conformity compliance and obedience essay

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Introduction, general overviews and textbooks.

• Compliments
• Disrupt-Then-Reframe
• Door-in-the-Face
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Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience by Leandre R. Fabrigar , Meghan E. Norris , Devin Fowlie LAST REVIEWED: 26 August 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199828340-0075

Social influence refers to the ways people influence the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors of others. Each day we are bombarded by countless attempts by others to influence us, and as such, the study of social influence has long been a central topic of inquiry for social psychologists and researchers in many other social sciences (e.g., marketing, organizational behavior, political science). Theorists have typically distinguished between four types of social influence. Compliance is when an individual changes his or her behavior in response to an explicit or implicit request made by another person. Compliance is often referred to as an active form of social influence in that it is usually intentionally initiated by a person. It is also conceptualized as an external form of social influence in that its focus is a change in overt behavior. Although compliance may sometimes occur as a result of changes in people’s internal beliefs and/or feelings, such internal changes are not the primary goal of compliance, nor are they necessarily required for the request to be successful. In contrast, conformity refers to when people adjust their behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and/or beliefs to fit to a group norm. Conformity is generally regarded as a passive form of influence in that members of the group do not necessarily actively attempt to influence others. People merely observe the actions of group members and adjust their behaviors and/or views accordingly. The focus of conformity can be either external (overt behaviors) or internal (beliefs and feelings) in nature. Obedience is a change in behavior as a result of a direct command from an authority figure. Obedience is an active form of influence in that it is usually directly initiated by an authority figure and is typically external in that overt behaviors are generally the focus of commands. The final form of social influence is persuasion, which refers to an active attempt to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, or feelings, usually via some form of communication. Persuasion is an active form of influence and is internal in its focus in that changes in people’s beliefs and/or feelings are the goal of such influence. Typically, persuasion is treated as a distinct literature from that of the other three forms of social influence and is usually included as a major area of inquiry within the broader attitudes literature. As such, this article will focus primarily on literature related to compliance, conformity, and obedience.

There are a number of sources, appropriate for different audiences, that provide overviews of the literature. These resources provide broad-level insights into social influence processes that would be informative for both academics and nonacademics. Both Milgram 1992 and Harkins, et al. 2017 provide useful, general overviews that are suitable for a range of audiences. Similarly, Cialdini 2001 would be useful for not only students but also those with nonacademic backgrounds who have an interest in social influence. In contrast, Cialdini and Griskevicius 2010 and Cialdini and Trost 1998 are geared more toward graduate students and researchers. Hogg 2010 provides a scholarly overview of social influence literature.

Cialdini, R. B. 2001. Influence: Science and practice . 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

This book is among the most popular in any area of social psychology. It remains a popular text for classes on social influence but is sufficiently engaging with its effective use of real-world examples that is appealing to readers outside the academic context. This resource covers content including the six principles of influence: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity.

Cialdini, R. B., and V. Griskevicius. 2010. Social influence. In Advanced social psychology: The state of the science . Edited by R. Baumeister and E. Finkel, 385–418. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

An academic review of social influence research. In contrast to Cialdini 2001 , this book is best suited for a scholarly audience and would be a useful resource for senior undergraduate and graduate students.

Cialdini, R. B., and M. R. Trost. 1998. Social influence: Social norms, conformity, and compliance. In The handbook of social psychology . 4th ed. Vol. 2. Edited by D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey, 151–192. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This chapter is a comprehensive, scholarly review of psychological research on social influence. It provides a detailed summary of research on norms, conformity, and compliance.

Harkins, S. G., K. D. Williams, and J. M. Burger, eds. 2017. The Oxford handbook of social influence . New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

This handbook provides a generally accessible overview of topics and current research in social influence, including intra- and interpersonal processes, intragroup processes, and applied social influence. This is broadly applicable, but is also suitable for nonacademics or students.

Hogg, M. A. 2010. “Influence and leadership.” In The handbook of social psychology . 5th ed. Vol. 2. Edited by S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, and G. Lindzey, 1166–1206. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

This chapter provides a scholarly overview of social influence literature, with a somewhat different emphasis in coverage than that of Cialdini and colleagues. This chapter is best suited for graduate students, scholars, and researchers. It provides distinctions between compliance, conformity, and obedience literature.

Milgram, S. 1992. The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments . 2d ed. Edited by J. Sabini and M. Silver. McGraw-Hill Series in Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This series of writings by Stanley Milgram covers a variety of aspects of social influence, among other topics. This writing is suitable for students or professionals, but may be of interest more generally.

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PSYCH101: Introduction to Psychology

Conformity, compliance, and obedience.

Read this text, which describes two famous experiments.

Solomon Asch (1907–1996), a Polish-American pioneer in social psychology, focused on group behavior – specifically persuading members of a group to change their attitudes even if it is wrong. In his classic experiment, he found a conformity effect ("Asch effect") that occurs when a group convinces a member of an untrue fact. The person changes their attitude to conform to the consensus of the group.

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984), an American social psychologist, researched obedience to authority in his famous study at Yale University. He used confederates to pressure study participants to administer (fake) electric shocks to other people. The participants did not know the shocks were never administered, so many left his experiment assuming they had caused great bodily harm to another person.

Pay attention to the definitions for groupthink, group polarization, and social loafing.

In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch's study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority – up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly.
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero.
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke - it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie (Figure 12.19).

Figure 12.19 People in crowds tend to take cues from others and act accordingly. (a) An audience is listening to a lecture and people are relatively quiet, still, and attentive to the speaker on the stage. (b) An audience is at a rock concert where people are dancing, singing, and possibly engaging in activities like crowd surfing.

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch's study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch's research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch's study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant's age, gender, and socio-cultural background.

Stanley Milgram's Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual's behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive (Figure 12.20). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs. Burger (2009) partially replicated this study. He found among a multicultural sample of women and men that their levels of obedience matched Milgram's research. Doliński et al. (2017) performed a replication of Burger's work in Poland and controlled for the gender of both participants and learners, and once again, results that were consistent with Milgram's original work were observed.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Dig Deeper: Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal.

Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible - believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members' opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others' with differing viewpoints

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan.

Group Polarization

Social traps refer to situations that arise when individuals or groups of individuals behave in ways that are not in their best interest and that may have negative, long-term consequences. However, once established, a social trap is very difficult to escape. For example, following World War II, the United States and the former Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race. While the presence of nuclear weapons is not in either party's best interest, once the arms race began, each country felt the need to continue producing nuclear weapons to protect itself from the other.

Social Loafing

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult. In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal. This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose. If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project.

Deindividuation

Table 12.2 summarizes the types of social influence you have learned about in this chapter.

Types of Social Influence

12.4 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the Asch effect
• Define conformity and types of social influence
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
• Define groupthink, social facilitation, and social loafing

In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c ( Figure 12.17 ). Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others ( Figure 12.18 ). The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence , people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence , people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie ( Figure 12.19 ).

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

Link to Learning

Watch this video of a replication of the Asch experiment to learn more.

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants believed they gave the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive ( Figure 12.20 ). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an off-campus office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs. Burger (2009) partially replicated this study. He found among a multicultural sample of women and men that their levels of obedience matched Milgram's research. Doliński et al. (2017) performed a replication of Burger's work in Poland and controlled for the gender of both participants and learners, and once again, results that were consistent with Milgram's original work were observed.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions? View this video of Colin Powell, 10 years after his famous United Nations speech, discussing the information he had at the time that his decisions were based on. ("CNN Official Interview: Colin Powell now regrets UN speech about WMDs," 2010).

Do you see evidence of groupthink?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

Group Polarization

Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. Recently, some theorists have argued that group polarization may be partly responsible for the extreme political partisanship that seems ubiquitous in modern society. Given that people can self-select media outlets that are most consistent with their own political views, they are less likely to encounter opposing viewpoints. Over time, this leads to a strengthening of their own perspective and of hostile attitudes and behaviors towards those with different political ideals. Remarkably, political polarization leads to open levels of discrimination that are on par with, or perhaps exceed, racial discrimination (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015). A more everyday example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social traps refer to situations that arise when individuals or groups of individuals behave in ways that are not in their best interest and that may have negative, long-term consequences. However, once established, a social trap is very difficult to escape. For example, following World War II, the United States and the former Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race. While the presence of nuclear weapons is not in either party's best interest, once the arms race began, each country felt the need to continue producing nuclear weapons to protect itself from the other.

Social Loafing

Imagine you were just assigned a group project with other students whom you barely know. Everyone in your group will get the same grade. Are you the type who will do most of the work, even though the final grade will be shared? Or are you more likely to do less work because you know others will pick up the slack? Social loafing involves a reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled. Because each individual's efforts are not evaluated, individuals can become less motivated to perform well. Karau and Williams (1993) and Simms and Nichols (2014) reviewed the research on social loafing and discerned when it was least likely to happen. The researchers noted that social loafing could be alleviated if, among other situations, individuals knew their work would be assessed by a manager (in a workplace setting) or instructor (in a classroom setting), or if a manager or instructor required group members to complete self-evaluations.

The likelihood of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999). According to Karau and Williams (1993), college students were the population most likely to engage in social loafing. Their study also found that women and participants from collectivistic cultures were less likely to engage in social loafing, explaining that their group orientation may account for this.

College students could work around social loafing or “free-riding” by suggesting to their professors use of a flocking method to form groups. Harding (2018) compared groups of students who had self-selected into groups for class to those who had been formed by flocking, which involves assigning students to groups who have similar schedules and motivations. Not only did she find that students reported less “free riding,” but that they also did better in the group assignments compared to those whose groups were self-selected.

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985).

Deindividuation

Another way that being part of a group can affect behavior is exhibited in instances in which deindividuation occurs. Deindividuation refers to situations in which a person may feel a sense of anonymity and therefore a reduction in accountability and sense of self when among others. Deindividuation is often pointed to in cases in which mob or riot-like behaviors occur (Zimbardo, 1969), but research on the subject and the role that deindividuation plays in such behaviors has resulted in inconsistent results (as discussed in Granström, Guvå, Hylander, & Rosander, 2009).

Table 12.2 summarizes the types of social influence you have learned about in this chapter.

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Social Psychology

Conformity and Obedience

Learning objectives.

• Describe the results of research on conformity, and distinguish between normative and informational social influence.
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c (Figure 1). Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others (Figure 2). The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence , people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence , people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie (Figure 3).

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

You can view the transcript for “The Asch Experiment” here (opens in new window) .

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive (Figure 4). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

Link to learning

Watch a modern example of the Milgram experiment here .

• Conduct a conformity study the next time you are in an elevator. After you enter the elevator, stand with your back toward the door. See if others conform to your behavior. Did your results turn out as expected?
• Most students adamantly state that they would never have turned up the voltage in the Milgram experiment. Do you think you would have refused to shock the learner? Looking at your own past behavior, what evidence suggests that you would go along with the order to increase the voltage?

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person who works for a researcher and is aware of the experiment, but who acts as a participant; used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design

when individuals change their behavior to go along with the group even if they do not agree with the group

group majority influences an individual’s judgment, even when that judgment is inaccurate

change of behavior to please an authority figure or to avoid aversive consequences

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14 Conformity and Obedience

We often change our attitudes and behaviors to match the attitudes and behaviors of the people around us. One reason for this conformity is a concern about what other people think of us. This process was demonstrated in a classic study in which college students deliberately gave wrong answers to a simple visual judgment task rather than go against the group. Another reason we conform to the norm is because other people often have information we do not, and relying on norms can be a reasonable strategy when we are uncertain about how we are supposed to act. Unfortunately, we frequently misperceive how the typical person acts, which can contribute to problems such as the excessive binge drinking often seen in college students. Obeying orders from an authority figure can sometimes lead to disturbing behavior. This danger was illustrated in a famous study in which participants were instructed to administer painful electric shocks to another person in what they believed to be a learning experiment. Despite vehement protests from the person receiving the shocks, most participants continued the procedure when instructed to do so by the experimenter. The findings raise questions about the power of blind obedience in deplorable situations such as atrocities and genocide. They also raise concerns about the ethical treatment of participants in psychology experiments.

Learning Objectives

• Become aware of how widespread conformity is in our lives and some of the ways each of us changes our attitudes and behavior to match the norm.
• Understand the two primary reasons why people often conform to perceived norms.
• Appreciate how obedience to authority has been examined in laboratory studies and some of the implications of the findings from these investigations.
• Consider some of the remaining issues and sources of controversy surrounding Milgram’s obedience studies.

Introduction

When he was a teenager, my son often enjoyed looking at photographs of me and my wife taken when we were in high school. He laughed at the hairstyles, the clothing, and the kind of glasses people wore “back then.” And when he was through with his ridiculing, we would point out that no one is immune to fashions and fads and that someday his children will probably be equally amused by his high school photographs and the trends he found so normal at the time.

Everyday observation confirms that we often adopt the actions and attitudes of the people around us. Trends in clothing, music, foods, and entertainment are obvious. But our views on political issues, religious questions, and lifestyles also reflect to some degree the attitudes of the people we interact with. Similarly, decisions about behaviors such as smoking and drinking are influenced by whether the people we spend time with engage in these activities. Psychologists refer to this widespread tendency to act and think like the people around us as conformity .

What causes all this conformity? To start, humans may possess an inherent tendency to imitate the actions of others. Although we usually are not aware of it, we often mimic the gestures, body posture, language, talking speed, and many other behaviors of the people we interact with. Researchers find that this mimicking increases the connection between people and allows our interactions to flow more smoothly ( Chartrand & Bargh, 1999 ).

Beyond this automatic tendency to imitate others, psychologists have identified two primary reasons for conformity. The first of these is normative influence . When normative influence is operating, people go along with the crowd because they are concerned about what others think of them. We don’t want to look out of step or become the target of criticism just because we like different kinds of music or dress differently than everyone else. Fitting in also brings rewards such as camaraderie and compliments.

How powerful is normative influence? Consider a classic study conducted many years ago by Solomon Asch ( 1956 ). The participants were male college students who were asked to engage in a seemingly simple task. An experimenter standing several feet away held up a card that depicted one line on the left side and three lines on the right side. The participant’s job was to say aloud which of the three lines on the right was the same length as the line on the left. Sixteen cards were presented one at a time, and the correct answer on each was so obvious as to make the task a little boring. Except for one thing. The participant was not alone. In fact, there were six other people in the room who also gave their answers to the line-judgment task aloud. Moreover, although they pretended to be fellow participants, these other individuals were, in fact, confederates working with the experimenter. The real participant was seated so that he always gave his answer after hearing what five other “participants” said. Everything went smoothly until the third trial, when inexplicably the first “participant” gave an obviously incorrect answer. The mistake might have been amusing, except the second participant gave the same answer. As did the third, the fourth, and the fifth participant. Suddenly the real participant was in a difficult situation. His eyes told him one thing, but five out of five people apparently saw something else.

It’s one thing to wear your hair a certain way or like certain foods because everyone around you does. But, would participants intentionally give a wrong answer just to conform with the other participants? The confederates uniformly gave incorrect answers on 12 of the 16 trials, and 76 percent of the participants went along with the norm at least once and also gave the wrong answer. In total, they conformed with the group on one-third of the 12 test trials. Although we might be impressed that the majority of the time participants answered honestly, most psychologists find it remarkable that so many college students caved in to the pressure of the group rather than do the job they had volunteered to do. In almost all cases, the participants knew they were giving an incorrect answer, but their concern for what these other people might be thinking about them overpowered their desire to do the right thing.

