Conformity and Obedience - Essay Example

Topic: Lecturer: Presentation: Introduction It is not uncommon for people to behave in a certain way just to ‘fit in’ into a group or the society or because they are following orders. Yound people especially engage in drug addiction or copy the dressing styles of their peers just so that they do not seem the odd ones out. The society especially dictates the norms of behaviour that individuals are supposed to adhere to, failure to which one is considered a social misfit or a delinguency. However, what is amazing is how people can go to the extreme of killing others as it happened with Nazi Germany during World War II or what is commonly referred as the Holocaust. Psychologists have over time been performing experiments to understand the extent to which social pressure or psychological factors influence behaviour. They came to the conclusion that people follow others simply to conform to the group or as a means of obeying the authority. This paper will evaluate which psycological factor (conformity or obedience) exerts the greater pressure on the individual. This will be achieved through evaluation of the conformity experiments conducted by Asch (1951) and obedience experiments such as that conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1963. Conformity is defined by Cherry as “individual’s tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he or she belongs” or simply “any change in behaviour caused by another person or group; that is, giving in to group pressure” (Cherry, Conformity, 2013). As such, the individuals act in the same way as others because they are influenced by them regardless of the nature of influence. Conformity in this case does not concern the effect of people on other psychological factors such as attitudes and beliefs but only the behaviour of those affected. Obedience on the other hand, involves altering one’s behaviour due to influence by a person in authority (Cherry, Obedience, 2015). Beginning from the family to the workplace, people often follow orders given by a superior such as the father or the supervisor. This is especially so in hierarchical institutions like schools, military and prisons. This is not unsusual but what the psychologists are concerned with is why a person would go as far as conforming or obeying a command which they know is wrong as evidenced by the various experiments performed or real life situations such as the German Holocaust. Most of the criminals justified their actions by arguing that they were simply just obeying commands from their superiors hence they saw no fault in themselves. The difference here between conrmity and obedience is that conformity involves going along with people of equal status whereas obedience involves following orders of someone with higher status (Cherry, 2015). This means obedience may not be voluntary unlike conformity where people decide to conform on their own volition. Conformity involves discarding own opinions and perceptions and following others to avoid conflict with them or not to be rejected by the group. There are a myrid of factors that induce people to conform as evidenced by the studies of Muzafer Sherif (1935) and Solomon Asch (1951). Sherif performed Autokinetic experiments in 1935 to determine how far a dot of light in a dark room moved. Although in reality the dot was static, once a person looked at it, it seemed to move due to autokinetic effect. Once the experiementy was performed on individuals, they gave different answers but when it was performed on a group, the responses were similar. Sherif attributed this behaviour to informational influence whereby in uncertain or ambiguous situations, people tend to conformto the group (Sherif, 1935). This was replicated by Asch’s experiments in 1951 although in this case, the answers were clear. In real life situations, we also tend to conform to a group when faced with an ambigous situation and we do not know the answers for certain or how to behave in such situations. No wonder the famous phrase that “majority rules” or “majority wins”. People tend to believe that the majority cannot be wrong hence following them blindly. The problem is, why would one conform to a behaviour one is sure is wrong? Asch sought to find out the reasons in his 1951, 1952, 1955 and 1956 experiments and these were replicated by Perrin and Spencer (1981). Asch (1951) experiments were aimed at demonstrating degree to which an individual’s own opions are influenced by those of majority group. The study (experimental condition) involved 50 male students of Swarthmore College in USA. The students were informed that they were going to conduct “vision test” although this was not the aim of the study. The participants were divided into groups of eight people comprising a ‘real’ participant (unaware of real aim of experiment) and seven confederates (actors who knew aim of study). They were provided with two cards; one with a line on it, followed by card with three lines on it and were asked to say aloud which line matched the line on first card in length. The real participant was placed at the end such that he was the last to answer. The experiment involved 18 trials and confederates had been advised to answer 12 trials (critical trials) incorrectly to see if the real participant would conform. The real participants were debriefed at the end of the experiment and interviewed to find out why they conformed. Asch also performed experiments on 37 participants in controlled condition whereby no confederates were involved but only the real participant and the experimenter were present. Later experiments were carried out with variations to determine what factors influenced conformity. Such variations included group size, task difficulty and status of majority group (McLeod, 2008). Asch (1951) revealed that 75% of participants conformed at least onces whereas 25% never conformed and that on average, one-third (32%) of participants conformed on 12 critical trials. However, in controlled condition, only less that 1% of participants gave wrong answers. This means that in experimental condition, real participants conformed due to social pressure. The interviews revealed that there were myriad of reasons why some people conformed and others did not. Those who conformed had confidence in their perception and experience while others stuck with correct answers although they experienced great doubt and tension. Those who conformed had a distortion of perception hence believed confederate anwers were actually wrong. Most of them had distortion of judgment hence believed they must be wrong and that the confederates were right; they were doubtful. Still others had distorted actions as they knew correct answers but conformed to fit in the group (Asch, 1951; Smith & Bond, 1998). Later experiments with variations (Asch, 1952, 1956) revealed that social support (presence of another person who gave correct anwers) decreased conformity. Conformity also decreased when participants gave answers in private (written answers) as chances of being rejected by the group were minimal due to anonymity of privacy and less peer pressure. Conformity also reduced with smaller size of majority (confederates) but increased as size of group increased but little change as group exceeds 4. Conformity also increased with task difficulty.This means people turn to others for confirmation in uncertain or ambiguous situations. People conform due to normative influence and informational influence (Smith & Bond, 1998). Normative influence is whereby one conforms so as to be accepted by the group. Individuals thus conform due to concerns about what other people think of them or to gain social rewards. Informational influence is whereby one conforms due to lack of knowledge or due to high status of majority group. In this case, those who conform believe that others are knowledgeable than they are (e.g. teacher) or due to high status (e.g, boss). As such, the higher the status, the higher the conformity. Contrary to conformity, obedience is about following orders from an authority as evidenced by Milgram obedience experiments and Zimbardo prison experiement. It is amazing how people follow orders from an authority without question regardless of whether the order is wrong or not. Conformity is a request while obedience is an order. Obedience in this sense puts more force on individuals to alter behaviour than conformity for fear of punishment. At least, one can decide not to conform but an authority must be obeyed. References Asch, S.E (1951), Effects of group pressure on modification and distortion of judgement. In H. Guetzkow (ed), Groups, leadership and men, Pittsburg, PA: Carnegie Press, 177-190. Asch, S.E (1955), Opinions and social pressure, Scientific America, Vol 193, 35-35. Asch, S.E (1956), Studies of independence and conformity: a minority of one against a uninamous majority, Psychological Monographs, Vol 70, No. 9, pp. 1-70. Cherry, K.A (2013), What is conformity? about.com. Available at:http://psychology.about.com/od/socialinfluence/f/conformity.htm[Accessed May 28, 2015]. Cherry, K.A (2013), What is obedience? about.com. Available at:http://psychology.about.com/od/socialinfluence/f/obedience.htm[Accessed May 28, 2015]. McLeod, S.A (2008), Asch experiments, Simply Psycology, Available at [Accessed May 28, 2015]. Milgram, S (1974),Obedience to authority: an experimental view, New York: Harper & Row. Perrin, S and Spencer, C (1980), Is Asch effect a child of its time?Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 32,pp. 405-406. Sherif, M.A (1935), A study of some social factors in perception, Archives of Psychology, Vol 27, pp. 1-60. Read More