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Conformity

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Conformity vs Obedience Conformity

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The tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behavior in ways that are consistent with group

norms (Brehm, Kassin & Fein, 1999, p 213)

Obedience

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Behavior change produced by the commands of

authority (Brehm, Kassin & Fein, 1999, p 232)

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 a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour in order to fit in with a group.

 This change is in response to real (involving the physical presence of others) or imagined (involving the pressure of social norms / expectations) group pressure.

Conformity

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Conformity Research

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Allport (1924) observed that people in groups gave more conservative judgements of odours & weights than when alone

 Sherif (1936) conducted studies in Autokinesis (Optical illusion in which a pinpoint of light shining in darkness appears to move about) – see Socio-Cultural Booklet.

 Sherif argued that people need to feel as though what they’re doing, thinking or feeling is correct – use the behaviour of others to establish a range of behaviour –

‘frame of reference’

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Conformity Research

 Asch (1951, 1952, 1956) undertook a series of studies where males participated in what they thought was a visual discrimination task  Took turns in a fixed order to call out which of three comparison lines was the same length as a standard line  Eighteen trials – only one true naïve participant – answered 2 nd to last  Control condition – one participant performed the task privately

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Conformity Results

 CONTROL – less than 1% of control participants had errors.

 Average conformity rate – 33%  26% remained steadfast – NEVER conformed  50% conformed to the majority on 6 + focal trials; 5% conformed on all 12 focal trials  When Asch provided an ally – conformity dropped to 5.5%  Little difference when group size rose above 4.

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Conformity Results

 Conformity rates increased when difficulty in the task rose (ie when the lines became closer in length)  When the naïve participant could write down the result, conformity dropped.

 Subjects who did not conform felt pressure to do so  In another version of the experiment, Asch had one confederate among 16 naïve participants. Participants found confederate responses so bizarre, they laughed. Even the experimenter found it difficult – and laughed at the response.

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Conformity Evaluation

 The participant have no vested interested in identifying the correct length of the line. It is not something that they would have had strong opinions about. Therefore, the task lacks mundane reality and the study lacks ecological validity.

 The participants were all male and all of the same age from the same university. There may have been effects of social identity on the group which were not accounted for in the original study, but were later addressed by Abrams.

 There is a question of temporal validity with this study. The study was done in the US in the 1950s when conformity was a strong social norm. It is questionable whether this is true today in the US. However, it is difficult to test this today with the same age level since so many students learn about this study in psychology or other social studies courses.

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Conformity Evaluation

 There is the ethical concern of the use of deception.

 There is a question as to why so few people actually conformed. Some have criticized the interpretation of the study as exaggerating the role of group pressure on conformity.

 Although cognitive dissonance theory is often used as an argument to explain conformity, there is no way to actually measure this process - that is, even though interviews after the experiment are used to determine why an individual behaves the way he does, there is no way to actually know what they are thinking and how they make the decision during the actual experiment.

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Conformity Evaluation

 The original study has low predictive validity for individual behaviour.

 The procedure itself is difficult to manage, is time consuming and expensive to run. Thus, the sample sizes tend to be small. to counter this, Crutchfield came up with a procedure which allowed him to test many more participants quickly. Participants sat alone in a cubicle while questions were projected onto a screen. The answers given by confederates - which were often wrong - were shown in the bottom corner of the screen. All responses asked for a true or false response. Crutchfield found the level of conformity to also be roughly 30% - the same as Asch's original study.

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Conformity

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Informational Influence

need for mastery.

– influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Comes into play when people are uncertain – adopt group consensus because it seems correct. Driven by a 

Normative influence

– the need for social approval and acceptance. Conforming to positive expectations of others. Other people have reward or coercive power. Public agreement – but private reservation.

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Dual Process

and liked – models of conformity based on the above. People conform because they want to be right 

Referent Influence

– (Explanation based in SIT & Group Theory) driven by a need for connectedness with a group. As with Normative Influence, in-group possesses informational power – and possibly reward. Leads individual to identification conformity – beliefs and behaviour coinciding with the group’s.

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Conformity

 Individual differences play a major role in conformity.

