Study Group Conformity

The participants in the “Zimbardo Prison study” had several negative effects. The prisoners suffered mental breakdowns in which they began crying, yelling, and screaming. The guards were consumed in their power and had no compassion for the prisoners in which they stripped, beat, and dehumanized them. The experiment was supposed to last for 14 days but only lasted for six because of the severe effects the prisoners were experiencing. Zimbardo became too involved in the experiment and was not making appropriate decisions to protect those involved in the experiment. The guards were too immersed in their power roles to realize they were hurting the prisoners. Zimbardo’s honesty was compromised and was not of an appropriate experiment conductor. The mental effects of

This experiment goes to show that there are few people who have the capability of keeping themselves together in situations that are out of their control. When given the opportunity, the men who played the guards took advantage of the inmates, and the men who played the inmates let themselves be taken advantage of. Both groups were obviously manipulated by Zimbardo and his men though. There are many points that can be brought from this study in order to educate people on themselves. One being that no matter how in control that you feel you are right now, in a split second that can all change. Another that one of the guard pointed out, is that just when you think that you know yourself and the things that you are capable of doing, you can be pushed to different level and do things that later you will be ashamed

Conformity is a situation of changing one’s behavior in order to match the actions of the society around the person. The social influence cause people to agree or even behave like the majority of the people in the specific group so that the group can perceive them as normal. Solomon Asch (1956) was interested to know the act of people in conformity pressure. Because of that, he created an experiment to investigate the process by asking college students in a group of eight to match the lengths of different lines. The experiment shows that 95% of the students correctly match 12 lines without pressure of group. Ash repeats the experiment by changing the situation. The students now need to hear answers of five other people who are actually confederates

I came to an denouement that the people that was in charge of this organization was setting the kids up not only failure but turning them into criminals slowly but surely. At first it was all fun & games until the guards started abusing their authority then that’s when the experiment quickly went left.

The experiment conducted by students in a social psychology class, used the same method that Milgram used to show how people conform to a group. The study found similar results to Milgram’s study, although it was conducted on a smaller campus with less people. Being that the outcome of the experiment was similar to the results of most other studies on conformity, it reinforced the idea that a group easily influences people. Based on the results of the previous studies mentioned above, it was hypothesized that more students and faculty passing by a crowd would conform when the crowd was

Group conformity is defined as the way people change their behavior or character when influenced by other people or by a certain social environment. A basic example of it will be a teenager whom friends are all smirking a cigarette, fear of not being part of the group our teenager will at his turn light a cigarette. Conformity in a group is in way copying what other members are doing to integrate the group, one can act totally out of character just for the group conformity. In this essay we will analyze how people are affected by group conformity and what kind of changes some are willing to make in their characters or behavior. We will also analyze how can group conformity be expressed in our society. Finally we will analyze what statistics and scientific research is telling us about group conformity.

In 1971, a Stanford professor named Philip Zimbardo conducted a study in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University. He designed a 2-week long study in which he recreated a prison environment in a single corridor of the basement. After the study was finalized, Zimbardo sent out an ad in the local newspaper, which asked for male volunteers to participate in a psychological study that paid $15 a day. Over 70 applicants responded, and after extensive screening to find the “most mature, emotionally stable, normal, intelligent young men,” 24 of them were selected to participate in the prison experiment (Zimbardo). Twelve of these men were randomly selected to play the prison guards, and the other dozen were the prisoners.

