Conformity and Obedience Essays

In 1932, Jenness conducted the first study of conformity. The experiment was ambiguous as there was no right or wrong answer. The study focused on the participants' estimates on the number of beans in a bottle. Firstly, Jenness asked his participants to individually estimate the number of beans. He then gathered the group and got them to examine the contents. Finally, the researcher once again asked individuals for an estimate and observed that nearly all the individuals changed their original estimates to be closer to the group estimate, therefore showing a level of conformity.

He conducted 18 different variations of the original experiment. When changing different variables the obedience percentage dropped significantly. These variations showed that when the “authority” figure was wearing some sort of uniform the obedience levels would rise but when the participants question their authority they percentage decreased. In other variations the learner and the teacher were placed in the same room so the teacher can experience the pain the learner was going through. In this variation the obedience fell too. Throughout all of the variations the percentage of participants administering the maximum 450 volts decreased significantly when different variables were added to the

In 1951, Solomon Asch carried out several experiments on conformity. The aim of these studies was to investigate conformity in a group environment situation. The purpose of these experiments was to see if an individual would be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. Asch believed that conformity reflects on relatively rational process in which people are pressured to change their behaviour. Asch designed experiments to measure the pressure of a group situation upon an individual judgment. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can really play a big role in disbelieving our own senses.

Obedience and Conformity Both obedience and conformity involve social pressure in obedience the pressure comes from behaving as you are instructed to do; whereas in conformity the pressure comes from group norms Behaviour in obedience is determined by social power, whereas in conformity it is influenced mostly by the need for acceptance. In nearly all societies, certain people are given power and authority over others. Our society, for example, parents, teachers, and managers are invested with various degrees of authority. Most of the time, this does not cause any problems.

So they were not certain about the movement they observed and so would not feel confident about insisting that their observations were wholly correct. When they heard other reported judgements they may have decided to go along with them. The problem with this study, for understanding of conformity, as one aspect of social psychology is that it is a total artifical experimental situation - there isn’t even a right answer. Requested reports of imaginary movements of a stationary spot of light in a darkened room when alone, or with two others, hardly reflects situations we come accross in our every day

the pairs drew straws to see who was going to be acting as a learner, and who would be acting as a teacher. This part of the experiment was rigged so the unknowing participants would always be the teacher

Research Into Obedience There has been two main studies into obedience the first of these in 1963 by Milgram who advertised in the local paper for men of various ages and from all walks of life. He told the volunteers that they would take part in a test of memory and learning and would get paid $4.50 for the hour they were in the experiment. When they arrived at Yale University they were introduced to two people one of which was ‘Jack Williams’ who was wearing a grey laboratory coat and was to be the experimenter, the other person was a mild man in his fifties called Mr Wallace who was meant to be another volunteer but in fact were both actors. Then the volunteer was lead into a room where

On average, about thirty-two percent of the participants conformed to pick the blatantly wrong answer and over the twelve trials seventy-five percent of the students conformed at least once, and twenty-five didn’t conform at all. Many of the participants afterward admitted they conformed to give the wrong answer because they wanted to avoid being ridiculed and some thought the group really was correct. Is was the results of this experiment that led Asch to conclude that whenever people conform it’s to either fit in or because they believe that since they’re in the minority their conclusion is incorrect. Another influential experiment concerning conformity is the Stanford Prison Experiment. Conducted in 1973, Phillip Zimbardo wanted to determine if brutality in prison systems was due to the

On arriving for the experiment they were told that they would play he role of the teacher. They were to read a series of words pairs to an individual on the opposite side of a partition. They were to test the individuals' memory by giving him a word and asking him to select the correct matching word from four alternatives. Each time the learner made an error, they were to give him/her an electric shock at the touch of a lever. The individual was strapped into an electric chair while they watched. The teachers had levers in front of them labelled from 15 to 450 volts and switches labelled from slight shock to danger: severe shock to the final ‘XXX'. They were instructed to move one lever higher on the shock generator each time the learner made an error. There were not of course any shocks.

Solomon Asch 's (1951) conformity experiment is the study of people adapting their behaviours in order to follow the social normalities. This experiment entails a group of people who are actors and know about the experiment, and one person who is unknowing of the experiment, which are all in the same room. The group is shown a pair of cards; card A has a line on the card, and card B has three lines varying in length on the card, the similarities of the lines are obvious. The group individually, saying out loud picks one of the three lines on card B that matches the length of the line on card A. Everybody picks the correct line, this happens for a few rounds, then when shown another pair of cards the first actor chooses the wrong line on card B. The rest of the actors choose the same line the first actor chose, this tests to see if the unknowing participant will choose the same answer as the group (McLeod, 2008). The person who is unknowing of the

The following essay will be about understanding what is meant by and distinguishing the differences between the terms conformity and obedience. It will show the evaluation of two key psychological studies which seek to explain why people do and do not conform, also with explanations of minority influence. Whilst seeking to understand the reasons why people obey authority, it will show an evaluation of Milgram’s study of obedience, discussing the ethical issues raised from the research and

Solomon Asch was a psychologist that conduced numerous expirments designed to illustrate the increasing conformity within social groups. The experiments also invesigated the effect the number of people present within the group had one the conformity rate. Asch hypothesized, “ that the majority of the people would not conform to something obviosly wrong; however, when surrounded by (other) individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, 75% of them(the participant) will conform to the groups answer” (Watzlawick 1976)

A confederate was the person pretending to be a volunteer. These three people fill three distinct roles: The Experimenter (an authoritative role), the Teacher (a role intended to obey the orders of the Experimenter), and the Learner (the recipient of stimulus from the Teacher). (Brennan 2016). The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person and they both drew slips of paper to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates (pretending to be a real participant). (hhtp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram experiment). The "teacher" and "learner" were then placed into two different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. The teachers room hosted the electric shock generator while the learners room hosted the electric

In the area of Psychology, many experimental researches have been carried out to support various theories regarding human behavior, but there are some that are very well known due to information they have provided and the impact they had upon human lives. In my psychology class, we learned that one of the most famous psychological experiments was the one conducted by Stanley Milgram in his 1963, testing obedience, in which he requested for volunteers, some of whom would be teachers and some learners. The job of the teacher, who was in a separate room from the learner, was to read a pair of words to the learners that they had to memorize, and in the recall, if they provided any wrong answer, the teacher would apply electric shocks to the learner, not knowing that the learner would not actually be given shocks but would act as if he was

Based on all the previously referred material, conformity is totally driven by social norms, norms that are not written but sometimes are more powerful than law; the way that a person conforms to society affects the level and type of his compliance to society’s requests. For example, if a person has as personal characteristic not to like altering his self-image/ presentation based on society’s preferences due to his intense belief in independence, it is possible that this person will comply more difficult because of external motivation instead of internal. On the other hand, this means that if a person has an internal compliance only to smile to people who knows and not to