Question

Briefly describe the dynamic of conformity.

Answer 1

• Conformity is behavior that is the same as the behavior of most other people in a society, group, etc. or the fact or state of agreeing with or obeying something.
• According to Saul McLeod, conformity is “a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with the group.” He goes on to say that the change is a response to the real or imagined group pressure. Real group pressure requires the presence of other people from the group, while imagined group pressure involves the expectations of the social norms of the group – what a person thinks they need to do to belong in the group.
• Solomon Asch (1951) conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.Asch used a lab experiment to study conformity, whereby 50 male students participated in a ‘vision test.’ Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates.Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).
• Informational influence happens when people change their behavior in order to be correct. In situations where we are unsure of the correct response, we often look to others who are better informed and more knowledgeable and use their lead as a guide for our own behaviors. In a classroom setting, for example, this might involve agreeing with the judgments of another classmate who you perceive as being highly intelligent.
• Normative influence stems from a desire to avoid punishments (such as going along with the rules in class even though you don't agree with them) and gain rewards (such as behaving in a certain way in order to get people to like you).
• Difficult tasks can lead to both increased and decreased conformity. Not knowing how to perform a difficult task makes people more likely to conform, but increased difficulty can also make people more accepting of different responses, leading to less conformity.
• People are more likely to conform in situations that involve between three and five other people.
• Researchers have found that people from collectivist cultures are more likely to conform.
• For example,Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome.