Conformity Essay -- essays research papers

According to Leon Mann, residency means yielding togroup rams. Everyone is a member of one group ora nonher and everyone expects members of these groups tobehave in certain ways. If you are a member of anidentifiable group you are expected to behavefitly to it. If you dont confirm and behaveappropriately you are likely to be rejected by the group.Like stereotypes, conforming and expecting others toconform maintains cognitive balance.There are several kinds of conformity. Many studies ofconformity took ordinate in the 1950s which led Kelman todistinguish between compliance, internalisation andidentification. Compliance is the type of conformity wherethe subject goes along with the group view, but privatelydisagrees with it. internalisation is where the subject comesto accept, and eventually believes in the group view.Identification is where the subject accepts and believes thegroup view, because he or she wants to become associatedwith the group.Leon Mann identifies normative con formity which occurswhen direct group pressure forces the individual to yieldunder the threat of rejection or the promise of reward. Thiscan occur only if someone wants to be a member of thegroup or the groups attitudes or behaviour are important tothe individual in some way. Apart from normative conformity there is informationalconformity which occurs where the situation is vague orambiguous and because the person is uncertain he or sheturns to others for evidence of the appropriate response.Thirdly, Mann identifies ingratiational conformity whichoccurs where a person tries to do whatever he or shethinks the others allow approve in order to gain acceptance(if you make yourself appear to be similar to someone else,they might come to like you).The first major research into conformity was conducted in1935 by Sherif who used a visual illusion, known as theauto-kinetic effect. Sherif told his subjects that a spot oflight which they were about to see in a darkened room wasgoing to move , and he wanted them to say the directionand distance of the movement. In the first experimentalcondition the subjects were tested individually. just about saidthe distance of movement wasnt very far in any directio,others said it was several inches. Sherif recorded eachsubjects response. In the second experimental condition,Sherif gathered his subject... ... and Willis give some criticisms of the earlyresearch into conformity. Firstly the studies do not identifythe motive or type of conformity. Do the subjects conformin order to gain social approval? Are they simplycomplying? Do they really believe that their response iscorrect? Secondly Hollander and Willis cite that theexperiments do not identify whether the subjects arecomplying because they judge that its not worth appearingto be different, or because the actually start to believe thatthe groups judgement is correct. Hollander and Willis alsoclaim that the studies cannot show whether those who donot conform do so because th ey are independant thinkersor because they are anti-conformists. And Lastly, theyclaim that the studies seem to assume that independancehas to be good and conformity has to be bad. Howeverconformity is often benificial.Sherif and Asch have each conducted fairly artificiallaboritory experiments which showed that about 30% ofresponses can be explained by the need or desire of thesubjects to conform. These experiments may not accuratelyreflect real life when conformity might be benificial andsometimes contribute to psychological well-being.