Conformity

When we are in social situations, we often find ourselves changing our opinion, atleast overtly. We tend to conform to many ideas even though we do not really appreciate them. We may also change our opinions from group to group, to suit the majority opinion.

During 1950s social psychologist, Solomon Asch conducted studies to determine the nature of conformity. He chose seven people in a group, out of them only one was a subject. (In psychology, subject is a person or an animal whose behavior is observed under controlled conditions.) In his group, six others were confederates (Confederates are people who know about the experiment.) Asch told the subject to judge the length of the line, which 95% of the subjects did accurately. (He conducted this experiment many times.) However, the majority of the confederates were asked to lie about it. When the subject heard others’ judgement, often he changed his judgement and went with the majority.

This particular change in the attitude is called conformity. Conformity is defined as yielding to social pressure when no direct request to comply with the group is made. Asch conducted a series of experiments. He found that some people never comply and some always do.

There are various situational factors affecting conformity. The most important is a group size. It was observed that the group of three or four people was very effective in changing the attitude. But, when it increased in size, it gave an impression of some deception. In real world, however, the conformity may increase as the size increases. The another factor is the extent to which these members of the group are considered to be independent of each other. If every individual is considered as a single entity, then they are more effective as a group. For e.g. if people from diverse academic background are voicing the same opinion, they are more convincing. Another factor is the expertise of the person. The opinion of an expert in the field is very effective for changing the opinion of a subject.

People who do not conform to the social pressure are often very independent in their thinking and have a great deal of confidence. They trust their own opinion to that extent, that they do not change it even under any pressure.

Conformity is neither good nor bad. If a person is conforming to group to the extent that he looses his own identity, then it is bad. However, sometimes it is just used to adhere to social norms or to get acceptance from others. Sometimes it is also used to solve uncertainty.

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