{"id":1034,"date":"2016-05-10T01:30:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T01:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontosociology-waymaker\/?post_type=chapter&p=1034"},"modified":"2016-07-19T20:32:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T20:32:16","slug":"reading-conformity","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-introsociology\/chapter\/reading-conformity\/","title":{"raw":"Reading: Conformity","rendered":"Reading: Conformity"},"content":{"raw":"

Conformity<\/h2>\r\n
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We all like to fit in to some degree. Likewise, when we want to stand out, we want to choose how we stand out and for what reasons. For example, a woman who loves cutting-edge fashion and wants to dress in thought-provoking new styles likely wants to be noticed, but most likely she will want to be noticed within a framework of high fashion. She wouldn\u2019t want people to think she was too poor to find proper clothes. Conformity<\/span><\/strong> is the extent to which an individual complies with group norms or expectations. As you might recall, we use reference groups to assess and understand how to act, to dress, and to behave. Not surprisingly, young people are particularly aware of who conforms and who does not. A high school boy whose mother makes him wear ironed button-down shirts might protest that he will look stupid\u2013\u2013that everyone else wears T-shirts. Another high school boy might like wearing those shirts as a way of standing out. How much do you enjoy being noticed? Do you consciously prefer to conform to group norms so as not to be singled out? Are there people in your class who immediately come to mind when you think about those who don\u2019t want to conform?<\/p>\r\n

Psychologist Solomon Asch (1907\u20131996) conducted experiments that illustrated how great the pressure to conform is, specifically within a small group (1956). After reading about his work in the following\u00a0feature, ask yourself what you would do in Asch\u2019s experiment. Would you speak up? What would help you speak up and what would discourage it?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Conforming to Expectations<\/h3>\r\n

In 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch sat a small group of about eight people around a table. Only one of the people sitting there was the true subject; the rest were associates of the experimenter. However, the subject was led to believe that the others were all, like him, people brought in for an experiment in visual judgments. The group was shown two cards, the first card with a single vertical line, and the second card with three vertical lines differing in length. The experimenter polled the group and asked each participant one at a time which line on the second card matched up with the line on the first card.<\/p>\r\n

However, this was not really a test of visual judgment. Rather, it was Asch\u2019s study on the pressures of conformity. He was curious to see what the effect of multiple wrong answers would be on the subject, who presumably was able to tell which lines matched. In order to test this, Asch had each planted respondent answer in a specific way. The subject was seated in such a way that he had to hear almost everyone else\u2019s answers before it was his turn. Sometimes the non-subject members would unanimously choose an answer that was clearly wrong.<\/p>\r\n

So what was the conclusion? Asch found that thirty-seven out of fifty test subjects responded with an \u201cobviously erroneous\u201d answer at least once. When faced by a unanimous wrong answer from the rest of the group, the subject conformed to a mean of four of the staged answers. Asch revised the study and repeated it, wherein the subject still heard the staged wrong answers, but was allowed to write down his answer rather than speak it aloud. In this version, the number of examples of conformity\u2013\u2013giving an incorrect answer so as not to contradict the group\u2013\u2013fell by two thirds. He also found that group size had an impact on how much pressure the subject felt to conform.<\/p>\r\n

The results showed that speaking up when only one other person gave an erroneous answer was far more common than when five or six people defended the incorrect position. Finally, Asch discovered that people were far more likely to give the correct answer in the face of near-unanimous consent if they had a single ally. If even one person in the group also dissented, the subject conformed only a quarter as often. Clearly, it was easier to be a minority of two than a minority of one.<\/p>\r\nWatch a clip from the experiment here:\r\n