Conformity
Introduction
Conformity refers to a particular category of social influence and sway relating to alteration in conviction, behaviour, or belief in an attempt to act, suit and fit in with a group (Falomir-Pichastor et al. 2013). This alteration could be in response to actual people present physically or fictional characters to whom we succumb to their expectations, pressures, or social norms. Therefore, conformity involves succumbing to group pressures. Conformity to such groups can be attained through various channels, including criticism, teasing, persuasion, and bullying, among other methods (Claidière, Bowler & Whiten 2012). The premise of the current paper is to undertake an in-depth analysis of what constitutes conformity by examining three studies that have been conducted on the subject, along with their underlying strengths and weaknesses.
Study One: Jenness 1932
In his experiment to test conformity, Jenness filled a glass bottle with beans and asked participants to approximate the number of seeds in the bottle. After each of the subjects had provided their answers separately, Jenness then put them in a room where they were required to estimate the number of beans as a group. Jenness then separated the participants and subjected each of them to an individual interview in which he asked them if they wished to retain their original answer or go with the group answer. Nearly all the contributors had altered their prior estimates, and their new approximations were nearer if not exact to the general group estimates. This was a clear indication of the first case of conformity (Jenness 1932). However, the study was highly artificial and hence lacks ecological validity. Consequently, it becomes hard to generalise its findings to rreal-lifesituations.
Study Two: Solomon 1951
The aim of the research by Solomon Asch was to examine the degree to which a person can be affected by pressure from a majority group and forced to conform. He took fifty U.S. college students as participants in a Vision Test. He then places naïve participants alongside 6 confederates in a room. Each of the participants was required to choose which of the comparison lines (A, B, C) as shown in the diagram below was the objective line (Asch 1951).
The confederates were seated strategically so that they could be the first ones to answer first before the naïve participants had a chance to do so. 18 tests were carried out with the Confederates giving the wrong answers in 12 tests. Asch then performed a control experiment in inviting the real participants only. Research findings revealed that 32% of participants conformed with the incorrect results given by the majority. Out of the 12 critical trials conducted, nearly three-quarters (75%) of study participants conformed with the answers given by the majority on at least one occasion, with only 25% of them not conforming (Asch 1951).
A key limitation of this study is that is relied on a biased sample. The study also lacked population validity as all participants were from the same age group and male students. Accordingly, study findings may not be generalised to older groups or the female population. In addition, Asch relied on judging line lengths, an artificial activity, to determine conformity. Consequently, the study was characterised by low ecological validity meaning that the outcomes may not be replicated in other situations of conformity in real life.
Study Three: Zimbardo 1973
Another conformity experiment was carried out in the Stanford Prison by Zimbardo in 1973, and the aim of the investigation was to find out how people willingly conformed to the roles of a sentinel and a convict in an imagination that replicated jail life. Zimbardo was trying to see if the cruelty that was testified to be among the United States prisons was true. The aim of the experiment by Zimdardo was to examine how readily individuals would adapt to the roles of prisoner and guard in a role-playing exercise designed to simulate the situation in prison.
Zimbardo created a temporary mock prison in the Stanford University basement and invited students who would love to play the roles of convicts and sentries for a fortnight to apply. Over 70 candidates sent their applications. Zimbardo conducted personality tests as part of the interview to rule out applicants with psychological issues, a history of drug abuse and crime abuse, and medical disabilities. Out of the initial 75 volunteers, only 24 made it through. Zimbardo haphazardly assigned guard and prisoner roles to the participants.
The guards were required to work in sets of three and the shifts were changed every eight hours. The prisoners were then divided into groups of three in each room. There was a solitary confinement cell for any of the inmates who misbehaved. Thus, making the mock prison look as real as they could make it. Just like in real life, the prisoners were arrested like any criminals and deprived of any prior warnings, drove to police posts, and all the booking procedure of taking fingerprints and photos was done before they were blindfolded and whisked away to ‘prison' in the university basement which was fully set with not only guards but also, plain walls, minor cells, grilled windows and doors and here the de-individuation procedure commenced (McLeod 2016).
All personal possessions of the prisoners were kept away and they were then stripped naked. The convicts were given prison uniforms and bedding just as it happens in real life. They were referred by their numbers only, creating an environment of anonymity. Wearing figured clothing, the prisoners also had a chain shackled around their ankles. Guards, on the other hand, were wearing matching uniforms, whistles around their necks, and police borrowed clubs complete with sunglasses so as to prevent eye contact with the inmates. No bodily viciousness was allowed. Zimbardo was crowned as the prison warden, he studied and observed the guards' and prisoners' behavior. Coming to the findings, the guards were the first to quickly conform to their roles; harassment was witnessed after a short while. Tedious tasks, insults, and petty orders were time and again issued by the guards to the prisoners, and as the rift deepened the relations between the guards and the prisoners changed. The prisoners became more and more dependent as the guards assumed more and more power and control (Zimbardo 1973). By the second day, the inmates had torn off their numbers and secured themselves in their cells with the aid of their beds.
The guards retaliated by using fire extinguishers to move the prisoners from the doors and break into each and every cell. The leader to this, a prisoner was put in solitary confinement. And 36 hours later prisoner number 8612 had to be released due to crying and screaming in anger uncontrollably all the time. This, later on, spread to all other inmates and they showed signs of depression. The plan was to run the experiment for a fortnight, but by the sixth day, it was concluded by Christina Maslach who cited administrative reasons (McLeod 2016).
Zimbardo then concluded that individuals readily conform to any social roles that they are likely to play and it is more expected if the roles were very typecast such as the prison characters. As a result, the final findings stated that behavior is more situational rather than dispositional (Ribkoff 213).
The findings of Zimbardo's study hinge on demand characteristics. Since both prisoners and guards were role-playing, it follows then that the factors that influenced their behaviour may not be influential in other real-life situations. As such, the findings may not be replicated in real life owing to the fact that the study was characterised by low validity (McFarland & Carnahan 2009). This is because it only involved male subjects and was restricted to a single prison facility in the U.S. Consequently, the findings may not be replicated in male prisons or prison settings outside the U.S. However, the findings of the study helped to change how the prison system in the U.S. is run. Also, the harmful treatment to which prisoners were subjected by guards resulted in the formal acknowledgement of ethical guidelines. However, the study participants did not give their consent such as being 'arrested' at home.
Conclusion
In sum, the three aforementioned studies reveal various forms of conformity to which we are subjected under varying situations, including internalisation, compliance, and identification. In Jenneas, the results of his bean jar experiment confirm that a person is highly likely to conform in case he is part of a larger group, or where all other members give a unanimous answer. Zimbardo's study is a good indication of conformity through identification. In this case, the prison guards conformed to the demands of their assigned role in order to gain identification. Elsewhere, Solomon Asch confirmed that people conform due to normative or informational influence. While these experiments were characterised by various issues, such as reliance on a biased sample and low validity and hence lack of generalizability, the findings have shed light on the various situations under which people are likely to conform owing to social influence.
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