Essay on Conformity in Social Psychology

Social psychology studies how people's feelings, behaviour and thought are influenced by the presence of others. It examines the different ways in which individuals change their behaviour and ideas to match with the demands of the social group they belong to (conformity), or to execute the order of a person they consider as an authority figure over them (obedience), (CrashCourse, 2014).

Latane' and Darley explain the difference in noticing an emergency situation when an individual is alone compared to when he is with others by conducting a smoke-filled experiment, where the first step was noticing the event. During the experiment, they put some participants in small groups and others alone and asked them to complete a questionnaire; while they were completing it, the experimenters started to let some white smoke come into the room and timed how long it took before the first participant looked up and noticed the smoke.

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At the end of the experiment, it has been noticed that the people who were working alone noticed the smoke in about 5 seconds and within 4 minutes, 75% of them have taken action. Whereas, on average, the first person in a group condition noticed the smoke after 20 seconds and after 4 minutes only 12% have reported it. This clearly emphasizes the power of the social situation on noticing; in other words, we barely see emergencies when we are with other people; this is what is referred to as the bystander effect. The Croydon asylum boy assault, which is the situation where we based our analysis on, reinforces this study in a way that, people witnessing the assault didn't take immediate action until it was too late, social psychology refers to it as a diffusion of responsibility when more individuals are present in an emergency situation, this reduces each individual's chance to offer help to the person in need because each of them expects the other individual in the group to make the first step; here, individuals noticed the emergency but did not interpret it as one, hence don't assume responsibility ( Pond, 2017).

The Stanford prison experiment is a study that shows how people readily conform to their social role. The study has been conducted on volunteers, whom the role of prisoners and guards were randomly assigned to. The experiment took place in the basement of Stanford university converted into a mock prison, and prisoners (volunteers) went through the normal process from arrest to incarceration, were the deindividuation process started. The prisoners at their arrival in prison were given an ID number and uniform. The guards were given a different uniform than the prisoners and could exercise their control over prisoners in any other ways apart from physical violence. Within a few hours, guards began to harass prisoners. The first day passed without incident, the second day, the guards were surprised by the rebellion which took place, and decided to use stronger punishments to oblige the prisoners to obey their orders; as days were passing by, guards were becoming more aggressive towards prisoners deriving in prisoners breaking down and deterioration of their emotional states. Zimbardo decided to end the experiment on day 6 due to the prisoners' severe emotional breakdown. This experiment reveals how people readily conform to their social role. Guards believed prisoners deserved to be controlled and the prisoners internalized their prison role by incorporating it into their belief, which influenced their cognition attitude and behaviour. The concept of deindividuation which is the loss of self-awareness and restraint that occurs when individuals are part of a group is characterised by the loss of an individual's unique way of looking at and judging situation over the adoption of the attitudes and beliefs of the group he belongs to, whether good or bad. Most of the time, this leads to discrimination towards the other groups(prisoners). The Croydon boy assault reinforces this study in a way that the gang that attacked the boy was not following social norms anymore, that gang may have been based upon prejudices towards immigrants which they nurture and finally acted upon by becoming aggressive towards immigrants just because they are different. We assist here in a group of individuals who have completely lost their sense of judgement and self-awareness, they are carried away by the beliefs of their gang which they strongly adhere to and display it by discriminating towards immigrants; being immersed in a group may have been another factor that triggered such violence, as individuals are anonymous; moreover, not having a model of defiance strengthens their unanimity. (CrashCourse, 2014). Besides, the scene occurred close to a pub, this leads us to question whether the attackers have been intoxicated or not with alcohol which is an excitant reducing the ability of people to inhibit their aggression (University of Minnesota, 2015)

Moreover, psychologists have studied how the behaviour of individuals changes when they are part of a group or according to the role they are assigned to.

Ash line experiment explains the influence of groups in conformity. Ash puts two cards on a table. The left one represented the reference line and the right card showed the comparison line. The eight subjects involved in the experiment were made of seven confederates instructed to give the wrong answer by the experimenters and this was unbeknownst to all individuals who participated, only one was a genuine subject. The experiment resulted in the subject choosing the wrong answer when he was asked which line matched the reference line, just because it was the answer given by the participants who intervened before him and the same situation happens across a number of trials. This emphasizes the influence of the group on our behaviour, sometimes people deliberately make wrong choices to avoid being ridiculed by the group, this is normative conformity or they doubt their own answer and think if all other people are going for a specific answer, that means it should be accurate which is referred to as informational social influence. The outcome of conformity is that the behaviour and beliefs of individuals become similar to those of the group as there is unanimity in their actions, with no model of defiance (University of Minnesota, 2015).