In the summer of 1971, students were picked up and brought to a make shift prison at Stanford University’s psychology department. Dr. Zimbardo created a functional simulation of a real prison by adding aspects of dehumanization, humiliation, and degradation. He accomplished this by issuing the prisoners a dress, or smock, which each subject wore at all times with no underclothes. On the front and back of the smock was the “prisoners” ID number. The subjects were only to be referred to by their number, not their name. The prisoners had a nylon cap placed on their head to replicate their head being shaved, further taking their identity. Lombardo also locked a chain and padlock around the prisoners right ankle to remind prisoners of the oppressiveness of their environment. The experiment started with nine guards and nine prisoners. The guards would work eight hour shifts and alternate. The prisoners were in the prison for all 24 hours in the day. They occupied a little cell containing three cots, and not room for much else. When the experiment first started, the prisoners and guards were becoming acquainted with their roles and not much occurred. The second day arrived and conflict started to occur. The prisoners had barricaded their cells with their cots and refused to leave their cells. The guards who didn’t know how to react ended up

The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most notorious and unique experiments in modern social psychology history. A psychologist named Philip Zimbardo executed the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. His goal for this experiment was to show that the prison guards and convicts would fall into pre-defined roles, rather than following their own judgment and morals. The experiment was unsuccessful, but it produced some results that give an insight into human psychology and social behavior.

Conformity is a type of social influence that involves the change in belief or behavior to fit into a group (Mcleod, 2007). Conformity is a common behavior among people, which leads to the research question of this study. The research question of this study is “Will people conform to the actions initiated by more people?” It is important to conduct this study as we aim to know and understand the type of situations that will cause conformity to occur.

In pyschology conformity can be descibed as an indiviual’s tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he/she belongs to or wants to be apart of. Many psychologists including , Jenness (1932), Sherif (1935) both experimented in psychology, investigating conformity and group pressure. However, perhaps the most famous conformity experiment was done by Solomon Asch (1951) and his line judgment experiment. (McLeod 2007)

The Zimbardo Prison Study was a physiological experiment to observe the behavioral and psychological behavior of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. This study took place in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University in 1971. The basement was rearranged to have three cells, a guard’s room, closet, and warden’s office. Philip Zimbardo was the psychologist in charge of the study and had help from Carlo Prescott, an ex-convict. There are many violations of the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologist present in this experiment that can be seen throughout the video. Due to these ethical violations and all of the aspects that came with it, for the safety of the prisoners and prison guards, this experiment which was supposed to last two weeks, lasted only six days.

According to the Stanford Prison Experiment website, the objective of this experiment “was to understand the development of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations in a simulated  prison environment”(Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971). The participants in this study were all male that were younger around the age of 20, they were from both United States and Canada while they were offered $15 per day. With all of the interest for the opportunity to participate in this study, only 24 people were chosen, 12 prison guards and 12 prisoners. The assignment of the roles were given out randomly to the students and after only a 2 days, they really started to adapt to their roles. The guards started to become abusive towards the student prisons when they found out that they could do whatever they wanted to contain them and it really proved well to Zimbardo’s psychological hypothesis.

The subject of conformity is considered a primary point of research in social psychology. Many social psychologists throughout history have experimented and evaluated the attributes of conformity, concluding key factors that contribute to conformity. With consideration, it is arguable that culture and group size are two of the most accountable factors in social conformity. Evidently, research in these areas are both highly notable and in abundance; with respect to studies such as the Asch Line Experiment (Asch, 1951) and the Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971). Social psychological theories such as The Chameleon Effect (Chartrand & Bragh, 1999) also suggest evidence of conformism in society. Furthermore, the power and influence of minority groups (Minority Influence Theory; Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, 2009; Moscovivi and Lage, 1976) can importantly provide insight into not only how a minority can influence a majority in society but also show an alternative argument to the Asch paradigm. Fundamentally, all three factors that contribute to conformity are in attempt to describe human behaviour.

Zimbardo makes a comment that perfectly describes the methodology of his experiment; explaining how studies have been done of actual prison life by sociologists and criminologists, but that such studies contain major limitations to what parts of prison life can be observed. “They can see only what they are allowed to see on guided tours that rarely get beneath the surface of prison life. We’d like to better understand the deeper structure of the prisoner/guard relationship by re-creating the psychological environment of a prison, and then to be in a position to observe, record, and document the entire