By definition, conformity means to comply to a set of regulations, rules, or laws. It is a behaviour which follows social standards that are expected of society, and comes in more than one context. For instance, the phenomenon in which individuals change or adjust their attitude and behaviour to match a majority’s opinion is known as social conformity (Yu & Sun, 2014). In psychological terms, conformity refers to an individual's tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he or she belongs. Given this, it is apparent how highly susceptible humans are to social influences and how easily they are moved by peer pressure. Furthermore, it indicates how powerful the effects of conformity can be as it can even …show more content…
He conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. In the experiment, Asch asked 50 male students to participate in a ‘vision test.’ Using a line judgment task, Asch put one real participant among seven fake participants that were confederates in which each person had to state their answer aloud. Among the 18 trials, the confederates intentionally gave the wrong answer on 12 trails, called the critical trials, in order for Asch to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view. Results of the experiment found that nearly 75% of the participants followed the rest of the group at least once, and that participants conformed to the incorrect group answer approximately one-third of the time. In addition to Asch’s findings (as stated by McLeod, 1970), the study concluded that people conformed for two reasons: wanting to fit in with the group, and believing that the majority was better informed than they are. These are called normative conformity and informational conformity, respectively. Whereas normative conformity attempts to gain the approval of others, informational conformity is concerned with gaining an accurate understanding of reality, especially during times of uncertainty (Yu & Sun, 2014). With this, Asch’s results were very significant to the field of psychology as it illustrates the power of social pressure, as well as open doors for further
It often leads to people adjusting responses to stimuli just because they believe that if everyone else has the same response they must have it too. This is shown in "Asch Experiment" after McLeod explained how the dot of light never moved, he mentioned, "The participants are then asked to estimate how far the dot of light moves. These estimates are made out loud, and with repeated trials, each group of three converges on an estimate. The main finding of the study was that groups found their own "social norm" of perception." (McLeod 2) This shows that when placed in an environment where some people have a different opinion than others, the popular opinion takes over and everyone's opinion becomes uniform because people doubt themselves when they are alone on an opinion, leading to conformity. People in environments like this should try to keep their own opinions as to prevent the spread of conformity when uniqueness is
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
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.
The definition of conformity is the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. The motivation behind normative conformity is the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers
The astute reader may notice that this review does not include any papers that did not find a false consensus effect. The reason for this is not that this paper is not representative of the literature, but rather, that it is. The uniformity of the literature suggests that the phenomenon is fairly common. Some interesting arguments as to why this is are motivational or cognitive in nature. The motivational premise is based in the idea that people are motivated to believe that they have a place in their social environment. This argument is a based in self-justification, in that if many people share a given belief or behavior, it makes it easier to justify that this attitude or behavior is either right, or not as bad as it might seem.
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
“Social conformity has been practiced in societies around the world since ancient times,” and the reason it is so effective is that humans have an inherent need to be accepted as part of a group (Sadat). Furthermore, Hossna Sadat reports that:
Asch’s Conformity Procedure was where participants were presented with a set of lines. In one case a single line and the other a trio of lines. The participant’s task was simply to find which line in the trio of lines matches the single line in length. When looking at the lines, there is only one line of the trio lines that obviously matches the single line. What Asch did was put participants in groups of collaborators, the actors, to turn in a specific answer. He did this so that the collaborators would give their answers first and then the participant who thinks he’s just one of the participants like the rest gives their answer. What concluded through this experimented was that if you have collaborators systematically giving the wrong answer, then majority of the people will give the wrong answer. (Meyers 158) The peer pressures created by a large group are such that the individual comes to decision radically different from the decision ...
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.
Conformity, compliance and obedience are behavioural consequences of social influence (real or imagined social pressure) that occur in the presence of a group or other individuals (Elsenbroich & Xenitidou, 2012). Often these concepts are misinterpreted as being the same or even synonymous and while they do have similarities they are also very dissimilar. In social psychology conformity, compliance and obedience are distinct concepts that coincide due to their effect on behaviour in the presence of others. Pascual, Line Felonneau, Guéguen & Lafaille (2013) define conformity as an altering of behaviour and beliefs in an individual in order to reflect the behaviour and beliefs of the group that holds influence, though Myers (2014) emphasises that
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
The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.
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.