Variations of Asch’s procedures have been conducted numerous times ( Bond, 2005 ; Bond & Smith, 1996 ). We now know that the findings are easily replicated, that there is an increase in conformity with more confederates (up to about five), that teenagers are more prone to conforming than are adults, and that people conform significantly less often when they believe the confederates will not hear their responses ( Berndt, 1979 ; Bond, 2005 ; Crutchfield, 1955 ; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955 ). This last finding is consistent with the notion that participants change their answers because they are concerned about what others think of them. Finally, although we see the effect in virtually every culture that has been studied, more conformity is found in collectivist countries such as Japan and China than in individualistic countries such as the United States ( Bond & Smith, 1996 ). Compared with individualistic cultures, people who live in collectivist cultures place a higher value on the goals of the group than on individual preferences. They also are more motivated to maintain harmony in their interpersonal relations.

The other reason we sometimes go along with the crowd is that people are often a source of information. Psychologists refer to this process as informational influence . Most of us, most of the time, are motivated to do the right thing. If society deems that we put litter in a proper container, speak softly in libraries, and tip our waiter, then that’s what most of us will do. But sometimes it’s not clear what society expects of us. In these situations, we often rely on descriptive norms ( Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990 ). That is, we act the way most people—or most people like us—act. This is not an unreasonable strategy. Other people often have information that we do not, especially when we find ourselves in new situations. If you have ever been part of a conversation that went something like this,

“Do you think we should?” “Sure. Everyone else is doing it.”,

you have experienced the power of informational influence.

However, it’s not always easy to obtain good descriptive norm information, which means we sometimes rely on a flawed notion of the norm when deciding how we should behave. A good example of how misperceived norms can lead to problems is found in research on binge drinking among college students. Excessive drinking is a serious problem on many campuses ( Mita, 2009 ). There are many reasons why students binge drink, but one of the most important is their perception of the descriptive norm. How much students drink is highly correlated with how much they believe the average student drinks ( Neighbors, Lee, Lewis, Fossos, & Larimer, 2007 ). Unfortunately, students aren’t very good at making this assessment. They notice the boisterous heavy drinker at the party but fail to consider all the students not attending the party. As a result, students typically overestimate the descriptive norm for college student drinking ( Borsari & Carey, 2003 ; Perkins, Haines, & Rice, 2005 ). Most students believe they consume significantly less alcohol than the norm, a miscalculation that creates a dangerous push toward more and more excessive alcohol consumption. On the positive side, providing students with accurate information about drinking norms has been found to reduce overindulgent drinking ( Burger, LaSalvia, Hendricks, Mehdipour, & Neudeck, 2011 ; Neighbors, Lee, Lewis, Fossos, & Walter, 2009 ).

Researchers have demonstrated the power of descriptive norms in a number of areas. Homeowners reduced the amount of energy they used when they learned that they were consuming more energy than their neighbors ( Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007 ). Undergraduates selected the healthy food option when led to believe that other students had made this choice ( Burger et al., 2010 ). Hotel guests were more likely to reuse their towels when a hanger in the bathroom told them that this is what most guests did ( Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008 ). And more people began using the stairs instead of the elevator when informed that the vast majority of people took the stairs to go up one or two floors ( Burger & Shelton, 2011 ).

Although we may be influenced by the people around us more than we recognize, whether we conform to the norm is up to us. But sometimes decisions about how to act are not so easy. Sometimes we are directed by a more powerful person to do things we may not want to do. Researchers who study obedience are interested in how people react when given an order or command from someone in a position of authority. In many situations, obedience is a good thing. We are taught at an early age to obey parents, teachers, and police officers. It’s also important to follow instructions from judges, firefighters, and lifeguards. And a military would fail to function if soldiers stopped obeying orders from superiors. But, there is also a dark side to obedience. In the name of “following orders” or “just doing my job,” people can violate ethical principles and break laws. More disturbingly, obedience often is at the heart of some of the worst of human behavior—massacres, atrocities, and even genocide.

It was this unsettling side of obedience that led to some of the most famous and most controversial research in the history of psychology. Milgram ( 1963 , 1965 , 1974 ) wanted to know why so many otherwise decent German citizens went along with the brutality of the Nazi leaders during the Holocaust. “These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single person,” Milgram ( 1963 , p. 371) wrote, “but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of persons obeyed orders.”

To understand this obedience, Milgram conducted a series of laboratory investigations. In all but one variation of the basic procedure, participants were men recruited from the community surrounding Yale University, where the research was carried out. These citizens signed up for what they believed to be an experiment on learning and memory. In particular, they were told the research concerned the effects of punishment on learning. Three people were involved in each session. One was the participant. Another was the experimenter. The third was a confederate who pretended to be another participant.

The experimenter explained that the study consisted of a memory test and that one of the men would be the teacher and the other the learner. Through a rigged drawing, the real participant was always assigned the teacher’s role and the confederate was always the learner. The teacher watched as the learner was strapped into a chair and had electrodes attached to his wrist. The teacher then moved to the room next door where he was seated in front of a large metal box the experimenter identified as a “shock generator.” The front of the box displayed gauges and lights and, most noteworthy, a series of 30 levers across the bottom. Each lever was labeled with a voltage figure, starting with 15 volts and moving up in 15-volt increments to 450 volts. Labels also indicated the strength of the shocks, starting with “Slight Shock” and moving up to “Danger: Severe Shock” toward the end. The last two levers were simply labeled “XXX” in red.

Through a microphone, the teacher administered a memory test to the learner in the next room. The learner responded to the multiple-choice items by pressing one of four buttons that were barely within reach of his strapped-down hand. If the teacher saw the correct answer light up on his side of the wall, he simply moved on to the next item. But if the learner got the item wrong, the teacher pressed one of the shock levers and, thereby, delivered the learner’s punishment. The teacher was instructed to start with the 15-volt lever and move up to the next highest shock for each successive wrong answer.

In reality, the learner received no shocks. But he did make a lot of mistakes on the test, which forced the teacher to administer what he believed to be increasingly strong shocks. The purpose of the study was to see how far the teacher would go before refusing to continue. The teacher’s first hint that something was amiss came after pressing the 75-volt lever and hearing through the wall the learner say “Ugh!” The learner’s reactions became stronger and louder with each lever press. At 150 volts, the learner yelled out, “Experimenter! That’s all. Get me out of here. I told you I had heart trouble. My heart’s starting to bother me now. Get me out of here, please. My heart’s starting to bother me. I refuse to go on. Let me out.”

The experimenter’s role was to encourage the participant to continue. If at any time the teacher asked to end the session, the experimenter responded with phrases such as, “The experiment requires that you continue,” and “You have no other choice, you must go on.” The experimenter ended the session only after the teacher stated four successive times that he did not want to continue. All the while, the learner’s protests became more intense with each shock. After 300 volts, the learner refused to answer any more questions, which led the experimenter to say that no answer should be considered a wrong answer. After 330 volts, despite vehement protests from the learner following previous shocks, the teacher heard only silence, suggesting that the learner was now physically unable to respond. If the teacher reached 450 volts—the end of the generator—the experimenter told him to continue pressing the 450 volt lever for each wrong answer. It was only after the teacher pressed the 450-volt lever three times that the experimenter announced that the study was over.

If you had been a participant in this research, what would you have done? Virtually everyone says he or she would have stopped early in the process. And most people predict that very few if any participants would keep pressing all the way to 450 volts. Yet in the basic procedure described here, 65 percent of the participants continued to administer shocks to the very end of the session. These were not brutal, sadistic men. They were ordinary citizens who nonetheless followed the experimenter’s instructions to administer what they believed to be excruciating if not dangerous electric shocks to an innocent person. The disturbing implication from the findings is that, under the right circumstances, each of us may be capable of acting in some very uncharacteristic and perhaps some very unsettling ways.

Milgram conducted many variations of this basic procedure to explore some of the factors that affect obedience. He found that obedience rates decreased when the learner was in the same room as the experimenter and declined even further when the teacher had to physically touch the learner to administer the punishment. Participants also were less willing to continue the procedure after seeing other teachers refuse to press the shock levers, and they were significantly less obedient when the instructions to continue came from a person they believed to be another participant rather than from the experimenter. Finally, Milgram found that women participants followed the experimenter’s instructions at exactly the same rate the men had.

Milgram’s obedience research has been the subject of much controversy and discussion. Psychologists continue to debate the extent to which Milgram’s studies tell us something about atrocities in general and about the behavior of German citizens during the Holocaust in particular ( Miller, 2004 ). Certainly, there are important features of that time and place that cannot be recreated in a laboratory, such as a pervasive climate of prejudice and dehumanization. Another issue concerns the relevance of the findings. Some people have argued that today we are more aware of the dangers of blind obedience than we were when the research was conducted back in the 1960s. However, findings from partial and modified replications of Milgram’s procedures conducted in recent years suggest that people respond to the situation today much like they did a half a century ago ( Burger, 2009 ).

Another point of controversy concerns the ethical treatment of research participants. Researchers have an obligation to look out for the welfare of their participants. Yet, there is little doubt that many of Milgram’s participants experienced intense levels of stress as they went through the procedure. In his defense, Milgram was not unconcerned about the effects of the experience on his participants. And in follow-up questionnaires, the vast majority of his participants said they were pleased they had been part of the research and thought similar experiments should be conducted in the future. Nonetheless, in part because of Milgram’s studies, guidelines and procedures were developed to protect research participants from these kinds of experiences. Although Milgram’s intriguing findings left us with many unanswered questions, conducting a full replication of his experiment remains out of bounds by today’s standards.

Finally, it is also worth noting that although a number of factors appear to lead to obedience, there are also those who would not obey. In one conceptual replication of the Milgram studies, conducted with a small sample in Italy, the researchers explored the moment that approximately two-thirds of the sample refused to cooperate ( Bocchiaro & Zimbardo, 2010 ). The investigators identified compassion, ethics, and recognition of the situation as problematic as major influences on refusal. Thus, just as there are pressures to obey there are also instances in which people can stand up to authority.

Social psychologists are fond of saying that we are all influenced by the people around us more than we recognize. Of course, each person is unique, and ultimately each of us makes choices about how we will and will not act. But decades of research on conformity and obedience make it clear that we live in a social world and that—for better or worse—much of what we do is a reflection of the people we encounter.

Text Attribution

Media attributions.

• Asch experiment
• Please Think Of the Owls
• Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Milgram experiment
• Intense Shock

Changing one’s attitude or behavior to match a perceived social norm.

Conformity that results from a concern for what other people think of us.

Conformity that results from a concern to act in a socially approved manner as determined by how others act.

The perception of what most people do in a given situation.

Responding to an order or command from a person in a position of authority.

An Introduction to Social Psychology Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Edison State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Social Influence Revision Notes

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

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Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Social influence is the process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefs or behavior are modified by the presence or action of others. Four areas of social influence are conformity, compliance and obedience, and minority influence.

Conformity (Majority Influence)

Conformity is a type of social influence defined as a change in belief or behavior in response to real or imagined social pressure. It is also known as majority influence.

Types of Conformity

Compliance ao1.

This refers to instances where a person may agree in public with a group of people, but the person privately disagrees with the group’s viewpoint or behavior. The individual changes their views, but it is a temporary change.

For example, a person may laugh at a joke because their group of friends find it funny but deep down the person does not find the joke funny.

For a study on compliance refer to Asch’s Line Study .

Internalisation AO1

Publicly changing behavior to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately. An internal (private) and external (public) change of behavior. This is the deepest level of conformity were the beliefs of the group become part of the individual’s own belief system.

An example of internalisation is if someone lived with a vegetarian at university and then decides to also become one too because they agree with their friend’s viewpoint / someone converting religions would also be a good example.

For a study on internalisation refer to Jenness (see below).

Identification AO1

Identification occurs when someone conforms to the demands of a given social role in society. For example, a policeman, teacher or politician. This type of conformity extends over several aspects of external behavior. However, there still be no changed to internal personal opinion.

A good example is Zimbardo’s prison study .

AO2 Scenario Question

Jan and Norah have just finished their first year at university where they lived in a house with six other students. All the other students were very health conscious and ate only organic food. Jan had listened to their point of view and now she also eats only organic food.

Norah was happy to eat organic food while in the house, but when she went home for the holidays she ate whatever her mother cooked. Both girls conformed, but for different reasons.

Explain which type of conformity each girl was showing.

“Jan shows internalisation. She has publicly and privately changed her attitudes and now permanently only eats organic food. Norah is showing compliance. She only conformed publicly to her friends’ behavior but had obviously not privately undergone attitude change to eating organic as she reverted to eating non-organic in the holidays. Norah probably conformed to gain group approval and membership whereas Jan believed the other students to be ‘right’ in their belief that organic food was ‘good’.”

Explanations for Conformity

Normative influence (ao1/ao3).

Normative social influence is where a person conforms to fit in with the group because they don’t want to appear foolish or be left out. Normative social influence is usually associated with compliance,

where a person changes their public behavior but not their private beliefs.

For example, a person may feel pressurised to smoke because the rest of their friends are. Normative Social influence tends to lead to compliance because the person smokes just for show but deep down they wish not to smoke. This means any change of behavior is temporary .

For a study on normative influence refer to Asch .

Informational Influence (AO1/AO3)

Informational social influence is where a person conforms because they have a desire to be right , and look to others who they believe may have more information.

This type of conformity occurs when a person is unsure of a situation or lacks knowledge and is associated with internalisation .

An example of this is if someone was to go to a posh restaurant for the first time, they may be confronted with several forks and not know which one to use, so they might look to a near by person to see what fork to use first.

For a study on informational influence refer to Jenness (see below).

Jenness’ Bean Jar Experiment AO1

Jenness carried out a study into conformity – in his experiment participants were asked to estimate how many beans they thought were in a jar. Each participant had to make an individual estimate, and then do the same as a group.

He found that when the task was carried out in a social group, the participants would report estimates of roughly the same value (even though they had previously reported quite different estimates as individuals).

The study was successful in showing majority influence, thus proving that individuals” behavior and beliefs can be influenced by a group. Additionally, this is likely to be an example of informational social influence as participants would be uncertain about the actual number of beans in the jar.

Variables Affecting Conformity

Asch’s line study ao1.

Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious.

Procedure : In Asch’s study there were 5-7 participants per group. Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length. In each group there was only one real participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.

Results : Real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.

Evaluation of Asch’s Study AO3

• This study lacks ecological validity as it was based on peoples’ perception of lines, this does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity.
• There are also sampling issues regarding this study as the study was only carried out on men thus the sample was gender bias and therefore the results cannot be applied to females. The sample therefore lacks population validity.
• Moreover, there are ethical issues regarding Asch’s study – Mention deception as participants were told the study was about perception of lines. As a result, they could not give informed consent. Furthermore, it is possible that the participants may have felt embarrassed when the true nature of the study was revealed. Thus could potentially put them through some form of psychological harm. However, Asch did debrief at the end.
• For extra AO3 points link Asch’s results to theories/reasons why people may conform to the majority. For instance, some participants said they conformed to fit in with the group, this claim coincides (supports) ‘Normative influence’ which states that people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.

Factors Affecting Conformity AO3

In further trials, Asch (1952, 1956) changed the procedure (i.e., independent variables) to investigate which situational factors influenced the level of conformity (dependent variable).  His results and conclusions are given below:

Asch altered the number of confederates in his study to see how this effected conformity. The bigger the majority group (number of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.

