticed in a group than are quite ones. The major
characteristics of the target influencing perception are:
i. Size:
The bigger the size of the external stimulus or target greater
the possibility of catching the attention of perceiver. For
example, a full-fledged advertisement of a motor cycle in the
newspaper attracts more attention of perceiver than the
same type of advertisement placed at the corner of same
paper.
ii) Frequency
Frequency means repetition or repeated external stimulus
attracts more attention than single one therefore most of the
advertiser repeat their advertising message to attract the more
attention of customers.
iii) Motion
A moving object is more appealing than stationary. For example;
the two advertisement of same product is given in television and
a front page of newspaper at a time. Usually, customer Pay their
first attention to television than newspapers.
iv) Status
Status also influences the person's perception. A higher status of
external object catches more attention than lower status. For e.g.
when a person introduce with two personalities such as prime
minister and minister at a time, but a person retain the name of
PM in his/her memory than other ministers.
v) Novelty and familiarity
An external object which is novel or new or more
familiar than other attracts more attention of
perceiver. For example; when delivering two
different classes, one is using traditional method
where other is using overhead projector, the later
method will catch more attention than former one.
vi) Intensity:
An intense external stimulus catches more attention
of individuals than weak one. For e.g.; a bright light,
strong odour or loud noise attracts more attention
than weak ones.
3. Factors in the Situation
It refers to the time and place. Individuals perceive
the same thing in different manner based on the time
and situation. For example, when a manager sees
his/her sub-ordinate is talking with his/her enemy the
manager will perceive subordinate negatively.
However, if the same a manager sees that sub-
ordinate is talking with minister the manager will
perceive sub-ordinate positively.
 Sensation
• In our body, there are five different sense organs namely
eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin. These five sense organs are
responsible for vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch
respectively.
• The process in which sense organs receive the visual,
auditory, taste, touch related nerve impulse and transmit
them to the brain is called sensation.
• For sensation process, highly specialized cells known as
sensory receptors, located in our eyes, ears, nose, tongue
and elsewhere within our bodies receive, move and
process sensory information.
• Then, the brain interprets those neural message, which
allow the brain to make decisions about the environment.
 Perceptual Organization (Gestalt Principle)
Concept
• A notable group of psychologist of German
(Worthemer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kolher), who
first worked in the field of perception and developed
certain principle called Gestalt principle of perceptual
organization where gestalt means whole in German.
• This principle describes how human typically see
objects by grouping similar elements, recognizing
patterns and simplifying complex images.
• In other words, assembling the selected information
that is incoming into meaningful whole is called
perceptual organization.
1. Principle of Figure Ground Relationship
• According to this principle, a figure is perceived in
relationship to its background.
• Figure ground perception refers to the tendency of
the visual system to simplify a scene into the main
object that we are looking at the figure and
everything else that forms the background.
2. Principle of Grouping
It is a way of describing discrete stimuli together in
the perceived world. It is arranging the information
or inputs in the same group based on their proximity
and similarity. Thus, selected information is grouped
on the basis of similarity, proximity and continuity.
a. Similarity
It is a tendency to perceive things that looks similar
as being part of the same group. For e.g. why sports
team wear uniform that all are the same color
because it allows people viewing the game to
perceive them as one group when they are scattered
around the field.
b. Proximity
Proximity refers nearness states that a group of
stimuli that are close together will be perceived as
whole pattern of parts belonging together. It states
that objects or shapes that are close to one another
appear to form group even the shape, size and
objects are radically different.
c. Continuity
• It is a tendency to perceive things as simply as
possible with a continuous patterns rather than
with a complex broken-up pattern. It says that we
perceive continuous flowing lines more easily than
broken lines.
3. Principle of Closure
According to this principle of perpetual organization
while confronting an incomplete pattern one tends
to complete or close the pattern or fill in sensory gap
and perceives it as a meaningful whole.
 PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY
CONCEPT
• Retinal image over perceived objects may vary from distance,
angel and illumination (प्रकाश).
• Despite such variation in image, people perceive objects in
constant or stable manner, that is called perceptual constancy.
• Perceptual constancy, also called object constancy, or
constancy phenomenon.
• It is the tendency of animals and humans to see familiar
objects as having standard shape, size, color, or location
regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or
lighting.
• It is a phenomenon in which physical objects are perceived as
unvarying or consistent despite changes in their appearance
or physical environment.
1. Size Constancy
• It is the tendency to interpret an object as always being
the same size regardless of its distance from the viewer.
• It explains the perceived size on the objects remain
same when the distance is varied.
• In other words, size constancy refers that familiar
objects do not change in perceived size when viewed
from different distance.
• Our retina cast bigger image of closer objects and
smaller image of far or distant objects but the size of
object remains constant. When a person goes away, the
image of retina grows smaller, we see the person small,
but perceive that person as being normal size.
2. Shape Constancy
• It is the tendency to interpret the shape of an
object as being constant even its shape changes
on the retina.
• In shape constancy, we perceive familiar objects as
having constant form even while our retinal of
them change. For example: When you stand in
front of door, its image on the retina is rectangle.
When you move to the side, the image become
trapezoid but you see it as rectangle.
3. Brightness Constancy
Brightness constancy is the tendency to perceive
objects as having a constant brightness when they
are viewed under different condition of illumination.
This means, we perceive the apparent brightness of
an object as the same when the light condition
changes. For example coal looks black even in very
bright moon and sun light, they see snow white
under the same condition.
Illusion (भ्रम)
Illusion refers to incorrect perception. Perception
that provides false interpretation of sensory
information is called illusion. In other words,
illusions are perceptions that do not correspond to
reality. Illusion is, "the perception of something
objectively existing in such a way as to cause
misinterpretation of its actual nature. A perceptual
illusion occurs when any of the sense organs
“transmit misleading information to the brain.” Two
types of illusion:
1. Physical process
2. Cognitive process
1. Physical process:
Illusion perceived without any existence of stimulus
is called physical illusion. Such illusions emerge due
to the distortion of physical condition includes
mirages, in which we perceive something that they
are not really there such as water on the dry road
ahead caused by the refraction of light.
2. Cognitive process
Illusions occur in the presence of mind is called
cognitive illusion. It is simply misconception or
misinterpretation of situation or stimulus. Sometime
it is also called visual illusion where visual illusions
are the physical stimuli that constantly produce
errors in perception that do not reflect the physical
reality of stimulus accurately. They are usually result
of errors in the brain’s interpretation of visual stimuli.
There countless illusions related to cognitive process,
which can be broadly divided in to two categories:
a. Illusion of size
b. Illusion of shape or area
a. Illusion of size:
Illusion of size occurs because perceptually distort the length of
various lines. Learning also plays important roles in such illusion.
Theory of misapplied constancy suggests that illusion of size occurs
when we interpret certain cues and perceive some parts are farther
away than others. Muller lyer illusion is one example of size illusion. It
is an illusion of line length that is distorted by inward turning or
outward turning corners on the end of lines, cause line of equal length
to appear to be different.
Ponzo illusion
Ebbinghaus Illusion
b. Illusion of shape or area
Illusion of shape or area suggests that the geometrical stimulus is an
important cause to mislead perception. Moon illusion is a common
form of such illusion. The moon looks bigger at horizon than highest
point in the sky. Moon in the high sky is alone with no cues for depth
surrounding. But on the horizon, the moon appears behind the trees
and houses, hills and mountains. The moon is seen as being behind
these objects and seem to bigger than objects or cues. Another cause
is that vertical distances are perceived as very longer than horizontal
distance .
Ames Room Illusion
• The distorted room the ‘Ames Room’ is named after the American
ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames, who first constructed this illusion
in 1946. He based his design on a concept originally conceived by
Hermann Helmholtz, a physician and physicist in the late 19th
century.
• There are two illusions associated with the Ames Room. First the
room appears normal and cubic when viewed from the front via a
special viewing point. Secondly, within an Ames Room people or
objects can appear to grow or shrink when moving from one corner
to the other
 Persons Perception
CONCEPT
• Person’s perception is called personal perception or social
perception .
• It is applied in social psychology.
