Conformity Research Paper

Esther: We will first explain conformity, compliance, and obedience, as well as some examples of these concepts. Next, we will explore the similarities and differences between these three ideas.

Katherine: So what is conformity? The Psychological Sciences textbook defines it as “the altering of one’s behaviors and opinions to match those of other people or to match other people’s expectations” (Gazzaniga, 2012). Research on conformity began in 1935 when Muzafer Sherif used the autokinetic effect to see if individuals would conform to groups. In the autokinetic effect, participants mistake a beam of light in a dark room to be moving because they cannot recognize the effects of their own eye movements. Individually, participants gave varied

In his 1955 experiment, he had participants analyze the similarities in line length out loud, but planted “confederates” to give incorrect answers. To his surprise, 32% of participants conformed to the obviously incorrect answers per trial, and 76% conformed at least once (McLeod, 2008). So why do people conform? Psychologists believe there are two main reasons: normative influence and informative influence. Kaplan and Miller define normative influence as conforming due to “concerns about the group and one’s position in it,” and informative influence as conforming due to “concerns about being accurate and arriving at correct solutions” (Kaplan and Miller, 1987). Several factors affect conformity. The larger the group, the more likely people are to conform, although this effect levels off at around seven group members. If there is even one dissenter in a group other than the participant, conformity drops dramatically. If the participant is in face-to-face contact with the group, he or she is more likely to conform. And finally, the more ambiguous the solution to the problem, the more likely the participant is to conform to others’ opinions (McLeod,

According to the foot-in-the-door effect, people are more likely to agree with a large request after having complied to a small request. As the textbook states, “once people commit to a course of action, they behave in ways consistent with that commitment” (Gazzaniga, 2012). On the other side of things, the door in the face effect states that people will comply with a smaller request after having denied a larger request, because they want to compromise. Finally, the low-balling strategy is often used in sales. Once people choose to comply, such as buying a car, they will stick with that course of action even if the terms later change, such as increasing the