With one other person (i.e., confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13%, and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3). However, conformity did not increase much after the group size was about 4/5.

Because conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four, this is considered the optimal group size.

Brown and Byrne (1997) suggest that people might suspect collusion if the majority rises beyond three or four.

According to Hogg & Vaughan (1995), the most robust finding is that conformity reaches its full extent with 3-5 person majority, with additional members having little effect.

Group Unanimity

A person is more likely to conform when all members of the group agree and give the same answer.

When one other person in the group gave a different answer from the others, and the group answer was not unanimous, conformity dropped. Asch (1951) found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity as much as 80%.

Difficulty of Task

When the (comparison) lines (e.g., A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased.

When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task, the greater the conformity.

Answer in Private

When participants were allowed to answer in private (so the rest of the group does not know their response) conformity decreases. This is because there are fewer group pressures and normative influence is not as powerful, as there is no fear of rejection from the group.

Conformity to Social Roles

Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group (e.g. student, teacher, policeman etc). There is considerable pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role. Conforming to a social role is called identification.

Stanford Prison Experiment AO1

Zimbardo wanted to investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

Procedure : To study the roles people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.

He advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight. Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment.

Prisoners were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only. Guards were issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible. The guards worked shifts of eight hours each (the other guards remained on call). No physical violence was permitted.

Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted as prison warden.

Findings : Within a very short time both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles, with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily. Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners. T

hey behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it. Other guards joined in, and other prisoners were also tormented.

The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They ‘told tales’ on each other to the guards. They started taking the prison rules very seriously, and some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the rules.

As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive. They demanded ever greater obedience from the prisoners.

The prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything so tried to find ways to please the guards, such as telling tales on fellow prisoners.

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Study AO3

• Demand characteristics could explain the findings of the study. Most of the guards later claimed they were simply acting. Because the guards and prisoners were playing a role their behavior may not be influenced by the same factors which affect behavior in real life. This means the study’s findings cannot be reasonably generalized to real life, such as prison settings. I.e the study has low ecological validity.
• The study may also lack population validity as the sample comprised US male students. The study’s findings cannot be applied to female prisons or those from other countries. For example, America is an individualist culture (were people are generally less conforming) and the results maybe different in collectivist cultures (such as Asian countries) .
• A strength of the study is that it has altered the way US prisons are run. For example, juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them).
• The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable). Also, the prisoners did not consent to being “arrested” at home.
• Also, participants playing the role of prisoners were not protected from psychological harm, experiencing incidents of humiliation and distress. For example, one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. However, in Zimbardo’s defence the emotional distress experienced by the prisoners could not have been predicted from the outset. In addition Zimbardo did conduct debriefing sessions for several years afterwards and concluded they were no lasting negative effects.
• Another strength of the study is that the harmful treatment of participant led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines . Studies must now gain ethical approval before they are conducted. An ethics committee review whether the potential benefits of the research are justifiable in the light of possible risk of physical or psychological harm. They may request researchers make changes to the studies design or procedure, or in extreme cases deny approval of the study altogether.

Obedience is a type of social influence where a person follows an order from another person who is usually an authority figure.

Explanations for Obedience

Milgram’s shock study ao1.

Milgram wanted to know why Germans were willing to kill Jews during the Holocaust. He thought that it might have been because German’s were just evil.

He thought that Americans were different and would not have followed such orders. To test this ‘German’s are different’ hypothesis he carried out this study (outlined below).

Procedure : Milgram wanted to see whether people would obey a legitimate authority figure when given instructions to harm another human being.

He conducted a lab experiment in which two participants were assigned either the role of a teacher (this was always given to the true participant) or learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace).

The teacher and learner were put into separate rooms. The teacher was then asked by the experimenter (who wore a lab coat) to administer electric shocks (which were actually harmless) to the learner each time he gave the wrong answer. These shocks increased every time the learner gave a wrong answer, from 15 – 450 volts.

The experimenter (Mr Williams) wore a grey lab coat and his role was to give a series of orders / prods when the participant refused to administer a shock. There were 4 prods and if one was not obeyed then the experimenter read out the next prod, and so on.

• Prod 1: please continue.
• Prod 2: the experiment requires you to continue.
• Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
• Prod 4: you have no other choice but to continue.

Results : The results were that all participants went to 300 volts and 65% were willing to go all the way to 450 volts. Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of his study.

All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV). For example, when the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

Evaluation of Milgram’s Study AO3

• A limitation is that this study lacked ecological validity as it was carried out in a lab under artificial conditions. This means that it might not be possible to generalise the finding to a real life setting, as people do not usually receive orders to hurt another person in real life.
• Another problem is that the sample was biased. Milgram only used males in his study and this means we cannot generalise the results to females.
• Highlight the value that Milgram’s work has provided to social Psychology. For instance Milgram’s work gives an insight into why people under the Nazi reign were willing to kill Jews when given orders to do so. It also highlights how we can all be blind to obedience often doing things without question.
• A strength of the study is that it used a standardised procedure because it was a lab experiment. This is good because it improves the reliability of the study and also helps establish a causal relationship.

Ethical Issues AO3

• Deception – the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person, and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s.

However, Milgram argued that “illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths”.

Milgram also interviewed participants afterwards to find out the effect of the deception. Apparently 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment”, and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved.

• Protection of participants – Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed.

Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands. Three participants had uncontrollable seizures, and many pleaded to be allowed to stop the experiment.

Full blown seizures were observed for 3 participants; one so violent that the experiment was stopped.

In his defence, Milgram argued that these effects were only short term. Once the participants were debriefed (and could see the confederate was OK) their stress levels decreased. Milgram also interviewed the participants one year after the event and concluded that most were happy that they had taken part.

• However, Milgram did debrief the participants fully after the experiment and also followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm.

The Agentic State

Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is supported by some aspects of Milgram’s evidence.

For example, when participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey. In contrast, many participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he would take responsibility’.

Another example of the agenetic state involved a variation of Milgram’s study whereby participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches. In this condition 92.5% shocked to the maximum 450 volts. This shows when there is less personal responsibility obedience increases.

Limitations AO3

• Cannot explain Nazi behavior – Mandel described how the German Police Reserve shot civilians in a small Polish town even though they were not directly ordered to and were told they could be assigned to other duties – Challenges agentic state as they were not powerless to obey.
• May be better explained by ‘plain cruelty’ – Zimbardo’s participants may have used the situation to express their sadistic tendencies, guards inflicted rapidly escalating cruelty to prisoners even though there was no authority figure telling them to – Obedience may be caused by certain aspects of human nature.

Legitimacy of Authority Figure

Most societies are hierarchal (parents, teachers and police officers hold authority over us). The authority they use is legitimate as it is argued by society, helping it to run smoothly. One of the consequences is that some people are granted the power to punish others.

People tend to obey others if they recognise their authority as morally right and / or legally based (i.e. legitimate). This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

With regard to Milgram” study the experimenter is seen as having legitimate authority as he has scientific status.

If an authority figure’s commands are potentially harmful, for it to be perceived as legitimate they must occur within some type of institutional structure (e.g. a university or the military).

Situational Factors

The Milgram experiment was carried out many times whereby Milgram varied the basic procedure (changed the IV). By doing this Milgram could identify which situational factors affected obedience (the DV).

Obedience was measured by how many participants shocked to the maximum 450 volts (65% in the original study).

Authority Figure Wearing a Uniform

Milgram’s experimenter (Mr. Williams) wore a laboratory coat (a symbol of scientific expertise) which gave him a high status. But when the experimenter dressed in everyday clothes obedience was very low. The uniform of the authority figure can give them status.

Status of Location

Milgram’s obedience experiment was conducted at Yale, a prestigious university in America. The high status of the university gave the study credibility and respect in the eyes of the participants, thus making them more likely to obey.

When Milgram moved his experiment to a set of run down offices rather than the impressive Yale University obedience dropped to 47.5%. This suggests that status of location effects obedience.

Proximity of Authority Figure

People are more likely be obey an authority figure who is in close proximity (i.e. nearby). In Milgram’s study the experimenter was in the same room as the participant (i.e. teacher).

If the authority figure is distant it is easier to resistant their orders. When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%. Many participants cheated and missed out shocks or gave less voltage than ordered to by the experimenter.

Dispositional Explanation: Authoritarian Personality

Adorno felt that personality (i.e. dispositional) factors rather than situational (i.e. environmental) factors could explain obedience. He proposed that there was such a thing as an authoritarian personality, i.e. a person who favours an authoritarian social system and, admires obedience to authority figures.

One of the various characteristics of the authoritarian personality is that the individual is hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status.

He investigated 2000 middle class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using the F-scale to measure authoritarian personality

• Adorno found many significant correlations (e.g. Authoritarianism correlated with prejudice against minority groups) but we cannot say that one variable causes another – Adorno cannot claim that a harsh parenting style caused a development of an Authoritarian personality, we must consider other explanations like legitimacy of authority.
• Millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient behavior but didn’t have the same personality, it is unlikely that the majority of Germany’s population possessed an authoritarian personality – An alternative explanation like social identity theory (people identify with groups they are apart with and discriminate against ones they are not) may be more realistic.
• May be better explanations – Prejudice and submissiveness could just as easily be caused by a poor standard of education as a child – Theory lacks internal validity as it assumes obedience is caused by dispositional explanations when it may be situational variables.
• Adorno used a biased sample – Only used 2000 middle class white Americans who are more likely to have an Authoritarian personality due to demographics and the time of the study – Research lacks population validity and historical validity, so conclusions cannot be generalised to people outside the sample.

Resistance to Social Influence

Independent behavior is a term that psychologists use to describe behavior that seems not be influenced by other people. This happens when a person resists the pressures to conform or obey.

Social Support

In one of Asch’s experimental variations he showed that the presence of a dissident (a confederate who did not conform) led to a decrease in the conformity levels in true participants.

This is thought to be because the presence of a dissident gave the true participant social support and made them feel more confident in their own decision and more confident in rejecting the majority position.

Social support also decreases obedience to authority. In a variation of Milgram” study two other participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey. Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts and confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts. The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduced the level of obedience to 10%.

Locus of Control

The term ‘ Locus of control ’ refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behavior. A person can either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control.

There is a continuum, with most people lying in between.

People with a high internal locus of control perceive (see) themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behavior and are therefore more likely to take responsibility for the way they behave. For example, I did well on the exams because I revised extremely hard.

In contrast a person with a high external locus of control perceive their behaviors as being a result of external influences or luck – e.g. I did well on the test because it was easy.

Research has shown that people with an internal locus of control tend to be less conforming and less obedient (i.e. more independent). Rotter proposes that people with internal locus of control are better at resisting social pressure to conform or obey, perhaps because they feel responsible for their actions.

Minority Influence

Minority influence occurs when a small group (minority) influences the opinion of a much larger group (majority). This can happen when the minority behaves in the following ways.

Consistency

Moscovici stated that being consistent and unchanging in a view is more likely to influence the majority than if a minority is inconsistent and chops and changes their mind.

Procedure : Moscovici conducted an experiment in which female participants were shown 36 blue slides of different intensity and asked to report the colours. There were two confederates (the minority) and four participants (the majority).

In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. They were totally consistent in their responses. In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. In this case they were inconsistent in their answers. A control group was also used consisting of participants only – no confederates.

Findings : When the confederates were consistent in their answers about 8% of participants said the slides were green. When the confederates answered inconsistently about 1% of participants Said the slides were green.

A distinction can be made between two forms of consistency:

(a) Diachronic Consistency – i.e. consistency over time – the majority sticks to its guns, doesn’t modify its views. (b) Synchronic Consistency – i.e. consistency between its members – all members agree and back each other up.

Consistency may be important because:

1. Confronted with a consistent opposition, members of the majority will sit up, take notice, and rethink their position (i.e. the minority focuses attention on itself). 2. A consistent minority disrupts established norms and creates uncertainty, doubt and conflict. This can lead to the majority taking the minority view seriously. The majority will therefore be more likely to question their own views.

When the majority is confronted with someone with self-confidence and dedication to take a popular stand and refuses to back own, they may assume that he or she has a point.

Flexibility

A number of researchers have questioned whether consistency alone is sufficient for a minority to influence a majority. They argue that the key is how the majority interprets consistency. If the consistent minority are seen as inflexible, rigid, uncompromising and dogmatic, they will be unlikely to change the views of the majority.

However, if they appear flexible and compromising, they are likely to be seen as less extreme, as more moderate, cooperative and reasonable. As a result, they will have a better chance of changing majority views.

Some researchers have gone further and suggested that it is not just the appearance of flexibility and compromise which is important but actual flexibility and compromise. This possibility was investigated by Nemeth.

Their experiment was based on a mock jury in which groups of three participants and one confederate had to decide on the amount of compensation to be given to the victim of a ski-lift accident. When the consistent minority (the confederate) argued for a very low amount and refused to change his position, he had no effect on the majority.

However, when he compromised and moved some way towards the majority position, the majority also compromised and changed their view.

This experiment questions the importance of consistency. The minority position changed, it was not consistent, and it was this change that apparently resulted in minority influence.

(a) Name 3 behaviors that enable a minority to influence a majority. (3 marks)

(b) Marcus wants to persuade his group of friends to go travelling in the summer but the rest of the group would like to go on a beach holiday.

Briefly suggest how Marcus might use the 3 behaviors that you have identified in your answer to (a) to persuade his friends to go travelling. (3 marks)

(Total 6 Marks)

(a) Answer. “Consistency, Commitment, Flexibility.” (No need to explain – just name them). (b) Answer. “Marcus should consistently give the same message again and again that the group should go travelling rather than on a beach holiday. He should show commitment to his idea by, for example, investing time in planning and organising his proposed trip. Lastly, he should some flexibility: for example, he could suggest the group go travelling but they will spend quite a bit of time at the beach whilst travelling.”

Social Change

Social change occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behavior which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’ which was not before. Social influence processes involved in social change include minority influence (consistency, commitment and flexibility), internal locus of control and disobedience to authority.

Social change is usually a result of minority influence . This is when a small group of people (the minority) manage to persuade the majority to adopt their point of view.

This also links to independent behavior, because the minority resists pressures to conform and/or obey. Usually the minority have an internal locus of control.

Committed minorities, such as those who risk themselves for their cause has an effect on the majority through an augmentation principle, this means the majority value the importance of the cause – as the minority are risking their lives for it.

Through these processes more and more of the majority will gradually change towards the cause resulting in the snowball effect which will ultimately result in societal change, once this has happened social cryptomnesia occurs which is when people can remember a change but not how it came about.

Moscovici found that consistency is the most important factor in deciding whether the minority are influential or not. This means that the minority must be clear on what they are asking for and not change their minds, or disagree amongst themselves. This creates uncertainty amongst the majority.

Moscovici investigated the importance of consistency. He had a group of 6 participants and a range of blue/ green slides varying in intensity – they all had to state the colour they saw.

The study had two conditions, confederates who consistently said green and an inconsistent group and a control group with no confederates. He found that the consistent minority group had a greater effect on the other participants than the inconsistent group. This confirms that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

It has been found that once the minority begin to persuade people round to their way of thinking, a snowball effect begins to happen. This means that more and more people adopt the minority opinion, until gradually the minority becomes the majority.

