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Features of conformity
The implications of conformity on society and the individual
The implications of conformity on society and the individual
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Conformity when the situation is ambiguous
Human as a species who live in social groups, therefore, our behaviors are influenced by our society and other people in our social groups. Conformity is one of the social influence which sometimes can be good, but sometimes not. Conformity is thought to help society to prevent chaos. It helps group cohesiveness and to increase bonding with other people within your groups. However, when conformity comes in a severe condition, it can cause harm to people. People may lose their individuality and follow actions blindly without consideration of right or wrong. So why do people conform? This question has already been answered by many psychologists. In Asch’s classic conformity experiment, they found that
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Since the experiment was required to done in the classroom, we have limited access to recruit people from other majors of the students in the university. In this case, our participants can only be the students who are in the Psyc217 class. This may lower the validity of the experiment because all of our participants were psychology students. A big concern is that the participants might have already learned about the conformity effect so they wouldn’t choose to conform. In addition, due to the limit circumstance, our sample size was small. Thus, the result might not be accurate enough to provide evidence to show nonconformity. Moreover, during the experiment, we were unable to create a true environment which using the presence of people to form group pressure. The reason is that we cannot have the same experimenters during the experiment due to the course requirement. Using presence of people (the experimenters) to create group pressure may lower the validity of the experiment since one experimenter may be more persuasive and assertive than the others. Therefore, we used sentences to represent group pressure. However, it is considered to have some problems that may threaten …show more content…
Some people conform because they want to be accepted by their social group which is known as “normative social influence” and some people conform in order to gain information to guide our behaviors which is known as “informational social influence” (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005). Despite the society is changing and people are less likely to conform to the answers have objective wrong value, they still conform to some degree in different motivations and different situations.
References
Asch, S. (1956). Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority. Psychological Monographs, 70. Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2005). Social Psychology (5th ed., pp.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hamm, N. H., & Hoving, K. L.. (1969). Conformity of Children in an Ambiguous Perceptual Situation. Child Development, 40(3), 773–784.
Sherif, M. (1935). "A study of some social factors in perception." Archives of Psychology, 27, No. 187, 1-60.
Perrin, S., & Spencer, C. (1981). Independence or conformity in the Asch experiment as a reflection of cultural and situational factors. British Journal of Social Psychology, 20,
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
However, when a control group was asked to write down answers separately and without having to voice them, 98% of the responses were correct. The supremacy of conformity was certainly present in Asch’s experiment. Two majorly crucial outcomes emerged from Asch’s research that transformed the field of psychology. First, the power of conformism had been officially and scientifically proven. Second, many other psychologists and scientists became motivated to continue experimenting with conformity.
...onson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. (2013). Social Psychology (8th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Myers, David G. “Chapter 14: Social Psychology.” Psychology. 10th ed. New York, NY US: Worth
It is human nature to do this, but this does not mean it is necessary or even beneficial to our lives. An example of this tendency to conform is politics, in our government there are two main parties the Democratic and Republican Party. These parties throughout history have had ever changing views and stances on social issues and with these changing views are the votes of the public should change with the parties. Unfortunately, due to our human nature, there is a want to associate with a certain group, although their perspective upon social matters has long changed, but because of our readiness to blindly conform people state that they are a Republican/Democrat and always have been. This mindset that people tend to follow must come to an end as it is of no benefit to society. Society conforming to this trend leads to the misrepresentation of the public. This issue of our human nature to conform to a certain opinion while it has no benefit to the community must come to an end in order for the society to improve and become more
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
Solomon Asch’s experiment in “Opinions and Social Pressure” studied a subject’s ability to yield to social pressure when placed within a group of strangers. His research helped illustrate how groups encourage conformity. During a typical experiment, members of the group were asked by the experimenter to claim two obvious mismatched lines were identical. The single individual who was not privy to this information was the focal point of the experiment. Twelve out of eighteen times the unsuspecting individual went along with the majority, dispelling his beliefs in favor of the opinions of the group.
As stated above, conformity changes an individual 's belief and behaviour to match the groups, and while obedience often requires punishment and reward other studies suggest that "an individual...confronted with an authority recognized as legitimate, will behave in the direction of the expectations of this authority" (Pascual et al., 2013) without long-term effect on behaviour or beliefs. Sherif (as cited by Myers, 2014) found in his studies on norm formation that the group norm lasted even a year after the initial experiments, while Milgram (as cited by Myers, 2014) found physical proximity of the authority figure was a predictor of obedience in that obedience went down the further the authority figure physically was. Though conformity and obedience are not completely different, conformity obedience can be interchangeable when the hierarchy is seen as a group with which individuals can identify. Reicher, Haslam and Smith (2012) argue that Milgram 's (1965, 1974) famous obedience experiment isn 't simply blind obedience but individuals identifying with the figure of authority and conforming to expected norms. In some cases when individuals felt the authority figure 's beliefs were dissimilar to their own they immediately withdrew from
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 defined as behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. This is not a good or bad thing, this just is. It exists as a compliment to earlier humans congregating into larger groups, using agriculture and domestication to create sustenance. Also, conformity is essential for life. We need people to share the same ideas, ideologies and a way of thinking in order to work efficiently and effectively. There many examples that exist like, at work or in your house and even within yourself. Sigmund Freud has explained the phenomena of group psychology in a piece titled, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Using Freud’s theory of conformity I will explain the self, what we call “me”,and its different constituents using The Principles of Psychology by
Hewstone, M. Fincham, F. and Foster, J (2005). Psychology. Oxford: The British Psychological Society, and Blackwell Publishing. P3-23.
Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.
Conformity involves the changing of one’s attitudes, opinions, or behaviours to match those of the ‘norms’. The “norms”, established by society, are what we should or ought to be thinking, feeling, or doing if we wish to be accepted into a group. This desire to be accepted and belong to a group is an undeniable human need.
Psychology, which includes how people think and feel, is described as the scientific study of behavior and mental process. Social psychology also studies behavior and mental process but incorporates how society influences our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. According to Song’s article, “The Psychological Explanation of Conformity”, conformity, which is a form of social influence, is the change of actions or attitudes caused by the pressure from some real or notional groups. In other words, changing one’s behavior to more closely match the