The first major experiment on conformity

Introduction

Conformity is defined as the act of matching attitude, beliefs and behaviour to what individual perceive as normal of their society or social group (Wikipedia ). Conformity is something that happens in everyday life. People conform because they like to be in a group or to go along with the group or society. This is the reason why we see same fashion, taste of music, movies, cars and many things of similar choices. So can we imagine a life without conformityAnd what are the reasons of conformity. There are many reasons of conformity such as normative social influence, informative social influence and social role conformity. The psychologists in the past have done researches on conformity. For example, Muzafer Sheriff (1938), Asch (1951), and Philip Zimbado (1973) had conducted experiments on why people confirm. In addition Kelman (1958) identified three types of conformity. Compliance a type of conformity when people conform due to the views, opinions and beliefs of their friends or society. Internalization a type of conformity when one confirms to match a group and Identification a type of conformity when one adapts to a new behaviour of a group’s view both privately and publicly.

The first major experiment on conformity was done by Sherif (1935). He did an experiment to study the conformity. He wanted to see why people conform. With the use of auto kinetic effect, he asked the participants to look at the stationary spot of light in a darkened room in which small movements of the eyes made the light move. First, the participants were tested individually and then later in small groups of three. The answers were different when asked in individual about the movement of light .Even so, when they were put in the group they ended up with similar answers to each other. This experiment showed that people conformed when in an ambiguous situation. They tend to seek informations and answers from others. However, this experiment was a total artificial situation so lacked ecological validity. The situation was unlikely to come across in everyday life. Moreover, there was no definite answer for it

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On the other hand, Asch (1951) conducted an experiment on conformity to see why people conform on an unambiguous situation. He criticized Sherif’s experiment and suggested that the experiment had no definite answer .Asch `s experiment in contrast had a definite answer to the Sherif`s experiment. For this experiment, he participated seven people (confederates) whom were already told about the behaviour beforehand, whereas one who was the real participant (subject) was not known about the experiment and believed that the others were also the real participants. The task was very simple to compare the line X with others A, B and C lines. Each participants were to deliver the answer aloud. On each trial, the real participant was asked at last about his opinions on the lines. Asch found that the subject showed the influence by the majority and gave the wrong answers on average of 37% .74% at least conformed once and 26% never conformed. After the post experimental interview he concluded that people go along with the views of others for different reasons. Similarly, in 1980 the exact experiment was repeated by Perrin and Spencer with chemistry, engineering and mathematics students. In contrast to the result of Asch’s experiment ,conformity was high on only one trial out of 369 trials. So Perrin and Spencer (1980) suggested Asch study as “Child of its own time.” Asch’s experiment was artificial as it was unlikely to come across in everyday life. And it was done at that time when Americans were high on conformity. In addition all the participants were males as the wider population was ignored

Philip Zimbado (1973) also conducted an experiment to see how people adapt to new roles of guards and prisoners. At that time in America, there were many reports of brutal attacks on prisoners by guards. So he was interested in finding out why the guards behave in such a way, was it because of the sadistic personalities of the guard or due to the environment of the prison. The experiment was conducted on the basement of the Stanford University so was known as “Stanford’s prison experiment”. For this, he selected twenty- four students to become prisoners and guards, and he became the superintendent. He wanted to make the situation real so the ones who became prisoners were arrested with handcuffs and were put in the prison. They were given prisoner’s uniforms and were referred by the numbers where as the ones who were guards were given military uniforms and were equipped with wooden batons and mirror shades glasses. The stimulation became so real that the guards became brutal and sadist so the experiment had to stop in six days, which were rather planned for two weeks. From this experiment, he came to the conclusion that people conform to their social roles especially if the roles were strongly stereotype as the prison guards. The student who played the guards was not brutal before. After the post experimental interview he found out that people enjoyed the power and that the role had strongly influenced their behaviour and attitudes. Nevertheless, the experiment had important ethnical issues as the prisoners were mentally and physically tortured. Importantly mock prison was different

from the real one, and the students were role playing.

Apart from those reasons of conformity, there are various factors that influence the conformity .We humans are very complicated animals with lots of individual differences. Conformity also as well differs in individuals, and are influenced by many factors such as cultural, historical, gender, group size and so on. According to social psychologist culture are of two types, individualist culture such as of American and British and collective cultures such as of Asian and African. In individualist culture people tend to view oneself more individually where as in collective they tend to view themselves as the member of a group or society. So conformity tends to be high in collective cultures compare to individualist cultures. Historically, in 1950s Americans were high on conformity. It was the time when Asch conducted an experiment on conformity. Some studies have also found gender differences in the conformity and found that higher conformity in women than in men. However, Eagly (1978) suggested that the sex differences were due to their different social roles. Another important is the group size. Conformity is found higher in groups of three to five. On the other hand, conformity highly decreases when there is a lack of unanimity. When the tasks are more difficult, people are more likely to conform as they seek others for information and answer. In addition if the person is knowledgeable he may stick and believes himself and may not go along with the group so are low in conformity.

In conclusion, conformity is going along with the group for different reasons at various situations. It is something that dominates our lives. It happens everyday, and we cannot run from the fact that conformity exists in a society. In short it is about our society and the interaction we have in our society. It is neither good nor bad but sometimes conformity is helpful sometimes not. Besides there are many types of conformity such as compliance, Internalisation and identification. Psychologists had done various researches or experiments on conformity and different findings ,opinions and criticism were made. Sherif, Asch, and Zimbado have fairly justified the experiments. However, these things are unlikely to come across in everyday life. Besides, conformity is influenced by factors such as cultural, historical, gender, type of task, size of the group and so many other factors.

References:

Michael W. Eysenck (2008) AS Level Psychology, Fourth Edition. East Sussex: Psychology Press Ltd.

Mark Holah. Conformity. Available:http://holah.co.uk Last accessed on 19/04/2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/conformity

McLeod, S.A (2007) Simply Psychology [On-line] UK Available: http://www.psychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk Accessed on 19/04/2011.

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