At this point, the people who have not changed their opinion are the minority, and they will often conform to the majority view as a result of group pressures.

The majority opinion then becomes law, and people have to obey this law. Once this happens, the minority opinion has become the dominant position in society, and people do often not even remember where the opinion originated from. This is a process known as crypto amnesia .

Further social influence research from Asch and Milgram demonstrates that a minority can have an affect on the majority – both studies involved a dissenter or disobedient role model who influenced the behavior of the majority. However, there are methodological issues in these areas of research: these studies are both based on artificial tasks (judging line lengths).

The application of minority influence is further limited due to the importance of identification which is overlooked in minority influence research. Psychologists have suggested that people are less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways due to the negative connotations associated with them (“tree huggers”).

Minorities wanting social change should avoid behaviors that reinforce social change – essentially off-putting to the majority.

This suggests that being able to identify with a minority group is just as important as agreeing with their views in order to change the behavior of the major.

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Positive Examples of Conformity and Obedience Psychology Compare & Contrast Essay

Human beings have been known to be social beings for as long as they have existed. Every individual has personal attributes that makes him or her unique but the need to live and co-exist with other people is inevitable.

Therefore, people interact at significantly different levels and as a result they influence each other in one way or another through a process known as social influence. Social influence refers to the ability of an individual to influence another person or a group of people in according to one’s own will (Forgas & Williams, 2001).

It is a form of power. Individuals with significantly large amounts of money, high status jobs, exceptional beauty, and such attributes and material possessions will tend to be more socially influential, especially on the otherwise known as ordinary people. However, it is incorrect to think that good looks and the like will automatically and solely enable someone to exert influence on others.

It is the person’s self-perception and esteem that play a central role in determining how greatly one can be able to be socially influential (Friedkin, 1998). This essay seeks to discuss two major forms of social influence; conformity and obedience to authority. It will explore the reasons that make people conform to majority group pressures as well as obey authority.

Social influence has been known to take a number of forms. The forms include; socialization, conformity, obedience to authority, leadership, peer pressure, persuasion, marketing, and sales. Three types of social influence have been identified by Herbert Kelman. First, there is compliance characterized by public conformity and private dissent.

The second is identification where an individual is influenced by someone who commands authority from people. The last one is internalization which refers to people accepting a given belief and undoubtedly agreeing with it (Genova, 2009). Conformity is a form of social influence where a person’s set of beliefs, attitudes, and general behaviors are changed by other people or someone else (Gerber, Green & Larimer, 2008).

An individual conforms in order to be part of a group and avoid the horror of social rejection. The change could be as a result of influence involving real physical presence or absence of others or it could be involving the pressure arising from social norms or conventions. All these impose some form of group or social pressure on an individual.

In psychology, according to Genova (2009), conformity is defined as the tendency to follow the popular wave, either with an aim of fitting into the group or in order to be admired (normative) or in an attempt to be correct (informational) or just for the sake of it (identification) (p.15).

There are a number of reasons that force people to conform to majority behavior as well as to obey authority. Forms of conformity include, persuasion, teasing, criticism, bullying, and so on. As mentioned earlier, people conform for several reasons. Some theories have been advanced by psychologists to attempt to provide an understanding to this phenomenon.

People may conform in order to feel secure, especially from age mates, religion, educational level, political conviction, and cultural orientation (Gerber et al., 2008). Most conformists dread the prospect of being socially rejected due to their failure to conform to some popular pattern.

Hence, some people conform in order to avoid being bullied or criticized by the peers. Despite the fact that the conformity rate is higher among the youth and adolescents, it has been established that all human beings have a tendency to conform (Genova, 2009).

Peer pressure has been viewed in most cases as a bad trait, but conformity, depending on the situation at hand, may have negative as well as positive impacts on an individual. Driving on the proper lane on a busy road can be considered a positive example of conformity. Social norms are formed over a long period of time through conformity and this helps in predicting the society’s functionality (Forgas & Williams, 2001).

Apart from Kelman’s theory of social influence that has already been discussed, there are two more perspectives of explaining people’s conformity. The first one is the informational conformity investigated by Muzafer Sherif in his auto-kinetic experiment, where individuals conform to a given group in order to seek “accurate” or “reliable” information (Friedkin, 1998).

This occurs mainly when one is not very sure of what should be done. This type of conformity can be compared to Kelman’s internalization or otherwise known as private acceptance.

The second one is the normative conformity which normally occurs when an individual seeks to be admired or liked by group members. This compares with public compliance under Kelman’s theory of social influence. This phenomenon was first investigated by a renowned psychologist by the name Solomon Asch through the modification of Sherif’s experiment (Friedkin, 1998).

The normative influence draws greatly from the theory of social impact. The social impact theory has three pillars; number of people, immediacy, and strength which are all positively correlated to conformity.

The above varieties of social influence depict the power of the majority to influence the minority. However, there is another case where an individual can influence a large group of people around him/herself. This is referred to as the minority influence. The power of the minority to influence the majority greatly depends on the strength of the minority, how convincingly they manage to argue their case (Gerber et al., 2008).

Individuals with some expertise can easily execute minority influence on a larger group. Moreover, studies have shown that social conformity may be gender dependent. It has been established that women exhibit a higher probability of conformity compared to men (Genova, 2009). This trend has been traced to the societal norms that shape and determine gender roles.

Obedience to authority, on the other hand, is another form of social influence that is mostly overlooked by social psychology inquisitors. Obedience is defined by psychologists as a form of human behavior which is characterized by carrying out orders or commands from someone else of a higher status or authority (Milgram, 19974). Obedience to authority, therefore, can be defined as the act of enacting orders from another person bestowed with the power to control another’s actions legally or illegally, moral or immoral.

This type of social influence is quite different from compliance or conformity since the latter is due to peer pressure or behavior adopted in order to match that which is popularly practiced. Psychologists have found that human beings can be so obedient to a legitimate authority figure regardless of whether the command obeyed is moral or against ones conscience (Blass, 2000).

This idea was pursued by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist. His desire to investigate how and why people obey authority was triggered by the willingness of ordinary people to participate actively in the infamous Nazi war contrary to their conscience (Milgram, 19974).

Milgram analyzed the findings of the experiment using the theory of conformism according to Solomon Asch and the agentic state theory which proposes that an individual obeys because he considers himself an agent of another person and hence ready to execute the wishes of another who is perceived to be having authority (Blass, 2000).

The essay has elaborated the concepts of social influence, conformity, and obedience to authority. It has discussed the different types of conformity and the associated theories. Furthermore, it has expounded on minority conformity as well as the impact of gender on conformity. This essay has also highlighted the difference between conformity and obedience, importance of obedience and some of the reasons that make people obey authority figures.

Reference List

Blass, Thomas (2000) Obedience to authority: current perspectives on Milgram paradigm. Routledge.

Forgas, Joseph P. & Williams, Kipling D. (2001) Social influence: direct and indirect processes. Psychology Press.

Friedkin, Noah E. (1998) A structural theory of social influence. Cambridge University Press.

Genova, Cathleen (2009) Social conformity starts in the brain. Neuron , 5(3), 15-21.

Gerber, Andrew, Green, David, & Larimer, Chris H. (2008) Social pressure and voter turnout: evidence from a large-scale field experiment. American Political Science Review, 102 (3), 33-47.

Milgram, Stanley (19974) Obedience to authority: an experimental view . Taylor & Francis.

• Empirical Research on Individual Conformity to Group Pressure
• Aspects of Social Influence Theory
• Deviance and Conformity in Modern Society
• Brazil: Imaginative Portrait of a Futuristic Socio-Political Structure
• Reasons Why not to Get a Tattoo
• Jane Elliot’s Experiment: Compare and Contrast
• Improving decision making
• Urban Sprawls Problems
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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11.4 Conformity, Compliance, & Obedience

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the Asch effect
• Define conformity and types of social influence
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
• Define groupthink, social facilitation, and social loafing

   In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

   Solomon  Asch  conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c (figure below). Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

These line segments illustrate the judgment task in Asch’s conformity study. Which line on the right—a, b, or c—is the same length as line x on the left?

   Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant to give an obviously wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he or she does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955). The other dissenter does not need to give the correct response (recall there are three possible answers), but simply diverge from the other responses given by the group at large.
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are less influenced by others opinions (figure below). The  Asch effect  can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will conform and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would conform with that majority.

Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request.

Voting for government officials in the United States is private to reduce the pressure of conformity. (credit: Nicole Klauss)

   Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence, people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence, people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous rendering individuals unsure of the correct response. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie (figure below).

People in crowds tend to take cues from others and act accordingly. (a) An audience is listening to a lecture and people are relatively quiet, still, and attentive to the speaker on the stage. (b) An audience is at a rock concert where people are dancing, singing, and possibly engaging in activities like crowd surfing. (credit a: modification of work by Matt Brown; credit b: modification of work by Christian Holmér)

   How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

STANLEY MILGRAM’S EXPERIMENT

   Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley  Milgram  was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. It is important to note that participants did not want to continue, but did at the insistence of the white lab coat adorn researcher. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive (figure below). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

The Milgram experiment showed the surprising degree to which people obey authority. Two out of three (65%) participants continued to administer shocks to an unresponsive learner.

   Several variations of the original  Milgram  experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

   When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Groupthink in the U.S. Government

   There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions?

Here is a video of Colin Powell discussing the information he had, 10 years after his famous United Nations speech.

Do you see evidence of groupthink?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

   Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

GROUP POLARIZATION

   Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint or more extreme viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition or a more extreme viewpoint in the opposite direction. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. A more widely relevant example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social Facilitation

   Not all intergroup interactions lead to the negative outcomes we have described. Sometimes being in a group situation can improve performance. Social facilitation occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone. This typically occurs when people are performing a task for which they are skilled. Can you think of an example in which having an audience could improve performance? One common example is sports. Skilled basketball players will be more likely to make a free throw basket when surrounded by a cheering audience than when playing alone in the gym (figure below). However, there are instances when athletes can have difficulty under pressure. For example, if an athlete is less skilled or nervous about making a free throw, having an audience may actually hinder rather than help. In sum, social facilitation is likely to occur for easy tasks, or tasks at which we are skilled, but worse performance may occur when performing difficult or novel tasks in front of others.

The attention of the crowd can motivate a skilled athlete. (credit: Tommy Gilligan/USMA)

Social loafing.

   Another way in which a group presence can affect our performance is social loafing. Social loafing is the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group. Social loafing occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group (Karau & Williams, 1993). Essentially individual group members loaf and let other group members pick up the slack. Because each individual’s efforts cannot be evaluated, individuals become less motivated to perform well. For example, consider a group of people cooperating to clean litter from the roadside. Some people will exert a great amount of effort, while others will exert little effort. Yet the entire job gets done, and it may not be obvious who worked hard and who didn’t.

As a college student you may have experienced social loafing while working on a group project. Have you ever had to contribute more than your fair share because your fellow group members weren’t putting in the work? This may happen when a professor assigns a group grade instead of individual grades. If the professor doesn’t know how much effort each student contributed to a project, some students may be inclined to let more conscientious students do more of the work. The chance of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999).

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). Remember the previous discussion of choking under pressure? This happens when you perform a difficult task and your individual performance can be evaluated. In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985). Given what you learned about social loafing, what advice would you give a new professor about how to design group projects? If you suggested that individuals’ efforts should not be evaluated, to prevent the anxiety of choking under pressure, but that the task must be challenging, you have a good understanding of the concepts discussed in this section. Alternatively, you can suggest that individuals’ efforts should be evaluated, but the task should be easy so as to facilitate performance. Good luck trying to convince your professor to only assign easy projects.

The table below summarizes the types of social influence you have learned about in this chapter.

   The power of the situation can lead people to conform, or go along with the group, even in the face of inaccurate information. Conformity to group norms is driven by two motivations, the desire to fit in and be liked and the desire to be accurate and gain information from the group. Authority figures also have influence over our behaviors, and many people become obedient and follow orders even if the orders are contrary to their personal values. Conformity to group pressures can also result in groupthink, or the faulty decision-making process that results from cohesive group members trying to maintain group harmony. Group situations can improve human behavior through facilitating performance on easy tasks, but inhibiting performance on difficult tasks. The presence of others can also lead to social loafing when individual efforts cannot be evaluated.

References:

Openstax Psychology text by Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett and Marion Perlmutter licensed under CC BY v4.0. https://openstax.org/details/books/psychology

Review Questions: 

1. In the Asch experiment, participants conformed due to ________ social influence.

a. informational

b. normative

c. inspirational

d. persuasive

2. Under what conditions will informational social influence be more likely?

a. when individuals want to fit in

b. when the answer is unclear

c. when the group has expertise

d. both b and c

3. Social loafing occurs when ________.

a. individual performance cannot be evaluated

b. the task is easy

c. both a and b

d. none of the above

4. If group members modify their opinions to align with a perceived group consensus, then ________ has occurred.

a. group cohesion

b. social facilitation

c. groupthink

d. social loafing

Critical Thinking Questions: 

1. Describe how seeking outside opinions can prevent groupthink.

2. Compare and contrast social loafing and social facilitation.

Personal Application Questions:

1. Conduct a conformity study the next time you are in an elevator. After you enter the elevator, stand with your back toward the door. See if others conform to your behavior. Watch this video for a candid camera demonstration of this phenomenon. Did your results turn out as expected?

2. Most students adamantly state that they would never have turned up the voltage in the Milligram experiment. Do you think you would have refused to shock the learner? Looking at your own past behavior, what evidence suggests that you would go along with the order to increase the voltage?

Asch effect

confederate

group polarization

informational social influence

normative social influence

social facilitation

social loafing

Answers to Exercises

1. Outsiders can serve as a quality control by offering diverse views and views that may differ from the leader’s opinion. The outsider can also remove the illusion of invincibility by having the group’s action held up to outside scrutiny. An outsider may offer additional information and uncover information that group members withheld.

2. In social loafing individual performance cannot be evaluated; however, in social facilitation individual performance can be evaluated. Social loafing and social facilitation both occur for easy or well-known tasks and when individuals are relaxed

Asch effect:  group majority influences an individual’s judgment, even when that judgment is inaccurate

confederate:  person who works for a researcher and is aware of the experiment, but who acts as a participant; used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design

conformity:  when individuals change their behavior to go along with the group even if they do not agree with the group

group polarization:  strengthening of the original group attitude after discussing views within the group

groupthink:  group members modify their opinions to match what they believe is the group consensus

informational social influence:  conformity to a group norm prompted by the belief that the group is competent and has the correct information

normative social influence:  conformity to a group norm to fit in, feel good, and be accepted by the group

obedience:  change of behavior to please an authority figure or to avoid aversive consequences

social facilitation:  improved performance when an audience is watching versus when the individual performs the behavior alone

social loafing:  exertion of less effort by a person working in a group because individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group, thus causing performance decline on easy tasks

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78 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the Asch effect
• Define conformity and types of social influence
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
• Define groupthink, social facilitation, and social loafing

In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c. Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others. The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence , people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence , people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie.

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

Watch this video to see a replication of the Asch experiment: conformity .

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive. What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

Group Polarization

Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. A more everyday example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social Facilitation

Not all intergroup interactions lead to the negative outcomes we have described. Sometimes being in a group situation can improve performance. Social facilitation occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone. This typically occurs when people are performing a task for which they are skilled. Can you think of an example in which having an audience could improve performance? One common example is sports. Skilled basketball players will be more likely to make a free throw basket when surrounded by a cheering audience than when playing alone in the gym. However, there are instances when even skilled athletes can have difficulty under pressure. For example, if an athlete is less skilled or nervous about making a free throw, having an audience may actually hinder rather than help. In sum, social facilitation is likely to occur for easy tasks, or tasks at which we are skilled, but worse performance may occur when performing in front of others, depending on the task.

Social Loafing

Another way in which a group presence can affect our performance is social loafing. Social loafing is the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group. Social loafing occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group. Thus, group performance declines on easy tasks (Karau & Williams, 1993). Essentially individual group members loaf and let other group members pick up the slack. Because each individual’s efforts cannot be evaluated, individuals become less motivated to perform well. For example, consider a group of people cooperating to clean litter from the roadside. Some people will exert a great amount of effort, while others will exert little effort. Yet the entire job gets done, and it may not be obvious who worked hard and who didn’t.

As a college student you may have experienced social loafing while working on a group project. Have you ever had to contribute more than your fair share because your fellow group members weren’t putting in the work? This may happen when a professor assigns a group grade instead of individual grades. If the professor doesn’t know how much effort each student contributed to a project, some students may be inclined to let more conscientious students do more of the work. The chance of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999).

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). Remember the previous discussion of choking under pressure? This happens when you perform a difficult task and your individual performance can be evaluated. In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985). Given what you learned about social loafing, what advice would you give a new professor about how to design group projects? If you suggested that individuals’ efforts should not be evaluated, to prevent the anxiety of choking under pressure, but that the task must be challenging, you have a good understanding of the concepts discussed in this section. Alternatively, you can suggest that individuals’ efforts should be evaluated, but the task should be easy so as to facilitate performance. Good luck trying to convince your professor to only assign easy projects.

The power of the situation can lead people to conform, or go along with the group, even in the face of inaccurate information. Conformity to group norms is driven by two motivations, the desire to fit in and be liked and the desire to be accurate and gain information from the group. Authority figures also have influence over our behaviors, and many people become obedient and follow orders even if the orders are contrary to their personal values. Conformity to group pressures can also result in groupthink, or the faulty decision-making process that results from cohesive group members trying to maintain group harmony. Group situations can improve human behavior through facilitating performance on easy tasks, but inhibiting performance on difficult tasks. The presence of others can also lead to social loafing when individual efforts cannot be evaluated.

Critical Thinking Questions

Outsiders can serve as a quality control by offering diverse views and views that may differ from the leader’s opinion. The outsider can also remove the illusion of invincibility by having the group’s action held up to outside scrutiny. An outsider may offer additional information and uncover information that group members withheld.

In social loafing individual performance cannot be evaluated; however, in social facilitation individual performance can be evaluated. Social loafing and social facilitation both occur for easy or well-known tasks and when individuals are relaxed.

Personal Application Questions

• Conduct a conformity study the next time you are in an elevator. After you enter the elevator, stand with your back toward the door. See if others conform to your behavior. Did your results turn out as expected?
• Most students adamantly state that they would never have turned up the voltage in the Milligram experiment . Do you think you would have refused to shock the learner? Looking at your own past behavior, what evidence suggests that you would go along with the order to increase the voltage?

Media Attributions

• “ conformity ” by freescoring . Standard YouTube License.

Introduction to Psychology (A critical approach) Copyright © 2021 by Rose M. Spielman; Kathryn Dumper; William Jenkins; Arlene Lacombe; Marilyn Lovett; and Marion Perlmutter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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12.4: Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

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• Rose M. Spielman, William J. Jenkins, Marilyn D. Lovett, et al.

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Learning Objectives

• Explain the Asch effect
• Define conformity and types of social influence
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
• Define groupthink, social facilitation, and social loafing

In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: \(a\), \(b\), and \(c\) (See figure 12.17). Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: \(x\). They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (\(a\), \(b\), or \(c\)) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that \(76\%\) of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others (See figure 12.18). The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence , people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence , people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie (See figure 12.19).

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

Link to Learning

Watch this video of a replication of the Asch experiment to learn more.

Stanley Milgram's Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in \(15\)-volt increments, all the way up to \(450\) volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, \(65\%\) of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive (See figure 12.20). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to \(48\%\). When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to \(40\%\). When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to \(30\%\). When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to \(23\%\). These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

DIG DEEPER: Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions? Here is a video of Colin Powell discussing the information he had, 10 years after his famous United Nations speech,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU6KMYlDyWc (“Colin Powell regrets,” 2011).

Do you see evidence of groupthink?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

Group Polarization

Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. A more everyday example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social traps refer to situations that arise when individuals or groups of individuals behave in ways that are not in their best interest and that may have negative, long-term consequences. However, once established, a social trap is very difficult to escape. For example, following World War II, the United States and the former Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race. While the presence of nuclear weapons is not in either party's best interest, once the arms race began, each country felt the need to continue producing nuclear weapons to protect itself from the other.

Social Loafing

Imagine you were just assigned a group project with other students whom you barely know. Everyone in your group will get the same grade. Are you the type who will do most of the work, even though the final grade will be shared? Or are you more likely to do less work because you know others will pick up the slack? Social loafing involves a reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled. Because each individual's efforts are not evaluated, individuals can become less motivated to perform well. Karau and Williams (1993) and Simms and Nichols (2014) reviewed the research on social loafing and discerned when it was least likely to happen. The researchers noted that social loafing could be alleviated if, among other situations, individuals knew their work would be assessed by a manager (in a workplace setting) or instructor (in a classroom setting), or if a manager or instructor required group members to complete self-evaluations.

The likelihood of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999). According to Kamau and Williams (1993), college students were the population most likely to engage in social loafing. Their study also found that women and participants from collectivistic cultures were less likely to engage in social loafing, explaining that their group orientation may account for this.

College students could work around social loafing or “free-riding” by suggesting to their professors use of a flocking method to form groups. Harding (2018) compared groups of students who had self-selected into groups for class to those who had been formed by flocking, which involves assigning students to groups who have similar schedules and motivations. Not only did she find that students reported less “free riding,” but that they also did better in the group assignments compared to those whose groups were self-selected.

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985).

Deindividuation

Another way in which a group presence can affect our performance is social loafing. Social loafing is the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group. Social loafing occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group. Thus, group performance declines on easy tasks (Karau & Williams, 1993). Essentially individual group members loaf and let other group members pick up the slack. Because each individual’s efforts cannot be evaluated, individuals become less motivated to perform well. For example, consider a group of people cooperating to clean litter from the roadside. Some people will exert a great amount of effort, while others will exert little effort. Yet the entire job gets done, and it may not be obvious who worked hard and who didn’t.

The Table 12.2 below summarizes the types of social influence you have learned about in this chapter.

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Conformity and Obedience Essay

Richard Murphy

From the moment we are born we enter a society where it is the norm to conform and obey. From a very young age we learn that if we do not obey then we will suffer the consequences for these actions. People within society have a desire to be accepted and to belong; whether to a group or a family this social influence can change our thoughts, feeling and even our behaviour. So can we truly be an individual or are we pre-defined by a set of social boundaries?

‘Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth’ (J F. Kennedy). Kennedy feels that by conforming you are giving up your freedom as an individual to whom/what you are conforming to. In doing this you relinquish your ability to grow and have your own thoughts and act on them; whilst conforming a person cannot flourish. Many psychologists have conducted experiments to try and ascertain what makes people conform and the effects that this has on the individual and their social environment.

Stanley Milgram’s is regarded as one of the most thought provoking psychologists in social psychology. Influenced by Solomon Asch and Gordon Allport, Milgram conducted many experiments on obedience to authority, most notably his learner teacher experiment conducted at Yale University. The aim of this study was to answer the following question: Was it that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust had a mutual intent, in at least with regard to the goals of the Holocaust? Milgram believed that everyone is capable of doing bad things if they are led to believe that they are doing it for a ‘greater good’, he tried to validate the actions of the German soldiers during the Holocaust. These soldiers believed they were acting on behalf of someone that knew better. Where people are put into an uncomfortable situation and are unable to assess the correct way in which to deal with this situation they tend to look to someone that they believe is more knowledgeable than they are. ‘We conform because we believe that other’s interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more accurate than ours and will help is choose an appropriate course of action’ (Aronson, et al., 2005). This is an example of Informational social influence theory (ISI) (Muzafer Sherif, 1935), conflicting to this is Normative Influence Theory (NI) (Bibb Latané, 1980). NI is the influence from peer pressure; people can act on NI for a number of reasons. It can be for fear of rejection, a desire for approval or to show a level of loyalty to a group.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Kaplan and Miller investigate and summarise theses different types of influence and which one dominates when in group discussions. ‘ Groups and individuals often shift their preferences following discussion of an issue. Explanations for such shifts typically invoke either informational or normative influence processes. The former refers to influence based on sharing of facts or persuasive arguments about the issue, and the latter refers to conformity to implicit decision norms and others' preferences. We investigated conditions under which one or the other influence mode predominates during discussion. Groups discussed and made decisions on either an intellective issue (attempting to discover the true or correct answer) or a judgmental issue (deciding on the moral, valued, or appropriate position), given either unanimity or a majority decision rule. The largest shift in preference was found for the judgmental issue decided by unanimity rule. The least satisfaction with both the process and the outcome of discussion was found in groups that decided a judgmental issue under majority rule. Content analysis showed that, as expected, the intellective issue elicited more informational than normative influence, and the judgmental issue provoked more normative than informational influence. This pattern was stronger under unanimity rule than under majority rule .’ (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).

Did Milgram take his study too far? In conducting this study Milgram caused great controversy between fellow psychologists as many considered this experiment to be unethical, it was ‘harmful because it may cause permanent psychological damage and cause people to be less trusting in the future (Baumrind, 1964).

The main difference between conformity and obedience is the consequence. Conformity is a choice; you choose whether to follow a group and you can choose the way that you dress. As individuals we invoke the right to freedom of choice; freedom to choose within a society full of boundaries and limitations. When we talk about obedience there is always a consequence, no matter how big or small if we choose not to obey then we suffer the consequence or lose out on the reward. Obeying is the act of behaving in a way that we are told; this can be by parents, teachers, police or the government.

Obedience  is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure. It is assumed that without such an order the person would not have acted in this way.

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Essay // The Psychology Behind Conformity, Compliance & Obedience

Adaptive Social Behaviours

Conformity, compliance and obedience are a set of adaptive social behaviours that one makes use of to get by in daily social activities. They are all some form of social influence, which causes a change in a particular person or group’s behaviour, attitude and/or feelings (Cialdini, 2000, 2006). Various forms of social influence have been used for a variety of reasons; sometimes to help individuals stray from harmful behaviour such as smoking; other times [not as altruistic as the latter] to sway customer decisions towards consumerism. Such changes in behaviour require systematic approaches that can be in the shape of direct personal requests; or more subtle and elaborate commercials and political campaigns. Direct efforts geared at changing another’s overt behaviour require persuasion; and are often described as compliance [seeking compliance]; which involves specific requests that are answerable by simple answers such as “Yes”, “No” or “Maybe”. Other behavioural etiquettes sometimes require the impact of a set of rules, such as [formally] speed signs, or [informally] public space rules [staring at strangers is seen as inappropriate]; this type of influence is known as conformity, which is generally believed to be an integral part of social life. Obedience as a form of social influence tends to take a more straightforward [abrupt] approach as it involves direct orders or commands from a superior.

Conformity: Pressure to behave in ways deemed acceptable (by who & why?)

Conformity which is an integral part of social life and could be defined as the pressure to behave in ways that are viewed as acceptable [appropriate] by a particular group [peer or cultural]. The rules that cause people to conform are known as social norms, and have a major influence on our behaviour. When the norms are clear and distinct we can expect to conform more and when not clear, it generally leads the way for less conformity and uncertainty. An effective example of norms explicitly stated was seen in Setter, Brownlee, & Sanders (2011) where percentages were left on the bill for tipping guidance; what was observed is the positive effect it had on customers, making them tip. However, whether social norms are implicit, formal or informal, most individuals who chose to embrace social reality tend to follow the rules most of the time.

While some might argue that conformity takes away a lot of social freedom from the individual; the other perspective sees conformity as an important agent in the proper functioning of society [supposed no one obeyed road laws, chaos would spread across cities worldwide]. Furthermore, many people choose to comply to look good to others and make a positive impression even if their true self do not agree with conforming, similarly to Hewlin (2009) where many employees adopted the “facades of conformity” and although found it unpleasant – thought of it as necessary for career progress – conformity for many is seen as tactic of self-presentation. Yet, many individuals are unaware of the amount of conformity they show, and would rather see themselves as an independent who is less susceptible to conformity (Pronin, Berger, and Molouki, 2007). Individuals generally choose to conform primarily because most individual have the desire to be liked and one way of achieving this is to agree and behave like others [contradictions might not lead to acceptance]. Secondly, the desire to be right – to have a reliable understanding of the social world (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955; Insko 1985) leads most to go with the values of others in who might be described as a group of individuals chosen to be a guide in partial identity. However, while conformity serves as a guide, it can also hamper evolution and innovation as critical analysis is not likely to thrive where most individuals seem to follow a pre-programmed behavioural patterns that have been established centuries ago. Therefore a fair balance in thought and application seems to remain the best line of thought when dealing with conformity [think, analyse & evaluate].

Thinkers: Not Everyone Conforms Blindly As an Increasing Number of Individuals Now Think Independently

Somehow, not everybody conforms, many individuals and groups are able to withstand conforming pressures as shown in Reicher and Haslam (2006) BBC prison study. Power was found to be a factor that acts as a shield against conformity (Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson, 2003); it was found that restrictions that influence the thought, expression and behaviour of most people do not seem to apply to people in power [leaders, CEOs, politicians, etc] with the reasons being the fact that these people are generally less dependent on others for social resources; pay less attention to threats; and are less likely to consider the perspective of other people. Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, and Kenrick (2006)’s study supported the reasoning that when humans desire to attract desirable mates, both sexes tend to conform to gender stereotypes – here the male would usually not conform to everyday social rules [but indirectly conform to gender stereotype]. Finally, many human beings refuse to conform due to their desire to be unique – when their uniqueness feels threatened, they tend to actively resist conformity (Imhoff and Erb, 2009).

Compliance: A Request requiring Conformity

Compliance is a form of conformity, however, unlike the latter it involves a request for others to answer with a “yes”. While conformity attempts to alter people’s behaviour in order to match their desire to be liked and to be right; compliance is usually aimed at a gain, and to achieve it one would need compliance from others. One technique used to gain compliance is an impression management, ingratiation; which involves getting others to like us in order to increase the chance of making them comply to our requests (Jones, 1964; Liden & Mitchell). Gordon (1996) suggested 2 techniques that work, flattery and promotion.

Another powerful means is “incidental similarity” where attention is called onto small and slightly surprising similarities between them and ourselves (Burger, Messian, Patel, del Pardo, and Anderson, 2004). While Conformity consisted mainly in gaining acceptance and trust, compliance is more focussed on getting to an end. A technique used to get compliance, is the “Foot-in-the-door” technique which involves inducing target people with a small request [once they agree], only to make a larger one, the one we wanted all along (Freedman & Fraser, 1966) – it relies on the principles of consistency [once said yes, more likely to say yes again]. Another technique known as the “Lowball Procedure” rests on the principle of commitment where a deal is proposed, only to be modified once the target person accepts – the initial commitment makes it harder to turn down.

The “Door-in-the-face” technique involves a large request, only to fall on a smaller one after refusal; this was proven to be efficient by Gueguen (2003). The “That’s-not-all-technique” was also confirmed to work by Burger (1986), a technique based on reciprocity involving enhancing the deal before the target person has the time to respond to an initial request. Another great technique, based on scarcity, is the “Playing-hard-to-get” technique which – as the name goes – is a behaviour used towards the target who would be assumed to pick up hints over the user’s high demand [romantically]. Lastly, many professionals use the “Fast approaching deadline technique” to boost their sales and rush people in on the pretext of limited time sales prices.

Obedience: The Most Direct Route

Obedience is less frequent that conformity or compliance as most people tend to avoid it, being one of the most direct ways of influencing the behaviour of others in specific ways. Many prefer to exert influence in less obvious ways, through requests instead of direct orders (e.g. Yuki & Falbe, 1991). While obedience can help organise workforce, it is also known for its dark nature of blinding people into performing atrocious acts by eliminating the sense of guilt through assuming that they were only “following orders”; atrocities related were seen in Milgram’s experiment; which is also one of the main similarities with conformity and compliance, in that the process in all three can blind an individual towards unethical behaviour. Destructive obedience has been observed throughout history for situational pressures pushed people into atrocious acts; for example having one’s responsibility relieved by another plays a major role in encouraging destructive obedience. Those is commanding positions often have uniforms and badges which can sometimes push individuals to obey without questioning. Similarly to compliance, the Foot-in-door used by authority figures and the fast pace of events happening can sometimes leave the individual with little time for reflection, thus leading to destructive obedience.

Conformity, compliance and obedience are all vital practices in controlling the behaviour of individuals or groups. Conformity encompasses compliance and obedience, where the latters are more specific derivatives. While conformity revolves around the individual choices in relation to social groups, compliance and obedience are generally connected to an outcome; comply to have a request met by a “yes”, and obey if you are not in the position to disobey and if your superior asks you to, but keeping an ethical awareness could help against destructive obedience.

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Baron, R.A., & Branscombe, N. R. (2012).  Social Psychology  (13th ed). New Jersey: Pearson, 252-287

Burger, J.M., (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that’s-not-all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 277 – 283

Burger, J.M., Messian, N., Patel, S., del Pardo, A., & Anderson, C. (2004). What a coincidence! The effects of incidental similarity on compliance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 35 -43

Cialdini, R. B. (2000). Influence: Science and practice (4 th ed). Boston: Allyn & Bacon

Cialdini, R. B. (2006). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins

Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgement. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51, 629 – 636

Freedman, J.L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 4, 195 -202

Gordon, R. A. (1996). Impact of ingratiation in judgements and evaluations: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 71, 54 – 70

Griskevicius, V., Goldstein, N.J., Mortensen, D.R., Cialdini, R.B., & Kendrick, D.T. (2006). Going along versus going alone: When fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non) conformity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 281 – 294

Gueguen, N (2003). Fund-raising on the Web: The effect of an electronic door-in-the-face technique in compliance to a request. CyberPsychology & Behaviour, 2, 189 – 193  

Hewlin, P.F. (2009). Wearing the cloak: Antecedents and consequences of creating facades of conformity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 727 – 741

Insko, C.A (1985). Balance theory, the Jordan paradigm, and the West tetrahedron. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology. New York: Academic Press.

Jones, E. E. (1964). Ingratiation: A social psychology analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts  

Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D.H., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110, 265 – 284  

Pronin, E., Berger, J., & Molouki, S. (2007). Alone in a crowd of sheep: Asymmetric perceptions of conformity and their roots in an introspection illusion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 585 – 595

Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1-40

Setter, J.S., Brownless, G.M., & Sanders, M. (2011). Persuasion by way of example: Does including gratuity guidelines on customers’ checks affect restaurant tipping behaviour? Journal of Applied Psychology, 41, 150 – 159

Imhoff, R., & Erb, H-P. (2009) What motivates nonconformity?: Uniqueness seeking blocks majority influence. Personalilty and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 309 -320

Yukl, G., & Falbe, C.M. (1991). Importance of Different power sources in downward and lateral relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 416 – 423

22.04.2014 | Danny J. D’Purb | DPURB.com

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6 thoughts on “ Essay // The Psychology Behind Conformity, Compliance & Obedience ”

"Our duty is to feel what is sublime and cherish what is beautiful, and not simply to accept all of society’s conventions." #WednesdayWisdom pic.twitter.com/J9W1yoiXR8 — Oxford Classics (@OWC_Oxford) June 7, 2017

Meeting of thirty-five heads of expression #fineart #arthistory pic.twitter.com/Dj8OZTHGMH — Honore Daumier (@artistdaumier) May 10, 2018

#Moral #Relativism : Aren’t we all entitled to an ugly #opinion ? #Culture #Education #Personality #Development #World https://t.co/IjfgeCAkQE pic.twitter.com/5jRHGCMIMT — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) November 10, 2016

https://twitter.com/AHistoryOfArt/status/939325884309401601

https://twitter.com/NietzscheAcadem/status/922816318314811393

https://twitter.com/NietzscheAcadem/status/1047143433310285825

"Life obliges me to do something, so I paint." ~ Rene #Magritte Img:@Voices2Inspire #Society #Art #Education #Quotes pic.twitter.com/EvC0GFvSkD — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) July 26, 2016

"I am still #learning ." – #Michelangelo pic.twitter.com/DqV6BMZivB — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) January 27, 2017

" #Development is #lifelong & the #intelligent #organism orchestrates its own #qualitative #evolutionary #development ." #Psychology #World pic.twitter.com/qjPnNFzCqr — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) March 20, 2017

Clinical Psychology: Learning Disabilities, Anxiety, Depression & Schizophrenia and the Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

CAMHS deal with the psychological issues of people under the age of 18. They are a non-specialist service and often refer to other more specialised departments following the initial assessment of patients. The most common cases tend to be adolescents with depression and anxiety whose manifestations are not different to those of adults and so are treated fairly similarly.

Inclusivism in Learning Disabilities

In 1969, Bengt Nirje adopted and developed the concept of normalisation in Sweden and beautifully described it as… “making available to all mentally retarded people patterns of life and conditions of everyday living which are as close as possible to the regular circumstances and ways of life of society.”

– Nirje, 1980

Learning Disability is not just an impairment in Cognition

The social impairment of Learning Disabilities – US Statute 111 – 256: Rosa’s Law defines the factual impairment, the imposed or acquired disability and the awareness of being different.

The Normalisation Theory

This theory focuses on the mainstream social trends of social devaluation or deviancy making. Some categories of people tend to be valued negatively due to their behaviours, appearances and characteristics, and this places them at the risk of being devalued [according to the Normalisation Theory of Nirje on the societal processes he assumed] – people fulfil various social roles and stereotypes. As part of the deviancy making or social devaluation, the unsophisticated minds of the masses generally do not mean to stereotype, however they seem to do it unconsciously [the unconscious is a concept Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan acknowledged in their psychoanalytic theories of mental/psychological activity and its disorders land mental health problems linked to psychopathic tendencies in people towards others], i.e. deviant groups with social symbols or images that are at a higher risk of being devalued are the focus of the normalisation theory, which is believed to be done with the aim of providing them with the skills they need and eventually change the status of these deviant groups.

Society tends to distance itself from deviant groups without any purpose or belonging, however psychologists provide support for the social integration and valued social participation of people with learning disabilities through exercises that involve learning through imitation. This challenges stereotypes within wider society through direct experiences of spending time with people who are affected by learning disabilities.

While psychology evolves and sophisticated and modern theories about intelligence and communication such as our “Organic Theory” take shape, we hope that observations such as this one may be digested and understood by the masses, that is:

“While the communicative patterns [language] in human primates vary with socio-behavioural and geographical patterns; creativity and IQ remain constant and do not change. Intelligence and creativity cannot be stopped because of linguistic differences, since talented and gifted humans do not choose the location of their birth nor their linguistic heritage but still contribute to the enhancement of our civilisation.”

Which concludes that that the intelligence of an invidual when assessed on a range of variables [e.g. perception, fluid intelligence, reasoning, emotional intelligence, courage, etc] cannot be deduced by simply assessing their academic abilities, since human life has various sides to itself. Hence, the true worth and value of an individual may always remain a problem and a mystery to fully assess, and this seems to go in line with Jean Piaget’s deduction about the uniqueness of the human organism and mind.

Full Article: https://dpurb.com/2018/07/02/clinical-psychology-learning-disabilities-anxiety-depression-schizophrenia-and-the-effectiveness-of-psychotherapy/

Without redefining #impact , metrics cld explore #richness & #diversity of outcomes #Society #Research #Development https://t.co/Okgfdy0mOD pic.twitter.com/MY79kIMubh — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) March 4, 2017

What is impact? 'The demonstrable #contribution that #excellent #research makes to #society and the #economy ' @ESRC https://t.co/sXV9kGi21f pic.twitter.com/pnOn21NPZC — dpurb ® 🪶🌍🏛️📚🔎🧠♻️ (@DannyDPurb) March 4, 2017

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Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students

Conformité, obéissance et supériorité illusoire chez les étudiants en sciences de la santé, efrem violato.

1 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada

Sharla King

Compliance, through conformity and obedience to authority, can produce negative outcomes for patient safety, as well as education. To date, educational interventions for dealing with situations of compliance or positive deviance have shown variable results. Part of the challenge for education on compliance may result from disparities between learners' expectations about their potential for engaging in positive deviance and the actual likelihood of engaging in positive deviance. More specifically, students may demonstrate a Better Than Average Effect (BTAE), the tendency for people to believe they are comparatively better than the average across a wide range of behaviours and skills.

Four vignettes were designed and piloted using cognitive interviews, to investigate the BTAE. Conformity and obedience to authority were each addressed with two vignettes. The vignettes were included in a survey distributed to Canadian health professional students across multiple programs at several different institutions during the Winter 2019 semester. Self-evaluation of behaviour was investigated using a one-sample proportion test. Demographic data were investigated using logistic regression to identify predictors of the BTAE.

Participants demonstrated the BTAE for expected behaviour compared to peers for situations of conformity and obedience to authority. Age, sex, and program year were identified as potential predictors for exhibiting the BTAE.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated that health professional students expect that they will behave better than average in compliance scenarios. Health professional students are not exempt from this cognitive bias in self-assessment. The results have implications for education on compliance, positive deviance, and patient safety.

La conformité, par le biais du respect des normes et de l’obéissance à l’autorité, peut avoir des effets négatifs tant pour la sécurité des patients que pour l’éducation des médecins. À ce jour, les interventions éducatives portant sur la conformité ou la déviance positive se sont soldées par des résultats mitigés. Une des difficultés auxquelles se heurte l’enseignement de la conformité provient de l’écart entre les attentes des apprenants quant à la possibilité d’appliquer la déviance positive et la probabilité qu’ils adoptent réellement ce comportement. Plus précisément, les étudiants peuvent faire preuve de supériorité illusoire, c’est-à-dire la tendance à se croire supérieur à la moyenne des gens par rapport à un éventail de comportements et d’habiletés.

Méthodes

Quatre vignettes, deux sur la conformité et deux sur l’obéissance à l’autorité, ont été conçues et mises à l’essai dans le cadre d’entretiens cognitifs afin d’étudier la présence du phénomène de supériorité illusoire. Les vignettes faisaient partie d’une enquête menée auprès d’étudiants de différents programmes en sciences de la santé offerts par divers établissements canadiens au cours de la session d’hiver 2019. L’auto-évaluation du comportement a été examinée à l’aide d’un test de proportion pour échantillon unique. Les données démographiques ont été étudiées à l’aide d’une régression logistique pour identifier les prédicteurs de la supériorité illusoire.

Résultats

L’effet de supériorité illusoire par rapport aux pairs était présent chez les participants en ce qui concerne le comportement qu’on attend d’eux dans des situations en lien avec la conformité et l’obéissance à l’autorité. L’âge, le sexe et l’année de formation ont été repérés comme prédicteurs potentiels de la manifestation de supériorité illusoire.

Cette étude montre que les étudiants en sciences de la santé s’attendent à avoir un comportement supérieur à la moyenne dans les situations où la conformité est en jeu. Ils ne sont pas exempts de ce biais cognitif dans leur auto-évaluation. Les résultats obtenus ont des implications pour l’éducation en matière de conformité, de déviance positive et de sécurité des patients.

Introduction

To uphold professional values and avoid patient harm, it is necessary for a health professional to speak up. 1 - 2 Speaking up supports patient safety, yet it is a skill that can be very difficult due to the forces of compliance, namely the related though separate behaviours of conformity and obedience to authority. 3 While conformity and obedience to authority are not always detrimental and can be necessary for learning, there can be deleterious outcomes. 3 Negative compliance occurs when either conformity or obedience to authority, both prevalent among trainees in the health professions, produces potentially negative outcomes for education and patient safety. 1 - 3 Converse to negative compliance is positive deviance, a behaviour, such as speaking up, that goes against norms or social and personal pressures that undermine professional values and patient safety. 3 Interventions to promote positive deviance through speaking up are an area of increasing focus for health professional education. 4 , 5 Variable efficacy exists for education for responding to negative compliance scenarios and the benefits of assertiveness training and instruction on methods like the two-challenge rule a method for assertively voicing concern, are inconsistent. 5 , 6 To improve education on compliance it is necessary to better understand student beliefs about how conformity and obedience function in the interpersonal contexts of healthcare. It is particularly important to understand how people expect themselves to behave.

People’s beliefs and expectations about ability and behaviour, including susceptibility to forces of compliance, 7 - 9 often differ from reality yet strongly influence self-perception. 10 , 11 Assessment and prediction of discrepancies between expectations and actual behaviour are important for informing decisions about teaching and learning in terms of content, time, and resources dedicated to compliance and positive deviance (speaking up). 12 The challenge of developing effective education and interventions for positive deviance may in part reside in unidentified incongruities between students’ expectations and self-perception about behaviour and actual behaviour. The impact of interventions to improve positive deviance may be diminished, disregarded, taken less seriously or seen as inapplicable if a person does not believe they are susceptible, or are less susceptible than peers, to the forces of compliance. Full credence may not be given to the content e.g. “I wouldn’t do that; this doesn’t apply to me.”

Humans tend to believe that they are comparatively better than the average across a wide range of behaviours and skills including intelligence, ethical behaviour, health, attractiveness, and morality. This is referred to as the Better than Average Effect (BTAE). 13 - 17 The BTAE relates to the Dunning-Kruger effect though rather than a perception of performance on a specific objective test, the BTAE relates to more general comparative self-perceptions. 17 , 18 The BTAE is an implicit self-evaluation bias combined with unrealistic optimism. 15 , 19 People have an unrealistic belief that positive outcomes are more likely to happen, and negative outcomes are less likely to happen when compared to others or objective base rates. 20 The unrealistic optimism of the BTAE has self-enhancement properties and is moderately associated with self-esteem ( r = .34) and life satisfaction ( r = .33). 20 The BTAE is highly robust with very large effect sizes (dz = 0.78, 95% CI [0.71, 0.84]); more so than for most effects in social-personality psychology. 17 Belief in above average behaviour is so strong and prevalent that people who are unlikely to have a disproportionately positive average standing on pro-social characteristics, for example prison inmates, perceive themselves as being better on a range of pro-social characteristics than fellow inmates and members of the general population. 21

To date, the relationship between the BTAE and compliance, and the BTAE effect in general, has to the authors' knowledge not been examined in health professionals, including students. Given the challenges of positive deviance, particularly for students, and the implications for patient safety, it is necessary to explore potential internal mediating mechanisms, such as the BTAE. It is important to explore the BTAE with health professional students to provide insight into the extent to which healthcare students believe themselves to be susceptible or not susceptible to compliance. If a person does not believe themselves to be susceptible to a certain social force, such as compliance, it will be difficult for the person to identify the influence it might have on them. When an implicit or explicit request is made or there are conformity pressures the person will have underestimated how strongly the situation can influence them and will be less likely to engage in positive deviance. 8

Based on the prevalence of the BTAE it is unlikely those in the health professions will be exceptional and have accurate self-perceptions and beliefs. To determine if the BTAE is active when health professional students are asked to think about future behaviour in a compliance scenario two research questions were developed.