• It is the procedures by which individuals think about,
approve, and assess other individuals.
• It is the study of how people form impressions of and make
inferences about other people.
• In other words , the mental processes we use to form
judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics
and motives of other people are called person perception.
• Person perception, is the way a person forms judgments and
makes conclusions concerning the characteristics and motives
of others.
 KELLY’S ATTRIBUTION THEORY
• Attribution refers to the way of judging others based on
cause and effect relationship.
• It is the process of explaining one’s own behavior and
behavior of others.
• The attribution theory of perception was developed by
Harold Kelly.
• It tries to identify causation of behavior. It explains the
ways by which individuals response the same situation
differently depending on meaning attributed on their
behavior.
• It suggests to indicate whether the behavior is caused
internally (disposition) or externally (Situation)
therefore there are two causation of behavior.
1. Internal cause of attribution
The internal cause or internal attribution are the
individuals disposition which are stemmed or
generated from within individual and they can be
controlled by the individual such as personality,
attitude, motivation, emotion, belief, ability, etc.
2. External cause of attribution
The external cause or attribution refers to situations
which stemmed from situation or other persons and
they are beyond one's controlling ability such as
environment, situation, other person luck, god, etc.
 Internal Factors External Factors

Stable Ability Fate, Luck

Unstable Effort, Hard work Task characteristics

i)Distinctiveness:
The distinctiveness refers to that situation where an individual
display different behavior for different situation. If there is high
distinctiveness, behavior is externally but if the distinctiveness is low,
the causation is internal. E.g Mohan only smokes when he is out
with friends, his behaviour is high in distinctiveness. If he smokes at
any time or place distinctiveness is low.
ii) Consensus:
The consensus refers to the situation where the individual shows
similar type of behavior to respond same situation. High consensus
represents the external causation and vice-versa. E.g Mohan smokes
a cigarette when he goes out for a tiffin with his friend. If his friends
smoke, his behaviour is high consensus. If Mohan only smokes it is
low.
iii) Consistency:
It refers to the tendency that the person respond the same way
overtime. If the response is same that is internal cause where the
response is different causation is external. E.g if Mohan only smokes
when he is out with friends, his behaviour is high in consistency. If he
smokes only on one special occasion, consistency is low.
 Impression Formation
• An idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone,
especially one formed without conscious thought or on the
basis of little evidence is called impression.
• Impression formation is the process by which we form an
overall impression of someone’s character and abilities based
on available information about their traits and behaviors.
• It is forming the first knowledge the a person has about
another person. It is subconscious form of people’s opinions
about other people they met.
• We form impression based on perceptual accentuation,
primacy and recency effect.
• Perceptual accentuation is the tendency to see what we want
to see in the other people where as primacy effects explains
rapid formation of impression on the basis of first impression
and recency effect of impression focuses on last word others
speak or we hear and form impression about others.
 PERCEPTUAL ERRORS AND BIAS
Perceptual process is a way of judging the world. In
fact, perceptual process will not be always perfect.
Most of us use short-cut way to judge or make
decisions about others behaviors. Below presented
are few errors that emerge in course of human
perception.
1. Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to underestimate the influence of
external factors and overestimate the influence of
internal factors when making judgments about the
behaviour of others.
2. Halo effect
It is drawing general impression of individual based
on single dominant characteristics. In other word,
this is the process of judging or evaluating others
behavior based on his or single characteristics. Just
on the basis of one attribute such as intelligence,
cooperativeness, sociability etc. individual behavior
or mental process is evaluated favorably or
unfavorably. Halo effect works mostly under three
conditions when the target shows unclear behavioral
expression, traits are not frequently encountered by
the perceiver and when the traits have morale
implication.
3. Stereotypes
It is also called generalizing or grouping. It generalizes how people
of a given group, race, religion etc. will appear, think, feel or act. It
is the process of assigning traits to people based their
membership in social category. In other words, it is judging
someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which
that person belongs. It is putting people in pigeon hole. Examples:
• Fat women are = Jolly/ happy.
• Americans are = ambitious
• Japanese are = industrious
• Chinese are = inscrutable
• Nepalese are = lazy
• Gurkhas are = brave
The above examples are not always true, but true in general not
in particular.
