Social Influence Conformity Essay examples

I strongly believe that individuality should be valued over conformity. Today I will tell you how precious and rare individuality is, and why we should value it over conformity.

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.

Conformity is a concept that has been heavily researched in the field of social psychology. Conformity is defined as a change in behavior, beliefs, and attitudes due to group pressure perceived as real (encompassing the presence of others) or imagined (encompassing the pressure of social standards) (Myers, 2010, p. 192). The concept of conformity is a powerful influence on the tendency for people to arrange their thoughts, perspectives, and ideas with others, especially when in a group. This takes away from a person’s individuality because they want to feel accepted by others and therefore, a person will accomplish this basic need of approval through conforming.

Human beings are defined as ''social animals'' because in every aspects of life they live together, they form a variety of groups and improve relationships with each other. Interaction with others is a natural result of living in society. In the process of interaction, society and its rules has a social impact on each individual. If people face with any kind of social impact such as group pressure, great part of them show conformity by changing their behaviors, ideas, decisions in expected way. A person conforms if he or she chooses a course of action that a majority favors or that is socially acceptable. Some kind of conformity is natural and socially healthy but obeying all the norms, ideas, and decisions without thinking or accepting

Asch’s experiment was performed in 1951 and is now a classic experiment in psychology. Asch asked individuals a simple question and a high percentage answered correctly. Then Asch placed a participant in a room with seven actors who had predetermined incorrect answers. When asked in front of the group, 75% of people would give incorrect answers clearly because of they conformed to the actors around them. Asch then concluded that it is natural for one to conform to society in order to fit

As readers, we see how the analysis of conflictive themes has been taking over literature scenarios. When reading between the lines of certain books we can perceive themes such as conformity and rebellion. Mostly these themes can be seen in writings from times of social upheaval. According to The Oxford Dictionary, the word conformity means “behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards”, while rebellion means “the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.” These terms create a constant battle among societies. A certain amount of conformity needs to exist in life in order to avoid disorder. This is the reason society has laws, rules and expectations. Literature represents life, and these themes can be found at the root of many literary works. Conformity can also be considered as silence. This silence is based on the restrictions of real feelings and thoughts in some literary pieces. During the sixteenth century, the emphasis on conformity was at its height. Works of literature from this time period have often reflected a fascination and frustration with this particular characteristic. People do not want to be restricted in terms of expressing opinions and developing certain activities. When facing oppression, denial of their freedom, they rebel, and that contributes to the part of the process of change in society. Not all kinds of rebellions are rationally fundamental, but when they are, it can transform society for the

The contents of this assignment will include multiple psychological theories to explain what ways an individual’s behaviour changes when he/she is part of a group. These theories will define social influence, conformity procedures within groups and social cognition, including the self-categorisation theory. Social groups are used in everyday living to represent beliefs, to work, play and to socialise. Groups can have a negative effect on an individual. Not been part of a group due to exclusion or stereotyping can create a negative effect.

Solomon Asch tested conformity at Swarthmore College in 1951 by putting a participant in a group of people whose task was to match line lengths. Each individual was expected to announce which of three lines was the closest in length to a reference line. But the participant was placed in a group of actors, who were all told to give the correct answer twice then switch to each saying the same incorrect answer. Asch wanted to see whether the participant would conform and start to give the wrong answer as well, knowing that he would otherwise be a single outlier.

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

This experiment found that when a group of two other people refused to obey the conditions of the experiment, then the third person would most likely do the same.  It was found that, “The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduces the level of obedience to 10%” (McLeod 588). A similar finding is noted in Solomon Asch’s “Opinions and Social Pressure”, where it was found that when someone is among their peers, they are more likely to conform to the group opinion. Asch acknowledges that social pressure plays a large role because the individual “must declare his judgments in public, before a majority which has also stated its position publicly” (Asch 599). This confirms the idea that an individual is more likely to conform when they are being judged by their

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

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

So why do we conform? Gross. R, et al (2000) in ‘2nd edition psychology a new

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)

Another form of social influence is obedience. Obedience occurs when an individual acts in response to an order by a person in authority whether that order goes against what they know to be right or not. This can be done to gain acceptance or to avoid punishment. Obedience accounts for a large amount of the medication errors that happen in hospitals each day. An example of this is a nurse following a doctor’s order even when the doctor’s orders go against her professional obligations. This was demonstrated in an experiment conducted by C. Hofling. In Hofling’s experiment 22 nurses who worked at a hospital were contacted by a staff doctor that they did not know. They were told to give twice the highest dose of a drug to his patient. If the nurses did what they were told they would be going against three different rules. First, they were not to accept doctor’s orders over the phone. Second, the dose called for by the doctor was double the maximum for that drug. Third, the medication was not on their authorized list of medications. Of the 22 nurses 21