 Factors affecting those who tend to conform have high need for

need for self-control; low IQ; insecurity; feelings of inferiority ; low group status

;

have an authoritarian personality

(Costanzo, 1970; Crutchfield, 1955); Elms & Milgram, 1966); Stang, 1972)  Contradictory findings – people who conform in one situation do not conform in another – situational factors may be more important than personality (Gorlow, 1967; Barron, 1953; McGuire, 1968)

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Conformity

Findings

 Unanimity: When there was one confederate who did not give the wrong answer, the level of conformity dropped. When the naive participant recognized that he had an "ally" in the group, the power of the three reasons why the participants said they conformed in the original experiment were no longer valid and did not affect their decisions on how to reply. Asch found that the level of conformity dropped from about one-third to 5.5%. Allen & Levine (1971) carried out a study with a confederate with very thick glasses that admitted to having poor eye sight. When this confederate gave the correct answer in opposition to the majority, the naive participants' level of conformity also dropped, in spite of the fact that this confederate's responses may be seen as less trustworthy.

 Group Size: Asch found that when there was only one confederate and a naive participant, the levels of conformity were low. When it was increased to two and then to three confederates, the level of conformity increased. When increasing the number of confederates above three, there was no change in the level of conformity.

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Conformity

 Private vs Public responses: Another variation is where the naive participant was led to believe that he was late for the experiment on visual perception. He was told that since he was late, his data would not really be valid, but it would still be interesting to see how he performed. So, he was asked to take part as the last person in the group to give the response, but not to say it aloud - simply write it down. Conformity levels dropped to almost zero when the participant was asked to write down the response. This study provides an argument that of the three reasons participants gave for conforming, perhaps fear of rejection by the group was the most powerful factor.

 Self-esteem: Stang (1973) carried out a correlational study of self-esteem and conformity. His sample was made up of 52 female undergraduates. Participants took a test which measured their self-esteem. One week later, their levels of conformity were measured using Crutchfield's conformity situation. He found that there was a small, but significant negative correlation between self-esteem and level of conformity - that is, those that had higher levels of self-esteem showed lower levels of conformity. A further study by Santee & Maslach (1982) found that students with high self-esteem were less likely than those with low self-esteem to agree with incorrect solutions to a problem put forward by other students.

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Conformity

 Social Identity: Abrams (1990) showed that we tend to conform more when we believe that the confederates are members of our in-group.

 Cultural dimensions: Berry (1967) carried out the Asch paradigm to determine the level of conformity based on ecocultural variables - that is, how the society is organized. Berry found in a sample of ten cultures that there was a correlation between the level of interdependence and the rate of conformity. Those cultures which were hunting based (such as the Inuits of Baffin Bay) showed lower levels of conformity and agriculturally based cultures, with tighter social organization (such as the Temne of Sierra Leone), showed higher levels of conformity. Bond & Smith (1996) later characterized these societies using Hofstede's dimension of individualism and collectivism - arguing that this study is evidence that collectivistic societies are more likely to conform .

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Conformity

Cross Cultural Findings

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Kim & Marcus (1999)

– Interdependent and Collectivist cultures (eg India, Korea, Japan) see themselves as part of the group and conformity as a kind of social glue.

 Studies like Asch’s when conducted in collectivist cultures (Fijians, Zimbabwean Bantus, Lebanese) exhibit HIGHER rates of Conformity (PB Smith & Bond, 1993) 

In a meta-analysis of 133 studies from 17 different countries provided evidence that whether a culture is individual or collectivist is one of the biggest influences on levels of conformity. The more collectivist, the more conformity (PB Smith & Bond, 1996)

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Conformity Minority Influence

 Moscovici (1969) conducted a re-run of Asch’s experiment. Instead of one subject amongst a majority of confederates, he placed two confederates together with four genuine participants. The participants were first given eye tests to ensure they were not colour-blind.

 They were then placed in a group consisting of four participants and two confederates. They were shown 36 slides which were clearly different shades of blue and asked to state the colour of each slide out loud. In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. They were totally consistent in their responses. In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. In this case they were inconsistent in their answers. Would the responses of the two confederates influence those of the four participants? In other words, would there be minority influence?

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Conformity Minority Influence

Results

 Control used for comparison with the experimental group. The factors expected to influence the experimental group's behaviour are removed. The control group did not include confederates.

 Only 0.25% of the control group's answers were green, the rest were blue.

 For the experimental group, 1.25% of the participants' answers were green when the confederates gave inconsistent answers (i.e. 24 green, 12 blue).

 This rose to 8.42% green when the confederates’ answers were consistent (i.e. 36 green).

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Conformity Minority Influence

 Moscovici’s (1980) developed Conversion Theory to explain why and how a minority group/individual can influence the majority.