The attackers in the 'Croydon boy assault' gang might be constituted of individuals who know they are implicated in antisocial behaviour, but because they want to be liked and accepted by the group, they made the choice to conform to the beliefs and behaviour of the gang, this could be due to the influence the gang has on outsiders, which make their adherents to feel superior to others or simply because they feel protected knowing their group will always revenge them if they are attacked by outsiders, the reason why we can assist in a group of attackers, whom in a common accord, almost kill an immigrant.

The agentic state is the state in which an individual obeys orders, perhaps to do something they know is wrong because he will hand the result of his actions to the authority figure that has given him the order; in the agentic state, individuals see themselves as agents acting for the authority figure. who gave them the order, so they don't feel responsible for the outcome of their actions.

In an attempt to explain the agentic state, Milgram conducted an electric shock experiment aiming to see if individuals would obey the orders of an authority figure that incurred going against their moral's values and harming others. The participants (40 males) were divided into teachers who were asking the questions, learners who were supposed to answer the question and the experimenters (wearing a lab coat to reinforce his authority figure) who was monitoring and giving others. It is being said to the participants that the experiment aimed to test the effect of punishment on learning. In the experiment, unbeknown to the real participant who was the teacher, the learner was a confederate participant but to convince the real participant that everything was authentic, a shock of 45 volts was administered to him as a test. The experimenter strapped the learner into a chair with his arm attached to electrodes. Participants read a list of paired-associate words tasks to which they received a pre-recorded series of verbal answer from the learner with the real participants believing it to be true. Each time the learner gave a wrong answer, the teacher was ordered by the experimenter to give him an electric shock starting from 15 and increasing in a set of 15 more volts than the previous one when the next button was pressed. Surprisingly, the teacher, despite the sign of distress shown by the learner as the result of the pain inflicted on him through the shock, did not stop the experiment; the experiment revealed some time when the teacher has been reluctant but continued after being encouraged by the experimenter. Through this experiment, we can see that people naturally obey those regarded as authority figure and consider it as normal behaviour even if obeying them means going against their moral code because they don't feel responsible for the results of their action. This is what lead Adolf Eichmann to say for his defence on the extermination of millions in the death camp during the second world war 'I was only following orders' because he saw himself as in the agentic state (Lawton and Willard, 2015).

In Milgram's experiment, the shock was gradually increasing, starting from 15 volts, which gave the impression of not doing something horrible to the participant, however with this kind of situation when the first shock is given, it becomes more difficult not to continue because the deeper in you are the more difficult it is to escape in other words when you start obeying less harmful orders it becomes easier to obey the most dangerous ones. This is known as a gradual commitment, a technique consisting of persuading an individual to accept slightly difficult tasks in order to get him to do more difficult ones. Moreover, the participants have been trapped in a situation because they did not know they would deliver electric shocks until it was mentioned to them when they were already at the experiment, which makes it difficult for them to leave (Lawton et al, 2011).

Reference list

Crashcourse, (2014), Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38 last accessed on 18022021: https:www.youtube.comwatch?v=UGxGDdQnC, CrashCourse, (2014), Prejudice and Discrimination: Crash Course Psychology #39 last accessed on 18022021: https:www.youtube.comwatch?v=7P0iP2Zm6a4, CrashCourse, (2014), Aggression vs. Altruism: Crash Course Psychology #40 last accessed on 16022021: https:www.youtube.comwatch?v=XoTx7Rt4dig, Lawton et Al. (2011), AS Psychology for AQA (A), chapter 5: social psychology. Pond, T. (2017), Piliavin et al (1969) - Good Samaritanism https:www.youtube.comwatch?v=16qnA7-vYik, University of Minnesota, (2015), Introduction to Sociology Chapter 14: Psychology in Our Social Lives.

Bibliography

1. Rolls, G. (2015), Classic case studies in Psychology 3rd ed, Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN32FA.
2. Khan Academy,(2014), https:www.youtube.comwatch?v=ds3-ljxTRvo last accessed on 16022021: https:www.bing.comvideossearch?q=deindividuation khan academy youtube