Why Do People Conform?

Why do people conform?

Conformity is an intriguing psychological concept thus been debated and researched for years. Due to different factors it causes sound minded individuals to change their beliefs or behaviour to avoid being shunned from the group, even if they internally disagree. Crutchfied R.S (1962 cited Hardy and Heyes 1994) stated the definition of conformity “Yielding to group pressures” this means the mere existence of a group belief, may make some individuals conform to it, without any actual force. From children we are taught what is and is not acceptable behaviour in public, would you do your weekly shopping in your pyjamas? No, it’s not discussed but as a society every member is aware of these unwritten rules in social behaviour as we are taught them. Do we analysis this behaviour as conformity or do we accept to have a functioning society for us all to coexist there must be rules in place. In this essay I will disuses some theories and research on conformity. Conformity is often referred to as the agreement of the majority, changing your behaviour to comply with real or imagined group pressure. There is a general agreement there are two main reasons why people conform and that is normative social influences and informational social influences. Normative social influences driven with the need to be accepted or liked by the group, informational social influences unsure how to behave and believe others are better informed. Social norms is a process of conformity and my vary depending upon the culture. Most of us on a daily basis adhere to social norms without even realising, as it is necessary for human being to coexist as a society. Jenness A. (1932 cited McLeod S.A. 2007) was one of the first psychologists to research conformity, he conducted a basic experiment with a jar of beans in an ambiguous (uncertain) situation, Jenness asked the participants to make individually estimations on how many beans were inside, he then put them in room all together and asked them to discuss a group estimate. The participants were again interviewed individually and asked if they wanted to change their original estimates, or stay with the groups estimate. Almost all the participants changed their original estimates to be closer to the group estimate. The research lacks ecological validity although suggests individuals conform when faced with an ambiguous situation. Sherif.M (1935, cited hardy and Heyes 1994) conducted an experiment with forty male students using the autokinetic effect, stationary spot of light in a dark room appears to move. Sherif informed his subjects that he would move the light and asked them to report the amount of movement. Each participant’s individual estimates was very consistent but with a wide variation of each others estimates. However Sherif altered the procedure to two or more in a group, he told them they were to announce the estimate aloud but they did not have to agree, their estimates became similar and a group norm emerged after a series of tests. When they were retested individually their estimates were closer to the group norm. The research suggested that when we are faced with an ambiguous situation we looked to others, informational social influence, even though the participants consider them self as individuals and not members of a group. However this experiment lacks ecological validity as we cannot generalise this to a real life situation. There is also the ethical concern with this study as Sherif was deceptive to the participants about the light moving when it is an optical illusion. How can people conform when there is no correct answer? Do people conform when there is no doubt of the correct answer?

Asch (1951, cited McLeod, S.A. 2008) conducted a similar experiment to Sherif perceptual test although with one major difference, there is an obvious right answer, unambiguous situation. Asch used the line judgement task on 123 student participants, there was seven to nine in a group one naive (real) participant and the rest were confederates with agreed responses (wrong answers) in advance. Each participant was to state allowed which comparison line (A,B or C) matched the target line, as this was a visual task the answer was obvious. The real participant gave their answers last. The results showed over 18 trials that 75% of the participants conformed at least once and gave the wrong answer, 25% of participants never conformed. The research suggests that a minority will go with the majority even if they know the answer is wrong therefore demonstrating normative social influence, certain individuals will bow to peer pressure be it real or imagined. Like sheriff study Asch’s lack ecological validity and raised questions about ethical issues as the participants were deceived by being told they were taking part in a vision test. It has also been argued that conformity was at its highest in 1950s America.
A more recent meta-analysis study in conformity (cited PsycINFO Database Record 2010) using a variation on Asch’s line judgement task (1952, 1956) was to investigate if the level of conformity had changed from original studies and if it is related cross-culturally to individualism-collectivism. Literature search produced 133 studies from 17 countries. The results produced conformity decline in America since 1950s, 3 surveys were used to identify country’s individualism-collectivism each surveys results were found significantly related to conformity.
Findings in current biology (cited Nauert .R) in a new study using neuroimaging technology scientists have now found a link between the amount of grey matter in a certain region of the brain and an individual’s likelihood to conform to social pressures. Scientist researched through testing 28 participants grey matter volume in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (brain region) was associated with a measure of social influence. Study leader Dr. Chris Frith, “The ability to adapt to others and align ourselves with them is an important social skill. However, at what level is this skill implemented in the brain? At a software (information processing) or hardware (structural) level? Our results show that social conformation is, at least in part, hard- wired in the structure of the brain.”
Research suggests that people conform less if they have a strong moral base about their attitudes, which would suggest that majority of people conform in ambiguous situations. Lawrence Kohlberg moral development (cited McLeod, S.A. 2011) Kohlberg developed Piaget’s theory of moral development further, his technique involved telling people stories with moral dilemmas and asking a series of questions to see how people reasoned the moral issue. He hoped to identify as people grew which way their moral reasoning changed. He concluded he identified three stages of moral reasoning each with sub stages, individuals can only achieve these levels in order and not everyone achieves all stages. Kohlberg’s theory heavily depended on individuals responses and was thus criticised that it lacked validity as individuals may respond differently in real life situation, it was also questioned that it was andocentric as Kohlberg’s original research was based on men. Appling Kohlberg’s theories to conformity it could be argued that there are stages of conformity in line with moral development depending upon age and social groups.

The research done on conformity through decades strongly suggests a certain percentage of individuals conform to the majority, this can be due to a number of factors be it lack of information or a desire to be accepted as part of the group, even more recent research supports this theory and now a new theory has been developed by scientists that conformity could be predetermined and hard wired before birth which would mean social influences could further developed this part of the brain. However there are a lot of areas that can be criticised in the research done conformity was very high in 1950s America, would the results be the same in today’s society? It could be argued that people conform less today as there are more minority groups than majority of society so individuals are more likely to find a group with the same views and beliefs. It is also very difficult to recreate everyday life scenarios to a lab experiment which raises the question of validity. There also seems to be a lack in research in cultural variations as this could have a major effect. If we can measure global conformity, couldn’t we identify if we teach it, it happens naturally or certain factors i.e. religion has a major effect or all of these have an impact? It is identifiable that we all conform to norms, minorities or society but it seems hard to identify why out of the many theories, is that because many factors and theories could apply to one person? Essentially the research suggests that individuals conform depending on different variables, although there are flaws to the evidence. More investigation in to conformity is needed before we conclusively answer the question why do people conform.