 Impact of smaller group on larger comes through

conflict

two subgroups . The minority viewpoint confronts the majority viewpoint and creates conflict within the individual and between the 

Consistency

– of viewpoint over time, and between members of the minority group is the most important aspect. Minorities create

divergent thinking

– causes others to consider alternatives (Nemeth, 1986). Whereas Majority Influence may be automatic & unthinking, Minority Influence may be more reflective.

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Conformity Minority Influence

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Flexibility

– Mugny (1982) distinguished between rigid and flexible negotiation style. Because minorities are typically powerless, they have to negotiate their influence. If a minority refuses to negotiate on ANY issue – they risk being labeled as dogmatic. If TOO flexible, they risk being labeled as inconsistent.

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Indirect

position.

– Minority influence happens in private – people do not publicly admit to being influenced or having their opinion changed – resistant to appearing to abandon their majority 

Group Influences

– More effective if the minority group is seen as making sacrifices and is seen as a sub-group of the in-group. If the minority is perceived as an out-group, there is little influence.

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Conformity Group Polarization

Results

 The tendency for groups to make decisions that are

more extreme

the decisions that they make on their own.

than  Myers and Bishop (1970) found that groups of people with liberal views on racism became more liberal on race-related issues following discussion. People with conservative views polarized in the opposite direction  Levine, Higgins and Choi (2000) found that when those who care about loss interact, they make more conservative decisions whereas those who focus on gain make riskier decisions when they interact.

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Conformity Group Polarization

Reasons: SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY

 Jellison & Arkin (1977) argue that people seek social approval and try to avoid social censure. Group discussion reveals which opinions are socially valued o culturally acceptable – so group members shift to gain approval/avoid diapproval.

Social Comparison varies in two ways:

 The Bandwagon Effect – on learning which extreme attitude is socially acceptable, people in discussion may compete to be stronger advocates of that attitude. Codol (1975).  Pluralistic Ignorance (Miller & McFarland, 1987) – because people often behave in ways that do not reflect what they really think, they’re often ignorant of what others really think.

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Conformity Group Polarization

Reasons: PERSUASIVE ARGUMENTS THEORY

 Burnstein & Vinokur( 1977) argued that people tend o rest their opinions on a body of supportive arguments that they express publicly in a group. People in the group will hear not only familiar – but novel arguments – all in support of their held opinion. As a result, the opinion will be more entrenched and extreme – and group opinion more polarized.

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

 SIT focuses on the social categorization process and thus treats polarization as a regular conformity phenomenon (Turner & Oakes, 1985).

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Conformity

GroupThink

 A mode of thinking where the desire to reach unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt rational decision making procedures.

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US Challenger disaster

(Esser, 1998; Esser & Lindoerfer, 1989). Decision making flawed by the emphasis on agreement rather than dissent.

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Consensus agreed without consideration of all available evidence

filtered or suppressed.

– consensus counts most so information processing biased and alternative views 

Consensus agreed because members views are not independent

influences – members with similar backgrounds and points of view & isolation from external 

Consensus achieved by public conformity without acceptance

conform intense & willingness to tolerate disagreement low.

– pressure to

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Conformity Risky Shift

Definition

 When people are in groups, they make decision about risk differently from when they are alone. In the group, they are likely to make riskier decisions, as the shared risk makes the individual risk less.

Research

 Wallach et al (1962) asked participants to complete a Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire. Involves a series of twelve stories in each of which the main character faces a dilemma with two options – one riskier than the other.

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Conformity Risky Shift

Research (continued) - Dilemma Sample

 A low ranked participant in a national chess tournament, playing an early match, has a choice of attempting or not attempting a deceptive but risky manoeuvre that might lead to a quick victory if successful or certain defeat if it fails. Indicate the lowest probability of success that you would accepts before recommending that the chess player play the risky move  _____ 1 chance in 10 of succeeding  _____ 3 chance in 10 of succeeding  _____ 5 chance in 10 of succeeding  _____ 7 chance in 10 of succeeding  _____ 9 chance in 10 of succeeding  _____ I would not recommend the alternative no matter how high the likelihood of success

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 During the first phase of the experiment, participants worked individually.

Conformity Risky Shift

 In the second phase, they worked as a group and were asked to arrive at a unanimous decision for each dilemma.

 Wallach et al’s (1962) findings indicate that the options chosen in the group condition were riskier than those chosen by individuals working alone