4. Self serving Bias
The tendency for individuals to attribute their own
success to internal factors while putting the blame
for failures on external factors.
5. Primacy effect
Primacy effect is the tendency to quickly form
opinion of people on the basis of first information
received about them. It suggests “first impression is
the last impression.” So it is also called impression
effect. The first impression exposed by a person
tends to be given more impression than later
information.
6. Recency effect
It is the tendency of an individual to give more
priorities on the last words that a person speaks or
he or she hears. The recent information has stronger
influence than the first information because latest
information or events are more easier to recall than
first information.
 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Social behavior is very broad topic which focuses on how individuals
responses to their environment. It looks on how people interact
with and relate to each other in the social context. There are
different ways through which people manage others behavior.
1. Attitude
2. Persuasion
3. Prejudice
1. Attitude
Attitude is the complex of cognitive factors which involves the
collection of beliefs, feelings, opinions, emotions and intentions
directed towards certain person, object or situation. It is a tendency
of person to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea,
object, person, or situation. So, attitude is an evaluative statement
either favourable or unfavorable ways about people, object and
events.
According to Robbins “Attitudes are evaluative
statements either favourable or unfavourable about
objects, people, or events.”
Attitudes are relatively enduring feelings, beliefs,
sentiments, emotions and behavioral tendencies
directed towards specific people, group, issues, ideas
and object. People developed attitudes from their
parents, teachers, friends and reference groups.
 COMPONENT OF ATTITUDE
1) Cognitive component:
When an individual develops attitudes based on beliefs, feeling or knowledge is
called cognitive components of attitudes. It is an evaluative statement of beliefs
towards persons, person, situations; events etc. For e.g If topic is Smoking is bad.
Cognitive aspecta. Yes b. Noc. I don’t know
2) Affective Component:
Affect refers to the mood or emotions. The affective components include the
collection of sentiments, emotions or moods. When an individual develops feeling
towards situation, object, person or event based on their beliefs is called affective
components . For e.g
Affective aspect a. I like to smoke b. I hate smoke c. I can try
3) Behavioural Component:
It refers to the action taking component of attitude. Due to the certain sorts of
feelings of individuals towards situation, objects, person or event, individuals
decide to take action that is termed as behavioral component. For e.g
Behavioural aspect a. I always tell people not to smoke
b. I always smoke with friends
c. I have never tried
 Attitude formation
1. Direct Contact:
One way in which attitude is formed is by direct contact with the person,
idea, situation or object that is focus of attitude.
2. Direct instruction:
Direct instructions either by parents or other individuals help to form
attitude. Parent may tell their children cigarette smoking is harmful their
health. On the basis of such instruction a child may form negative
attitude towards cigarette.
3. Interaction with other:
Sometime attitudes are formed because of the person is around other
people with that other people. If a persons’ friend holds the attitude that
smoking releases form tension, other people think that smoking release
from tension.
4. Vicarious learning
Many attitudes are learned through the observation of others’ people’s
action and reaction to various objects, people or situation.
2. Persuasion ( a way for changing attitude)
Persuasion is the pressure to convince others to
change their attitude of behavior. In other words,
the process through which one or more persons
attempt to alter the attitudes of one or more others
is called persuasion. It is the process by which one
person tries to change the belief, opinion, position
or course of action of another person through the
argument, pleading and explanation. persuasion
process can be explained through the question
“who says to whom by what means?”
The key elements of persuasion are:
• Persuasion is symbolic, utilizing words, images,
sounds and so forth.
• It involves a deliberate attempt to influence
others.
• Self – persuasion is key.
• People are not coerced; they are instead free to
choose.
• Methods of transmitting persuasive message can
occur in a variety of ways, including verbally and
nonverbally via television, radio, internet or face
to face communication.
 Cognitive Dissonance
• Dissonance means inconsistency. Cognitive dissonance
refers to the inconsistency between two or more attitude
and behavior of an individual.
• In other word it is the situation where an individual perceive
inconsistency or incompatibility between his or her beliefs,
emotions, attitude and behavior.
• The concept of cognitive dissonance was developed by Leon
Fistinger in the late 1950s. According to this theory people
want to maintain stability or stable state by minimizing the
dissonance.
• This theory also explained that any type of inconsistency or
dissonance is uncomfortable or painful to individual and
they want to reduce inconsistency or contradictory with a
view to minimize discomfort felt by them.
 3. PREJUDICE
• Prejudice come from prejudgment. Almost all attitudes are
prejudice to some extent. Prejudice refers to an unjustified
attitude usually unfavorable towards some persons,
objects, casts, religious group.
• Prejudice is powerful negative attitude towards the
members of specific social groups based solely on their
membership in that group.
• Baron defined the prejudice as negative attitude towards
the members of social group based on the membership on
this group. So prejudice is a negative attitude that a person
holds about the members of a particular social group.
• However, discrimination is the consequences of prejudice
where members of social groups are treated differently.
 SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
1. Direct intergroup conflict:
A realistic conflict theory explains that prejudice stems from the competition
between social groups that fosters the feeling of antagonism between each
other.
2. Social categorization
There is tendency of dividing the social world in to distinct category as US and
THEM. That is the feeling of in-group and out-group in terms of race, religions,
gender, age, ethnic background, occupation etc. Such a categorization stimulate
prejudice.
3. Role of social learning:
Prejudice are learned attitude. People learn prejudice from other people through
the process of social learning. Children learn attitude from friends, teachers,
parents and other expressing prejudiced view. Further, mass media is an
influential source for prejudice formation.
4. Cognitive factors
Stereotypes are generalized belief and expectation about specific group and its
member. Stereotype views held by individual about specific group can lead to
prejudice between the group.
 TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE PREJUDICE
Prejudice is common in social life and rampant in most societies, but it
can be reduced. Baron proposed following techniques to reduce
prejudice a:
1. Learning not to hate
It is breaking the cycle of prejudice. It suggests that prejudices are not
inborn but learned from later life or acquired. So the useful way to
reduce prejudice involves discouraging the transmission of negative
views and encouraging more positive attitude towards others.
2. Direct inter group contact
Intergroup contact is more effective in reducing prejudice if the groups
have equal status. Research consistently show that increasing amount of
interaction between people can reduce negative stereotyping. But only
certain types of contact are likely reduce prejudice and discrimination.
Situation in which contact is relatively intimate, the individuals are of
equal status, or participants must cooperate with one another or are
dependent on another are more likely to reduce prejudice.
3. Re-categorization:
It is redrawing the boundary between us and them
will reduce prejudice. Gaertner and colleagues
developed the common in-group identity model and
explains that when members of different social groups
come to see themselves as members of a single social
entity, their attitudes toward the former out-group
members become more positive and unfriendly
attitude towards the group seems to weaken away.
Beside the above mentioned techniques prejudice
and discrimination can be reduced by developing
super-ordinate goal, educational techniques, making
the norms against prejudice etc.
 Social Influence
• Social influence is an effort made by an individual or group of
people to change the attitude, belief, perception and
behavior of others.
• It shows how people interact with others and how they are
interacted by them,
• According to Baron, “social influences are efforts by one or
more persons to change the attitude or behavior of one or
more others”.
• Thus social influence is the process through which the real or
implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence
the thoughts, feelings and behavior of an individuals.
• There are three common forms of social influences i.e.
conformity, compliance and obedience.
A) Conformity
• Conformity refers to changing one’s own behavior
to match that other people. It is behaving in the
ways that are liked and accepted by friends,
societies, groups.
• Baron, “Conformity is a type of social influence in
which individuals change their attitude or behavior
in order to adhere existing social norms.”
• Thus, conformity means adjusting one’s behavior
to align with norms of groups or existing social
norms. Social norms are the rules indicating how
individuals ought to behave in specific situation.
 ASCH’S CLASSIC STUDY ON CONFORMITY
Solomon Asch conducted his classic study of conformity
by having participants gathered in a room. They were
told that they were participating in an experiment on
visual judgment. They were given a white card with
three black lines of varying lengths followed by another
white card with only one line on it. The task was to
determine which line on the first card was most similar
to the line of second card. In the only one the last
person in the group was real participant. The all others
were confederates, people following special direction
from experimenter who were instructed to pick
incorrect line from the comparison lines.