Research questions

In pre-licensure health professional students,

• Will the BTAE be exhibited for hypothetical obedience and conformity scenarios?
• Will any demographic variables be predictive of the BTAE?

Recent research has found people exhibit the BTAE when thinking about hypothetical compliance scenarios. 7 , 8 , 22 , 23 The BTAE also tends to be greater when there is a lack of external verification, 1 6 the situation is personally important, 24 and when evaluating a negative trait. 25 It is hypothesized participants will demonstrate the BTAE based on the robustness and prevalence of the effect.

Study design & sampling

Our study was conducted in conjunction with a survey designed to measure students’ experiences with compliance behaviours. The results of the survey addressing experiences have been reported elsewhere. 3 Four vignettes were constructed to examine how health professions students believed they would behave and how peers would behave in a series of hypothetical real-life scenarios ( Table 1 ). The vignettes were presented before the survey items. Demographic information collected with the survey was used in our study. Data were collected during the 2019 Winter Semester; participants were recruited through departmental listservs and at an interprofessional simulation event. Ethics approval was granted by Research Ethics Board 2 at the University of Alberta, Pro00081948

Vignettes used to examine the Better Than Average Effect

Two vignettes were constructed for obedience scenarios (vignettes 1 and 4) and two for conformity scenarios (vignettes 2 and 3). The vignettes reflect previous studies that demonstrated conformity and obedience in health professions students and practitioners. 26 - 30 The vignettes were tested and modified using cognitive interviews, 31 a process of questioning for understanding responses process and content to identify sources of confusion in assessment, conducted with practitioners and students from health professions [3], psychology [2], educational psychology [1], and business [1] (for the vignettes with response scales, please see the supplemental material). The researcher recorded participants' responses, using probing questions where necessary. Participants from outside of healthcare provided insights into aspects of the vignettes not mentioned by the health professionals and those from the health profession gave valuable insight into how certain words and situations may be perceived by those in healthcare. Feedback during the cognitive interviews fell into three categories: technical comments regarding health concepts, comments about wording and formatting, and comments regarding the understanding of others' psychology. The vignettes were modified for language and context to accurately reflect the relevant healthcare settings in the vignettes; clarity and coherence; and to focus less on feelings or perceptions to reduce the need to guess at others' psychology. Ultimately interviewees were confident they understood the vignettes and questions and were certain of their answers. As the non-healthcare interviewees did not have any trouble with comprehension, the vignettes were determined to be applicable across multiple health professions.

Outcome measures

Participant responses to vignettes were coded to create a classification of expected peer behaviour as being “worse than,” “the same as,” or “better than,” the participant. Ratings of peers behaving “better than” participants were combined with ratings of behaving “the same as,” as either is counter to the BTAE.

Data analysis

A one-sample proportion test was conducted for each vignette. The proportion test has been used in similar designs examining the BTAE. 21 Comparing participants’ self-evaluation against an objective value to determine accuracy is ideal, however, objective values often do not exist, and when values do exist, people tend to disregard them when making evaluations. 32 It was necessary to make assumptions about the proportions of responses.

Rates of behaviour were assumed to follow a normal, Gaussian, distribution (i.e., a bell-shaped, symmetric curve where the mean, median, and mode of rates of behaviour are in the middle of the distribution). Research has reliably found that people consistently rank themselves above the 50 th percentile on numerous traits. 17 Based on these findings, investigation of the BTAE has established the properties of the normal distribution, where the midpoint represents the median and average rank (the 50 th percentile), as the most unambiguous referent for indication of a self-evaluation bias. 17 Data are emergent on rates of compliance, 1 , 2 , 33 but no consistently known rates in any specific scenario exist and it is unlikely students have implicit knowledge about the probability of compliance in any of the contexts presented by the vignettes. Based on a normal distribution, a test value was determined for a null hypothesis that participants would not demonstrate the BTAE. Under the assumption of normally distributed behaviour, most people would lay within one standard deviation around the mean of the normal distribution, comprising 68% of the sample. Scores beyond one standard deviation above or below the mean can be considered as better and worse behaviour. One standard deviation (SD) was chosen, as opposed to two or three, to make the necessary assumptions as conservative as possible and give the most lenient parameters for the null hypothesis to be supported, or in other words to make it more challenging to refute the null hypothesis. Two or three SDs would give a more stringent test value requiring the proportion behaving better to be much greater. The one SD represents a range within which behaviour can be considered average. Based on the existing evidence, or lack thereof, the assumptions are likely reasonable. The test value was then set at .16, with the null hypothesis that the number of peers that will behave worse is 16% and the alternative hypothesis that 16% will behave better; therefore: H 0 ≤. 16 and H a > .16.

To examine if any demographic variable would predict vignette responses, a logistic regression model was estimated for each vignette using behaviour as the dependent variable (1 = better than or same as, 0 = worse than) and demographic variables as predictors. Several models were tested by adding various demographic variables as predictors until no significant model improvement was found. The final model contained age, sex, program year (PY), and an interaction of age and sex.

A total of 102 participants began the survey. Seventy-one participants completed the vignette questions. Not all participants that completed the vignettes completed the survey items related to compliance experiences and some demographic data were missing for these participants. Participants were from four post-secondary institutions and ten programs ranging from certificate to graduate degrees. Table 2 presents a summary of the demographic variables for the final sample. Data were examined for outliers, one influential case from the vignette responses was identified. The case was determined to be careless responding, where the participant used the same response categories across all survey items and was removed from the dataset. The sample was comprised of substantially more females than males.

Sample demographic information

KSR = Kinesiology Sport and Recreation, ALES = Agriculture Life and Environmental Sciences, RM = Rehabilitation Medicine, RT = Respiratory Therapy, ACP = Advanced Care Paramedic, PharmTech = Pharmacy Technician. PY = Program Year

Expected behaviour

Evidence for the BTAE is shown in all four vignettes based on the one-sample proportion test ( Table 3 ). In Vignettes 1 and 2 the BTAE is apparent as participants predicted peers would behave worse than themselves at a greater rate than similar or better behaviour. In Vignette 3 and 4 participants predicted peers as behaving the same or better at a greater rate than worse behaviour. However, only a small proportion of peers (≤16%) should be predicted to behave worse than participants, the proportion test showed the ratings were significantly different than the expected proportion. Participants most frequently indicated that themselves and their peers would not behave like or might behave like the characters in the vignettes ( Figure 1 ). Noticeably for Vignette 1, an obedience scenario, participants were more likely to indicate they and their peers “ would probably behave like” the character than in other scenarios. No differences across programs were found.

Results of the proportion test for the BTAE

**p < .001; Test Value = .16, H a is proportion > 0.16. CI: 95% confidence intervals .

Participants’ expected behaviours for four vignettes on the initial response scale

In Vignette 1, as age increased females were more likely to predict peer behaviour as being the same or better than themselves. As PY increased, participants were more likely to predict peers as behaving worse than themselves. In Vignette 2, as age increased, males were more likely to predict peers as behaving worse than themselves. In Vignette 3, as age increased males were more likely to predict peers as behaving worse than themselves. As PY increased, participants were more likely to predict peers as behaving worse than themselves. In Vignette 4, as age increased for males and females, it was more likely participants would predict peers as behaving worse than themselves. As PY increased participants were more likely to predict peers as behaving the same or better than themselves. ( Table 4 )

Logistic Regression for predictors of vignette responses

Note: Reference category is “worse than”. H&L = Hosmer Lemshow, C&S = Cox and Snell, N 2 = Nagelkerke *p < .05; ** p < .001

The hypothesis that the BTAE would be present with our sample of health professional students is supported. When asked to think hypothetically about compliance scenarios, participants believed they would behave better than peers. Generally, participants did not think they would engage in the compliance behaviour. The strongest expectation of compliance by participants, based on the response categories, was that they might demonstrate compliance.

Participants generally believed that they would not behave like, or might behave like, the participants in the vignettes. Across all vignettes ( Figure 1 ) higher ratings were given to peers for all response categories except for would not behave like . These findings along with the significant results of the proportion tests indicate the BTAE is present and students expect to be less susceptible to forces of compliance than their peers.

The demonstration of the BTAE has implications for education and practice. Previous research indicates anywhere between 50% - 95% of students will demonstrate conformity or obedience in a situation that can result in patient harm. 1 , 3 , 27 - 29 , 33 - 37 However, based on the results of our study, overall, students believe themselves to be less susceptible to conformity and obedience than peers. Informing students, instructors, and practitioners about the BTAE can potentially increase awareness of personal susceptibility to compliance behaviour and that their own behaviour, knowledge, and skills will likely not be as good as expected. Knowledge of the BTAE could help people avoid overestimating performance, increase personal responsibility for practice outcomes, and foster continued development of knowledge and skills. Informing students that they will likely be compliant may serve as a protective measure against the BTAE by causing students to engage with and reflect on their cognition and behaviour when experiencing compliance situations. 38

Self-reports of experiences with obedience and conformity 1 – 3 provide additional evidence for the BTAE. Students rate peers as engaging in conformity and obedience behaviours at a higher rate than themselves. For example, students report that peers more frequently go with the crowd than themselves. 3 It is possible more opportunities exist to observe peer behaviour than experience individual instances, however, the measures were norm-referenced rather than a ranking of instances.

The logistic regression provides interesting though somewhat conflicting results. In Vignette 1, as age increased females were more likely to believe peers would behave better than themselves. Through experience, older females may recall more situations of obedience that elicited behaviour like the character in the vignette, leading to a belief that peers are better than themselves. This may represent either an availability heuristic or a realistic assessment based on experience.

In Vignettes 2 and 3, conformity scenarios, with an increase in age, males believed themselves to be less likely to conform than peers. Males may be dismissing, forgetting, or disregarding previous conformity, 32 or through developing self-assuredness and a subsequent perception of independence do not believe they will be susceptible to conformity.

The results of the obedience scenario in Vignette 4 provide somewhat disparate results. Older males and females expect peers to behave worse than themselves but those in higher PY expect the same or better behaviour. Participants may better understand practice responsibilities and regulations with increased experience, particularly clinical experience, and identify the inappropriate behaviour as highly apparent and have trouble imagining anyone behaving worse than themselves. Alternatively, the result may be an artifact of the sample. Age and PY will increase concurrently and should show similar results. The disparity may result from the diverse programs sampled and differences in length of programs and the age at which people tend to enter the program. For example, Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine (RM) have a high mean age (Medicine = 26.31, RM = 25.2) and low PY (Medicine = 1.2, RM = 1.08) relative to the rest of the sample.

While the sample was primarily comprised of females, the majority of healthcare professionals are female, with females comprising nearly 100% of the population in some professions. 39 - 42

Implications for measuring the BTAE

Our study incorporated a new method to measure the BTAE. Indirect comparison has been a primary method for measuring the BTAE, where a person is asked to rate how they would perform on a given factor, rate how a peer would perform, and the rankings are then compared. For indirect comparison, a rating scale such as a Likert scale or percentile rating is generally used. 17 We expanded on the indirect method by incorporating vignettes describing behaviour and asking respondents to rate the likelihood of engaging in certain behaviour in a specific situation as opposed to making a decontextualized evaluation such as “how likely are you to conform to other’s opinions?” The vignette approach is expected to achieve greater concordance between people’s expected beliefs and ability about future behaviour and ultimate behaviour. Further research is necessary, including longitudinally, to determine if these properties exist for the vignette approach.

The four vignettes elicited similar patterns of responding overall, though there were differences ( Figure 1 ). Contextual and situational differences in vignette scenarios likely elicited the variable responding, indicating the vignettes were able to enact different representations of scenarios of conformity and obedience. Further investigation into the construction of vignettes for evaluating conformity and obedience could be useful. An instrument to evaluate perceptions of conformity and obedience could be created from vignettes with known response properties. Systematic evaluation of the variability of expected behaviour across different scenarios and the development of response norms would lead to the possibility of identifying individuals with a higher or lower likelihood of being unaware of the potential for compliance and possible increased susceptibility.

Though our study is an early foray into understanding the BTAE, it provides insights into health professional students' self-enhancement motivation in relation to compliance with implications for education. The presence of the BTAE could undermine educational efforts to improve positive deviance despite presenting students with data on rates of negative compliance, the need for positive deviance and implications for patient safety. Education on the BTAE could be integrated with existing education focusing on Crew Resource Management, Team STEPPS, Professionalism, Speaking Up, and Teamwork 6 to enhance the effects of these interventions. Based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change 43 there is good reason to expect incorporating the BTAE would enhance these interventions. The self-enhancement motivation of the BTAE will lead students to underestimate the problem or be unaware of the need for personal change and remain in a pre-contemplation stage. An instrument based on the vignette approach that demonstrates predictive validity for ultimate behaviour and susceptibility to compliance forces would have dual didactic implications to move students to the contemplation and preparation stages. First, for contemplation, the assessment could be used to increase student’s awareness about susceptibility to compliance leading to more thoughtful consideration of the practical implications for their own behaviour. Second, it would act as an object lesson on the BTAE and susceptibility to compliance that facilitates engagement with discussions about strategies and tools that will prepare students for dealing with conformity and obedience. For some students, this may be sufficient to allow for action to occur, though for other students’ further intervention, such as practicing speaking up in simulation, may be necessary to continue through the preparation stage and into action.

Limitations

There were three major limitations to the study.

First, the reader should note that the odds ratios for all effects were small and the classification accuracy of the model was low. The immediate practical significance may not match the statistical significance, but the results are still valuable. The influence of age, sex, and experience should be further investigated to better understand and predict how different individuals expected behaviour will align with actual behaviour. Continued investigation of these variables is supported by the results of the concurrent survey study 3 where participants identified experience as a valuable asset for engaging in positive deviance.

The second limitation was the length of time required to complete the survey, which could have led to respondent fatigue. With the items included from Violato et al, 3 on average, it took participants thirty-two minutes to complete the entire survey. The vignette items were placed at the beginning of the survey so that participants would be less fatigued and give greater focus to these items.

The third limitation was the high proportion of students from the faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and a low number of respondents from other programs such as Nursing and Social Work. While a more balanced sample across professions would be ideal, several professions that have not typically been included were sampled and it can be expected that the results will generalize across programs and professions. 3

People rate their behaviour as better than the norm, though it is mathematically impossible for most people to have better-than-median abilities. 44 The BTAE exists across humans 44 - 47 and health professionals are no exception.

