The Effect of Conformity on the Likelihood of Subjects to
Conform to a Certain Action Initiated
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.
Arthur Jenness was the first psychologist who created an experiment to study conformity (Jenness, 1932). In his experiment, the subjects were asked to estimate the number of beans in groups with the
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.
Conformity is a form of social influence, when we conform we act and think like members of our group. Often people even alter or change their personal beliefs to match those around them. When we conform we feel pressured to fit in with others, to be a part of the majority. While we may still have contradicting beliefs towards things, we change our behaviors and actions to match what everybody else is
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
There is a fundamental human need to belong to social groups especially if people were to live and work together, it is likely that they need to agree on common beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours in order to get along and fit-in. Thus, we learnt to conform to rules of other people, the more people see others behaving in a particular way or making particular decisions, the more likely people will feel obliged to follow the suit. This is called conformity and can be defined in different ways, Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2014) stated it is the changing of one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), social influence should be distinguished into two types, the informational social influence and normative social influence. The occurrence of social influence has implied to many real life events, which has drawn many researchers to attention. This has lead many researchers to design distinct experiments to try and understand the cause of the conformity, whether conformity is situation dependent, and whether we are able to resist social influences.
According to Webster, conformity is an “agreement in form, manner, or character” (Conformity, 2011). Usually associated with group pressure or bringing influencing by the majority, it can also be clarified as “yielding to group pressures” (Crutchfield, 1955). With these two definitions in mind, we can see that social influence, which tends to cause a change in belief system or even behavior, for the sole purpose of acceptance by the group, plays a large part in our every day lives. Dr. Herbert C. Kelman, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, at Harvard University takes the definition of conformity a step further with his study, and claims that there are three different types
To commence with, conformity and obedience are ubiquitous. The roles of authority are easily found from school, workplace, home and government. Childhood can be influenced by parenting styles, students can be educated by instructors, and workers can be monitored by supervisors. According to Kiesler and Kiesler (1969), conformity is a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of others. People do not know what to do in a confusing or unusual situation and the behavior of people around serve as a cue as to how to respond.
Confirmity refers to the tendency of people to alter their own behavior as a result of group pressure. The first classical study of conformity was lead by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, Ash’s study focosued on the social influences of conformity. Social pressure sometimes influences perception and this is when brain imaging data comes into play. Findings based on brain imaging data has suggested that conformity may come with possible negative emotions, particularly anxiety. Berns who originally constructed eperiements to test the brain imaging data found that conformity is also associated with activity in the parietal and occiptoal lobes, the areas of the breain that are responsible for visual perception. As we have come to discover social pressure
The belief that conformity is nonexistent in humans is an impractical concept that is illogical. In fact, this idea was disproved by a psychologist, Solomon Asch, in his experiment commonly referred to as the Asch Paradigm in which he hired a group, consisting of five to ten people, and a person to ask questions regarding four lines. Only one person, who went last in answering, in the group did not have any previous knowledge of the experiment and was not a payed actor. The experiment itself consisted of these four
The Asch Experiment was conducted in the 1950’s by Solomon Asch. It was an experiment created to examine the individuality and judgement of a perfectly normal person that was influence by peer pressure to conform to unusual behavior by other figures or opinions around them. For this experiment, Asch had eight participants sit with a seating plan that was created to sit around a table. Out of the eight participant there was only one participant that was the real subject for this experiment, and the other was confederates who was coached to give certain answers and they was also used to place peer pressure on the real subject of this experiment. They was all asked to answer a chain of questions that asked which line was the longest or which line matched the mention line. The participant and the confederates would answer a question correctly, but then the confederates indicate an opinion right before the participant answered causing the participant to answer incorrectly also. With the answers of each participant and how they would change because of the influence of peer pressure each participant was given at first correct answers, followed by a range of correct answers with some incorrect answers showed Asch how peer pressure from other people could make a person conform even after knowing that everyone else is wrong
As defined by Robbins, S. P., De Cenzo, D. A., & Coulter, M. (2015), conformity is adjusting one’s behavior to align with a group’s norms. A study done by Solomon Asch (1951) found that 35% of participants in the research study would conform to group
Causes of conformity between individuals have long been discussed over the past years and recent times of today’s lives. Many are the times an individual beliefs to be better and unique unlike anyone else. It’s true we all possess specific behaviors that differentiate us from every other person in the universe. However, imaginations, thoughts, and wishful thinking, for most of the people goes hand in hand with certain rules of the society in numerous cases. Some examples of conformity include children attend school and adults go to work; cars will stop at a red light and move once it turns green. If we never complied with any set rules in the society, the whole entire structure would break down. The research examining this piece will fit various model categories to derive five main reasons that motivate conformity.
Conformity is a type of social behaviour which involves a change in an individuals belief/ behaviour in order to fit in with a group. This change is either due to imagined or real group pressure. Real group pressure is when there is the physical presence of others and imagined group pressure involves the pressure of social norms( expected appropriate behaviour). Conformity can be positive or negative e.g. being quiet in a library is an example of positive conformity and joining in with a group bullying someone is negative conformity. There are various factors which help determine the level of conformity including group size, individuals status within the group and unanimity. Obedience is a type of social influence which involves compliance
Social psychology is a scientific-based study which is used to examine and explain how an individual’s thoughts and feelings affect their behaviour within a society; how the members socially interact, including their motives; and what influences these members have on each other. This essay will endeavour to introduce the key psychologists, their theories and the idiographic research they conducted. In particular, it will focus on the features and definition of conformity and the investigations into the views on conformity. Furthermore, it aims to critically analyse and reveal a correlation in the results and conclusions in respect to the current comprehension of human social behaviour.
Conformity is a change in an individual’s behaviour and their beliefs at which can affect human
Among several types of social influences that describe how people affect one another is conformity. Conformity is the changing of one’s behaviors or beliefs in pressure because everyone else is doing it, or by where members of a peer group pointedly encourage one another to do something. Through important research studies like the Asch’s line judging experiment, we see how people are persuaded to conform and how easy it is to get people to conform to group pressure. As the golden standard research study of conformity is Solomon Asch’s line judging experiment. In this study participants sat together, judged, and called out which of three lines were the