Results: Asch measured the number of times each
participant conformed to the majority view. On
average, about one third (32%) of the participants
who were placed in this situation went along and
conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the
critical trials.
B) Compliance
• Compliance is a part of consumer psychology. When
people change their behavior according to the request
or direction of other person that is called compliance.
It is accepting others requests, direction, suggestion or
agreeing with others behavior.
• According to Baron, “Compliance is a form of social
influence in which one or more persons acquiesce to
requests from one or more others.”
• Thus compliance is changing one’s behavior as a result
of other people directing or asking for the change
which refers to the art of responding favorably to an
explicit or implicit request offered by others.
 Strategies for gaining compliance :
1. Tactics based on liking:
• It is an ingratiation tactics. It involves gaining compliances by
causing others to have positive feelings about us before we
attempt to influence them.
• It is using all possible suitable tactics in a particular situation in
order to foster the positive effect of target person. There are two
major tactics based on liking; self enhancing tactics and other
enhancing tactics.
a. Self enhancing tactics are designed to enhance our personal
demand. This tactics include making ourselves attractive as
possible, showing friendliness towards target person and
associating ourselves with positive events or people the target
person already.
b. Other enhancing tactics refers to flattering target person,
agreeing with them or showing interest on them.
2. Tactics based on commitment or consistency:
• It is a foot in the door tactic. It is a technique for
gaining compliance in which a small request is
followed by a much larger one.
• It involves asking or requesting for a small
commitment first and after gaining compliance
asking for bigger commitment. When a person
accepts free sample from salesman, the salesman
further request to buy goods.
• Lowball tactic is also a part of this tactics to gain
compliance of other people. It refers that once
commitment is made, the cost of commitment is
increased.
3. Tactics based on reciprocity:
• It is a door in the face technique. Under this, large
request is followed by a smaller one to gain
compliance. Targets are asked for large commitment
first and when that is refused than asked for a
smaller more reasonable commitment.
• It is guided by norms of reciprocity that when
someone does something for a person that person
should do something for the other in return.
• Under this, large request is followed by a smaller
one to gain compliance. Targets are asked for large
commitment first and when that is refused then
asked for smaller one more reasonable commitment.
C) Obedience
• A change in behavior in response to command of other is
called obedience. In other words, obedience is changing
own’s behavior at the direct order of the authority figure.
Individuals act according to the orders, usually form an
authority figure. An authority figure is a person with social
power who has right to demand certain behavior from
people.
• Baron defined “obedience is a form of social influence in
which one or more individuals behave in a specific way in
response to direct order for someone.”
• In short, obedience is the tendency to comply with
commands of those in authority. It is the form of social
influence in which one individual issues order to another to
behave a specific way and other one follows.
 MILGRAM’S EXPERIMENT
• Social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an
experiment in 1992. In his experiment, three people were
present, a real participant, a research assistant and
experimenter who gives order in white coat. The regular
participant was given role of teacher and research assistant
was given the role of learner where subjects (teachers and
learners) are randomly assigned in group.
• The teacher was given a sample 45-volt shock from the
chair in which learner was strapped during the experiment.
The task of learner was simple memory test of paired
works.
• The teacher was seated Infront of a machine through which
the shocks would be administered and levels of shocked
changed.
• For each mistake made by the learner, the teacher
was instructed to increase the level of shock by 15
volts.
• The learner was confederate and actually shocked,
was given script to show discomfort, ask for
experiment to end, screaming or even falling silent
as if unconscious or deal. As the teacher became
reluctant to continue administering the shocks,
the experimenter forced to continue the shock.
Conclusion
Before the Stanley Millgram experiment, experts
thought that about 1-3% of the subjects wouldn’t
stop giving shocks. Still, 65% never stopped giving
shocks. None stopped when the learner said he had
heart trouble. Further studies determined.
• Women are about the same obedience as men.
• The appearance of the authority person and his
rank can increase or decrease the obedience.