Conformity

Conformity: 

• Yielding to group pressure  

• Majority influence – The influence a group has over an individual. 

Informational conformity: 

When you look to others for what to do when you don't know. People took others for the answer, i.e. your first fire drill. People do this because they dont want to be wrong and stand out. The drive is the desire to do the right thing.  

Sherif experiment – Informational conformity:  

 Suggested that people use the behavior of others to decide what to do especially when unsure or low confidence.  

Used a lab experiment  

Used the auto kinetic effect, this is where a small spot of light in a dark room will appear to move even though it is still (visual illusion).  

Conducted this experiment with the aim of demonstrating that people conform to group norms when they are asked to perform an ambiguous (where you're not sure of the right/wrong thing) task.  

Condition 1: 

P’s to dark room. 

Asked to focus on a single spot of light. 

Sherif asked each P’s to estement how far the light moved and in what direction (the light does not actually move.  

P’s estimates varied dramatically.  

Condition 2:  

P’s asked to return to the lab several days later to repeat the task. 

This time they were placed in groups.  

Findings: 

Sheriff found that individuals changed their views and converged or agreed on similar answers. 

By the third trail individual group members produced very similar results.  

A group norm was formed. 

Normative social influence: 

The need to be accepted by and belong to a group. The group has the power to punish or even exclude those who do not fit in and tow the line.  

Acceptance  

Asch experiment – Normative social influence:  

Asch wanted to see what would happen when people conformed with a majority who were plainly wrong and see if they would change their own views to conform to the majority.  The task he used was not ambiguous and the answer was clear. His experiment is known as the line experiment.  

Procedure: 

• Asch showed P’s two cards. 

• He then asked them to say which of the comparison lines was the same length. This was repeated 17 times.  

• On every trial the answer was obvious.  

• Done in groups of 7 & 9 people but only one was a real participant.  

Results: 

• Overall, 32% conformed, no one conformed on all trials. 

• 25% didn't conform at all. 

• 75% conformed at least once.  

• No one conformed to all trials. 

Factors of whether a P’s conformed when confederates answered wrong: 

Conformity low in pairs. 

3 confederates or more climbed to 33%. 

Even one confederate agreeing with participant – Conformity decreased dramatically.  

Three main reasons for conforming: 

• Distortion of perception – A small number of P’s came to see the lines in the same way as the majority.  

• Distortion of judgement – They felt doubt about accuracy of their judgement and therefore yielded to majority. 

• Distortion of action – The majority who conformed continued privately to trust their own perception but changed their public behavior to avoid disapproval.  

Perrin and Spencer: 

Carried out an experiment to assess the difference in conformity 25 yrs after Asch’s original research. They replicated Asch’s study using the same line task with different groups: 

1. 33 male students. 

2. 20 male students who were on probation – the confederates were their probation officers. 

3. 16 young, unemployed west Indian men.  

In male students not on probation conformity was almost nonexistent. Suggests conformity in 1981 was much lower than Asch found in the 1950s.  

The young men on probation showed very similar rates of conformity to those found by Asch in 1950 – implying conformity still takes place when people are placed with those who have power or authority over them.  

High rates of conformity were found when young west Indian P’s were placed in a group with most confederates being white. 

Key points: 

Whether or not people conform depends on many factors such as time and place.  

Studies suggest that conformity is much lower in the western world today.  

When the answer is NOT CLEAR the level of conformity increases (Informational Social Influence) but when the MAJORITY are doing one thing, and we comply with this is (normative social influence).  

Evaluation: 

Asch: 

• Gender bias, all male P’s 

• Lacks ecological validity – simplistic line match, (not something you would normally do), controlled, lab experiment. 

• Deception – told ti was about perception, not conformity, no informed consent.  

Sherif: 

• Demonstrates how group norms emerge 

• Lacks ecological validity – visual illusion (not something you would normally do), controlled, lab experiment.  

• Gender bias – All male students.