Conformity
Conformity is when a person changes their beliefs and behaviour to fit those of a group.
Types of conformity
Kelman (1958) identified 3 types of conformity from weakest to strongest
Compliance - a person publicly changes their behaviour and beliefs to fit that of a group and avoid disapproval. Privately the person does not accept them
Identification - a person both publicly and privately changes their behaviour to fit that of a group they want to be a part of. They only identify with these beliefs as long as they are associated with the group. Upon leaving the original behaviours and beliefs return.
Internalisation - a person both publicly and privately changes their behaviour and beliefs to those of a group permanently even after leaving the social group
Asch: conformity experiments (1955)
Aim: To find out the extent to which people would conform to an obviously wrong majority consensus
Procedure:
123 male participants told they were taking part in a study of visual perception
Participants put into groups with 7-9 confederates
Each participant did 18 trials where they were shown sets of lines and then asked which one was closest to the original line
In 12 critical trials confederates all gave the same wrong answer. Participants were always asked last to hear the group answers first
A control group consisted of 36 participants and were asked the same question but alone
Results:
Across all critical trials participants conformed to the incorrect consensus 32% of the time. 75% conformed to at least one incorrect answer. 5% conformed to every incorrect answer
This is compared to an error rate of 0.04% in control trials
After the experiment Asch conducted interviews with the participants who gave 3 explanations for their conformity
Distortion of perception - a small few came to perceive the majority estimates as correct and were unaware of their mistakes
Distortion of judgement - the majority were aware of their mistake but did not trust their own judgement and decided the majority was correct
Distortion of action - subjects were aware of and trusted their judgement but nevertheless gave the wrong answer so as not to stand out
Evaluation:
+ Demonstrates the extend to which humans follow the herd. This is a valuable psychological insight that may have practical applications
- Guessing the length of lines is a specific and unusual task. Its not clear to which extent Asch’s findings generalise to conformity in the real world
- All participants were male so its not clear whether the findings are valid in females as well
- Asch told participants they were taking part in a study of visual perception and did not give informed consent to the actual study
Variables affecting conformity
Asch conducted similar experiments but with different situational variables to see how these affected conformity
Unanimity - conformity declined from 32% to 5.5% when one confederate was instructed to give the correct answer. Asch’s findings are consistent which finds conformity rates decline when the majority answer is not unanimous
Group size - increasing the size of the group tended to increase conformity up to a point. With just 1 confederate conformity rates were low. Increasing confederates to 2 increased conformity to 12.8%. Increasing confederates to 3 increased conformity to 32%. Adding extra confederates did not increase conformity. Other studies replicated on Asch’s findings suggest conformity continues to increase with majority size beyond this.
Difficulty - increasing the difficulty also found to increase conformity. If the difference between the incorrect and correct answer was very small participants were more likely to conform to the incorrect answers of the majority.
Other variables affecting conformity
Mood - Tong et al (2008) found subjects are more likely to conform when they are in a good mood. Dolinski (2001) found subjecting participants to an “emotional seesaw” makes them more likely to conform
Gender - Jenness (1932) and Maslach et al (1997)’s research suggest women are more likely to conform
Culture - a meta analysis by Smith and Bond (1996) found conformity is higher among participants in collectivist cultures than individualist
Explanations of conformity
Deutsch and Gerald (1955) identified 2 motivating forces to conformity
Informational social influence - the desire to be correct motivates individuals to act on information provided by members of a group because they believe that information to be true
Normative social influence - people want to be accepted by others. This desire to fit in motivates individuals to conform to the beliefs and opinions of a group so as not to stand out
Conformity to social roles
Different social situations have different social norms. These norms have given rise to social roles that people play according to the social situation. We play these different roles to behave correctly and appropriately in society.
Zimbardo et al (1973) - Stanford prison experiment
Aim: To find out how much people conform to the social roles of prisoner and guard in a prison situation
Procedure:
Converted the basement of the psychology department at Stanford university into a fake prison
21 male students were selected from a total of 75 for their mental stability and lack of anti-social tendencies
They were randomly divided into 10 “guards” and 11 “prisoners”
Prisoners were arrested by real police and then subjected to real police booking procedures. They were put in cells in groups of 3 and were confined throughout the experiment
Guards worked in 8 hour shifts and were instructed to refer to the prisoners by their assigned numbers. A realistic prison routine was established.
Prisoners wore jackets with their numbers on and a chain around one ankle. Guards wore khaki uniforms, mirrored sunglasses and carried handcuffs and a wooden baton
study was scheduled to run for 2 weeks
Results:
Guards became increasingly sadistic. They made the prisoners go to the toilet in buckets in their cells as punishment, refused to allow them to empty these buckets, took away their mattresses and took away their clothes
Prisoners became increasingly submissive. Many stopped questioning the guards’ behaviour and sided with them against rebellious prisoners.
After 35 hours one prisoner began to “act crazy, scream, curse, go into a rage that seemed out of control” and had to be released. 3 other prisoners were released for similar reasons.
The guards’ sadism became so harmful that Zimbardo stopped the experiment after just 6 days.
The results suggest people conform to social roles to a significant extent.
In interviews with the participants afterwards prisoners and guards expressed shock at how out of character their behaviour had become. Participants were selected for their mental stability yet behaved in ways they considered to be wrong. This supports a situational hypothesis: these people did not necessarily have a sadistic disposition but were instead conforming to the roles of the situation.
However not all participants conformed to their social roles to the same extent. Some guards did not sadistically exert control. Some prisoners did not become totally submissive. This suggests that while situational factors are important individual dispositions play an important role too. Studies designed to replicate Zimbardo challenged his emphasis on social roles.
Evaluation:
+ Zimbardo’s study demonstrates the influence of conformity to social roles which has resulted in useful applications in society such as prison reform
- Guards and prisoners knew they were taking part in a study so this might have affected how they behaved. Many participants said they were just acting so the findings of this study may not apply to real life situations.
- The study subjected many of the participants to high levels of stress as evidenced by the prisoner who “went crazy” and the others who had to be released. Further, participants did not explicitly consent to all aspects of the experiment