Conformity is a word most people are familiar with, but what this truly is, and its significance is harder to answer. In 1991, Zimbardo and Leippe defined it as:
“A change in belief or behaviour in response to real or imagined group pressure when there is no direct request to comply with the group nor any reason to justify the behaviour change” (Gross, 2010, p401).
Conformity and Obedience are both in part a result of social influence. The key difference being that while obedience is following a direct instruction (usually from a figure of authority), conformity is more passive and caused by the influence of others, to comply with group norms. Deutsch and Gerard (1955), highlighted two types of conformity, “informational social influence”, and “normative social influence” (Gross, 2010, p406). The difference between the two is our reason for conforming. “Informational” is caused by people’s uncertainty about the reality of something, and perceiving information from others as fact. Whereas “normative” is the influence to conform to the expectations of others from within our reference or membership groups, through the need for acceptance or approval, even if privately you uphold a different view (Hogg & Vaughan, 2011).
One of the earliest studies into conformity, the “beans in a bottle” study by Jenness (1932), in this subjects were asked to guess the number of beans, first on their own, then as part of a group and then again on their own. This showed the way public opinion could differ from private, and the way private opinion swayed, depending on the opinion of the group (Hill, 1998). This was further demonstrated by Sherif (1935), in his autokinetic effect experiment, this relied on a subject judging how far a spot of light had m...
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...elligent people to state something they blatantly know to be wrong, Crutchfield’s work went further showing that it did not matter, about the location of the group, just the significance of the group’s decision. However, these studies may commit a form of conformity bias in that they only focus on the majority influence and neglect the possibility that the minority may also be able to influence the group. On the other hand, these studies also show us the importance of non-conformity, Asch’s and Crutchfield’s line test showed an average conformity rate of under 35%, meaning in fact that more than half did not comply. So in overview conformity is something that has always been an integral part of society as it enables people to live together harmoniously, but the ability to think freely and accept the views of others is the driving force of society and social change.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
So far, conformity has been discussed in terms of group identification and social roles. However, individuals also tend to change prior beliefs to seek group acceptance. Asch (1951) investigated the effect of group pressure on conformity by asking participants to make a line judgment with seven confederates that gave the same obviously incorrect answer. Yet, 37% of participants conformed by giving the incorrect majority answer, whereas in the absence of group pressure, less than 1% of participants conformed (Asch, 1951). There are implications on normative influence as individuals, despite knowing the majority opinion was incorrect, may conform to avoid social punishment (Breckler et al., 2005). However, Turner and colleagues (1987) argued
Pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform to societal expectations is a challenging decision to make. A person must decide if their personal desire is worth risking the shame and judgment of others or is conforming the route to take because it is easier. When pursuing a personal desire one must ask itself if it is worth the hardship to accomplish one's desire or if it is best left alone and repressed, in hopes of finding comfort in conformity. John Laroche from The Orchid Thief expresses his personal desire without a care for conformity or societal expectations. Nevertheless, Laroche never stopped being strange as he grew up with fascinations of many objects such as orchids, turtles, old mirrors and fish tanks.
The definition of conformity is the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. The motivation behind normative conformity is the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers
People have been changing their behavior or obeying someone else’s commands for years. This continues today in our everyday lives. Conformity and obedience seem similar but differ in several ways. Conformity is defined by psychologists as a change in behavior or belief to accord with others. Similar to this, is obedience. Obedience is defined acting in accordance with a direct order or command. Normally people conform to reap a reward or to avoid punishment. If we comply with a direct order or command it is considered obedience. Most of the time when people comply, it is to be accepted among others so they are not seen as outsiders. On the other hand, when we obey, we are obeying a command an authority figure gives. Conformity and obedience like this can be seen in groups such as cults.
Conformity is something like changing a behaviour or belief to fit in with a crowd or group. There are two studies which support conformity and one of the studies that support this concept is the Solomon Asch study conducted in 1951 to see if a social pressure from a group in the majority could affect someone to conform. The other study which supports conformity is the 1969 Moscovici Study in which Serge Moscovici wanted to see if a group of the minority could make the majority give an incorrect answer in a colour slide test.
Solomon Asch’s experiment in “Opinions and Social Pressure” studied a subject’s ability to yield to social pressure when placed within a group of strangers. His research helped illustrate how groups encourage conformity. During a typical experiment, members of the group were asked by the experimenter to claim two obvious mismatched lines were identical. The single individual who was not privy to this information was the focal point of the experiment. Twelve out of eighteen times the unsuspecting individual went along with the majority, dispelling his beliefs in favor of the opinions of the group.
Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.
Conformity refers to an individual’s behavior that is performed because of group pressure, even though that pressure might not involve a direct request. Many people want to think that they are conformist enough so that they are not looked upon as strange to others and nonconformist enough to demonstrate that they are capable of thinking by themselves. For many years, psychologists have been interested in human conformity. Usually when people are in groups, they behave according to how those in the group behave. That indicates that conformity can affect a person’s behavior and make a person do things that may be against their ethics, attitudes, and morals. The study of conformity was first studied in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. His experiments were very important to the study of conformity. Asch wanted to find out how conformity could influence behavior. He did not want to focus on the general concepts like ethics, morals, attitudes, and belief systems. Instead, he focused on a more obvious concept which was perceptional conformity. Since he performed the experiment on a simple task, he was able to study conformity in a controlled environment. Asch wanted to apply group pressure to the experiment so he could manipulate a person’s behavior. For the experiment, he made three pairs of cards with three different lengths of vertical lines on one side. On the other side, there was a single line that was the same length ...
According to conformity’s theory, people, engaged in ambiguous tasks and questions with no clear answer, are more prone to conform with the beliefs of the group, which is what happened with Kennedy who agreed to an invasion plan despite his doubts. Also, in tasks where the individual is not as competent as other members, he or she is more susceptible to conformity, as in the case of Kennedy who, not as competent in strategy and warfare as the CIA officers, complied with their views. (Fledman, 2015)
The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.
To come to understand why people act with deviant behavior, we must comprehend how society brings about the acceptance of basic norms. The “techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in a society” are called social control (Schaefer, 2009). As we respect and acknowledge these social norms we expect others to do so as well. Therefore, according to our behavior sanctions are carried out whether they are positive or negative. Conformity, which refers to “going along with peers, people of our own status who have no special right to direct our behavior” (Schaefer, 2009), is one way social control occurs in a group level which influence the way we act. On the other hand, obedience is the compliance with a higher authority, resulting in social control at a societal level. The sanctions used to promote these factors can be informal and formal social control. Informal social control can be very casual in enforcing social norms by using body language or other forms of discipline, however formal social control is carried out by authorized agents when desired behavior is not obtained by informal sancti...
Comparatively, compliance and obedience may result in intentionally acting in opposition to internal beliefs, so long as there is a motivating force behind doing so, but obedience must have some figure of authority in a hierarchy guiding the action.
Normative influence is often linked with fear of embarrassment or social exclusion, because we know that if we do not conform, we are at risk of being socially ‘sanctioned’ (Crisp & Turner, 2014). Indeed, Asch found that even when the distinction between lines was obvious, participants still conformed because they feared humiliation. Where informational influence is something we use when we are uncertain, normative influence is something that we use even if we are certain of something: you can disagree with a group entirely and still conform, either because you want to be liked or because you do not want to be ridiculed (Crisp & Turner, 2014). Another reason we conform is obedience. Normative and informational influence both play a role in how much we are willing to obey, but the past has shown that humans are capable of awful things, simply because of the influence authority can have on us.
To demonstrate, reinforcement theorists explained conformity as an attempt not to feel anxiety while being alone against an unanimous majority in Asch’s well-known conformity experiment (1951). The reward was the comfort feeling of being in agreement with others. In addition,