The BTAE may function as a protective mechanism against the rigours of training and concurrent failures, challenges, and missteps, but it can also lead people to inaccurately predict how they will behave. To promote patient safety and uphold professional values through engagement in positive deviance it is necessary to dispel the personal myth of being better than average. Improving knowledge and education by incorporating psychological theory and demonstrations of the BTAE can help everyone move towards becoming better than average.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare due to financial or personal relationships.

Not applicable.

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Social Psychology

71 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the Asch effect
• Define conformity and types of social influence
• Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
• Define groupthink, social facilitation, and social loafing

In this section, we discuss additional ways in which people influence others. The topics of conformity, social influence, obedience, and group processes demonstrate the power of the social situation to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We begin this section with a discussion of a famous social psychology experiment that demonstrated how susceptible humans are to outside social pressures.

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c. Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

• The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
• The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
• The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others. The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence , people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence , people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie.

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

Watch this video to see a replication of the Asch experiment: conformity .

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive. What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

• perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
• believing the group is morally correct
• self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
• the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
• the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
• perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
• holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

Group Polarization

Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. A more everyday example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social Facilitation

Not all intergroup interactions lead to the negative outcomes we have described. Sometimes being in a group situation can improve performance. Social facilitation occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone. This typically occurs when people are performing a task for which they are skilled. Can you think of an example in which having an audience could improve performance? One common example is sports. Skilled basketball players will be more likely to make a free throw basket when surrounded by a cheering audience than when playing alone in the gym. However, there are instances when even skilled athletes can have difficulty under pressure. For example, if an athlete is less skilled or nervous about making a free throw, having an audience may actually hinder rather than help. In sum, social facilitation is likely to occur for easy tasks, or tasks at which we are skilled, but worse performance may occur when performing in front of others, depending on the task.

Social Loafing

Another way in which a group presence can affect our performance is social loafing. Social loafing is the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group. Social loafing occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group. Thus, group performance declines on easy tasks (Karau & Williams, 1993). Essentially individual group members loaf and let other group members pick up the slack. Because each individual’s efforts cannot be evaluated, individuals become less motivated to perform well. For example, consider a group of people cooperating to clean litter from the roadside. Some people will exert a great amount of effort, while others will exert little effort. Yet the entire job gets done, and it may not be obvious who worked hard and who didn’t.

As a college student you may have experienced social loafing while working on a group project. Have you ever had to contribute more than your fair share because your fellow group members weren’t putting in the work? This may happen when a professor assigns a group grade instead of individual grades. If the professor doesn’t know how much effort each student contributed to a project, some students may be inclined to let more conscientious students do more of the work. The chance of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999).

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). Remember the previous discussion of choking under pressure? This happens when you perform a difficult task and your individual performance can be evaluated. In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985). Given what you learned about social loafing, what advice would you give a new professor about how to design group projects? If you suggested that individuals’ efforts should not be evaluated, to prevent the anxiety of choking under pressure, but that the task must be challenging, you have a good understanding of the concepts discussed in this section. Alternatively, you can suggest that individuals’ efforts should be evaluated, but the task should be easy so as to facilitate performance. Good luck trying to convince your professor to only assign easy projects.

Test Your Understanding

The power of the situation can lead people to conform, or go along with the group, even in the face of inaccurate information. Conformity to group norms is driven by two motivations, the desire to fit in and be liked and the desire to be accurate and gain information from the group. Authority figures also have influence over our behaviors, and many people become obedient and follow orders even if the orders are contrary to their personal values. Conformity to group pressures can also result in groupthink, or the faulty decision-making process that results from cohesive group members trying to maintain group harmony. Group situations can improve human behavior through facilitating performance on easy tasks, but inhibiting performance on difficult tasks. The presence of others can also lead to social loafing when individual efforts cannot be evaluated.

Review Questions

Critical thinking questions.

Outsiders can serve as a quality control by offering diverse views and views that may differ from the leader’s opinion. The outsider can also remove the illusion of invincibility by having the group’s action held up to outside scrutiny. An outsider may offer additional information and uncover information that group members withheld.

In social loafing individual performance cannot be evaluated; however, in social facilitation individual performance can be evaluated. Social loafing and social facilitation both occur for easy or well-known tasks and when individuals are relaxed.

Personal Application Questions

• Conduct a conformity study the next time you are in an elevator. After you enter the elevator, stand with your back toward the door. See if others conform to your behavior. Did your results turn out as expected?
• Most students adamantly state that they would never have turned up the voltage in the Milligram experiment . Do you think you would have refused to shock the learner? Looking at your own past behavior, what evidence suggests that you would go along with the order to increase the voltage?

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Obedience, Conformity and Compliance

Various incidents demonstrate human behaviors such as obedience, conformity, and compliance. For example, a student displayed obedience by adhering to his teacher’s instructions. Likewise, parents exhibited conformity by acquiring a crib for their newborn baby. Additionally, a factory demonstrated compliance by enforcing safety measures mandated by the Government for its workers. The act of the student obeying the teacher illustrates obedience, while the parents’ choice to purchase a crib for their baby corresponds with the social norm of providing sleeping arrangements for infants.

The previous example exemplifies conformity, which is the act of adhering to social norms. In this instance, the factory followed specific rules and regulations enforced by the government, displaying compliant behavior that shows adherence to authority. Obedience involves unquestioningly obeying orders from legitimate authorities. People may have various sources of authority in their lives such as parents, school teachers, and spiritual leaders.

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The society has given authority to many authoritative figures to issue commands to others. In their lives, everyone has obediently followed orders from authoritative figures at some point, without questioning the reasoning behind their actions. For instance, we never question why we take tests in school; we simply do so because our teachers instruct us to. We follow various other rules because they usually come from individuals in positions of higher authority than ourselves. It is important to mention a particularly significant psychological experiment that explores the concept of obedience.

The experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram involved two individuals. One person acted as the student, attempting to remember various words they had heard, while the other person served as the subject of the experiment and played the role of a teacher. The teacher’s task was to administer a test to the student and deliver electric shocks whenever a word was missed. Milgram’s hypothesis was that the majority of individuals would not administer such high levels of electric shocks, particularly those that could be fatal, to another person.

To Milgram’s astonishment, he discovered that the majority of individuals participating in the experiment would shock their fellow participants and obediently comply with the instructor’s commands due to the authority they held. Conformity involves following societal norms, attitudes, practices, and peer pressures, compelling individuals in the minority to conform to the actions of the majority. In essence, conformity entails going along with the crowd.

Group conformity is a common occurrence where individuals modify their attitudes and beliefs to match those of their peers. Muzafer Sherif aimed to investigate how much people would alter their opinions in order to conform with the majority within a group. In his study, participants were placed in a dark room and instructed to concentrate on one specific point of light located 15 feet away. Their assignment was then to estimate the number of times the light moved.

The participants were tricked into perceiving movement in the light, when in reality there was none; the movements were merely a visual illusion. Initially, each person had a different estimate of the number of movements observed on the first day. However, starting from the second day until the fourth day, a consensus was reached on the same estimate, and other participants followed suit. Sherif considered this experiment as a representation of how social norms develop within a society and establish a shared framework of understanding. Compliance, although similar to conformity, involves taking action to satisfy someone’s explicit demand.

In order for compliance to occur within groups, individuals must adjust their actions according to the wishes or rules of others. Complying with someone’s request, rule, or wish requires a disposition that motivates one to concede to others. Requests for compliance and acts of compliance are common experiences in everyone’s life. However, when someone asks another person to do something, they do not necessarily require the person to agree or disagree with the task at hand. For example, a request for compliance simply entails asking someone to perform a task.

The person making the request for the task to be done does not necessarily aim to alter the beliefs of others, but rather desires the task to be accomplished. This distinction is what sets conformity and compliance apart. Conformity mainly involves the individual being influenced by the group to change their actions, attitudes, and/or beliefs. On the other hand, compliance is primarily focused on completing a specific task.

CHAPTER 7: CONFORMITY, COMPLIANCE AND OBEDIENCE. Retrieved from www. ordens2e. com/sg7-2e. pdf Search Data Management.

Compliance. Retrieved from http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/compliance

Hogg, M. A.; Vaughan, G. M. (2005). Social psychology. Harlow: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Baron, R. S.; Vandello, J. A & Brunsman, B. (1996). “The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 (5): 915–927.

Guimond, S (2010). Psychologie Sociale : Perspective Multiculturelle. Warve:: Mardaga. pp. 19–28.

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The Impact of Family Socioeconomic Status (SES) on Adolescents' Learning Conformity: The Mediating Effect of Self-Esteem

Affiliation.

• 1 School of Humanities and Law, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110169, China.
• PMID: 38790535
• PMCID: PMC11120018
• DOI: 10.3390/children11050540

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescents' learning conformity and self-esteem among a sample of 15-18 year-old high school students.

Methods: A survey was conducted on 339 adolescents using measures of family SES, self-esteem, and learning conformity. An intermediary effect model was constructed to examine the mediating mechanism of self-esteem in the impact of family SES on adolescents' learning conformity.

Results: In our study, we observed that male adolescents were more likely to come from families with higher socioeconomic status (SES) and exhibited relatively higher levels of self-esteem compared to female adolescents. However, this finding should be regarded as an observational outcome specific to our study sample and does not directly indicate a causal relationship between gender and family SES or self-esteem. Adolescents from rural areas were more likely to exhibit tendencies towards learning abidance and compliance. Family SES positively predicted self-esteem. The intermediary model indicated that family SES significantly positively influenced learning abidance and compliance, with self-esteem partially mediating the effects at 33.49% and 33.33%, respectively. Family SES negatively affected learning obedience, with self-esteem partially mediating the effect at 39.77%.

Conclusion: Among the 15-18 year-old high school student population, family SES not only directly affects learning abidance, compliance, and obedience but also generates an indirect mediating effect through self-esteem.

Keywords: family socioeconomic status (SES); learning conformity; mediating effect; self-esteem.

Grants and funding

• Readings in Universalism
• Death and Glory: The Ultra-Universalism of Hosea Ballou

In his frequently footnoted essay “ Three Versions of Universalism ,” Michael J. Murray introduces a threefold typology of the principal renditions of the greater hope. Each type, he believes, is philosophically flawed and unacceptable:

• None offer a compelling explanation for why God “God puts human creatures through the earthly life,” with the consequence that both earthly life and its evils are gratuitous. 1
• Each denies a “centrally important feature of human freedom.” 2

It is the first model that will be of interest to me in this article. Murray names it naïve universalism . According to this view, all persons upon death “are instantly transformed by God in such a way that they fully desire communion with God and are thus fit for enjoying the beatific vision forever.” 3 Murray then comments: “no one has endorsed naive universalism.” 4

I chuckled when I read this, as it just so happens that I know something that Murray did not know when he wrote his article. Naïve universalism is not a theological construct invented by contemporary philosophers as a foil for reflection on the greater hope. It was, in fact, a popular view among American universalists in the first half of the nineteenth century and was termed Ultra-Universalism . Hosea Ballou was its most famous advocate. Critics derisvely called it “Death and Glory.” 5

Ballou discusses his position at length in his book An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution . He begins with a common objection to universalism—namely, the need for the threat of post-mortem suffering to induce men and women to live moral lives. Why do good if I am guaranteed to enjoy eternal bliss anyway? To violently paraphrase Ecclesiastes and St Paul: “If the dead be not punished, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Death and glory!” Sounds like a great universalist toast.

Ballou does not deny that the threat of severe afterlife punishment (whether temporary or everlasting) may deter some from serious crimes, but he is not persuaded of its long-term effectiveness as a deterrent. But more importantly, promises of post-mortem punishment and reward, he argues, are poor motivators for virtuous living and do not generate genuine love of God. If I only obey God out of terror and dread, I cannot love him. He will always be a tyrant to me; the best I can offer is obsequious compliance. On the other hand, if I only obey God in the expectation that he will reward me, then I cannot love him for who he is. My obedience will be contractual, always determined by my selfishness. God will be nothing more than a glorified Santa Claus who’s “making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” Only the revelation of God’s character as absolute and unconditional love elicits divine charity:

There is no man so entirely ignorant of the laws of the human mind, as to suppose that we can be induced to love our Creator, either by a promised reward, or by threatened torment; and yet these motives are constantly urged on the people for this very purpose. . . . If our Creator is worthy of the love and devotion of his rational offspring, a fact which none will deny, it must be on account of his real goodness to them and if his requirements are worthy of our careful observance, which none will question, it must be because the keeping of them is enjoyment to us. 6

Not only are the homiletical pronouncements of future punishments and rewards useless in the creation of authentic godliness, but they are pernicious. Why so? Because they communicate a false portrayal of God. “All such preaching, be it ever so well intended,” Ballou writes, “not only amounts to a declaration, that God and moral virtue are, in themselves, unlovely, and unworthy of being loved, but, as far as it is believed, serves to alienate the affections from these most precious objects.” 7 Consider: our pastor is preaching a wonderful homily on the beauty and goodness of our heavenly Father and of the infinite benefits of union with him. “He is the bread of life,” he tells us. “In him all of our deepest desires will be fulfilled.” But then, and with great vehemence, he suddenly declaims: “But if you reject him, if you disobey him and refuse to repent, he will torment you with terrible afflictions.” Will you not begin to wonder whether this God is as loving and glorious as initially presented by your pastor, that anyone “who should make such proposals, and state such conditions, did not believe these things to be of any value in themselves; and the greater the zeal manifested by him from whom such proposals should come, the stronger would be the evidence to us of this forbidding fact” 8

So far, Ballou has not said anything with which a contemporary universalist would disagree. Here is where things get interesting. As stated above, Ballou denied eschatological punishment, believing that at the general resurrection all will be raised into a glorified, sinless existence. Ballou thus opened himself to attack on two fronts:

• from his fellow universalists (unitarian and Trinitarian), who believed that God punishes the impenitent for purposes of reform, healing, conversion, restoration; and
• from the Unitarians and orthodox Trinitarians who believed that God eternally punishes the impenitent.

For Ballou, Romans 6:1-11 is decisive, specifically v. 7: “For he who has died is freed from sin.” Pull out your New Testament and read the passage with Ballou’s exegetical eyes. When Paul speaks of death in this passage, he is referring primarily to the death of the body, both Christ’s and our own. His refutation of the antinomian objection depends upon the literal termination of Jesus’ animal existence and our baptismal identification with it. “Shall we continue in sin,” Paul asks, “that grace may abound? God forbid! Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (6:1-3). “What death does the apostle mean here?” asks Ballou. “I believe all will allow that he meant the death of his body.” 9 Paul continues: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (6:4). “There can be no doubt,” comments Ballou, “that the apostle here spoke of the resurrection of Christ from the death of the body.” 10 Ballou now attempts to draw together Paul’s argument:

All this being granted, it is seen at once, what is meant by being dead to sin. It was the being baptized, by faith, into the real death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But if that state of being which Jesus, by his resurrection, brought to light and manifested, be a sinful state, there could be no good reason why the apostle should argue that those, who were baptized into the death of Jesus were dead unto sin. Look at the 10th verse: “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” How did Jesus die unto sin? In his flesh he was tempted in all points, like unto his brethren, because he had such a body, and such a natural constitution as we all have; but when he was dead, it is believed that he was not in a condition to be tempted. And it is further believed that in his resurrection state he was not in a condition to be tempted, or to suffer from the hands of sinners. He, therefore, in that he died, died unto sin; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11

Sin is impossible for those who have physically died and now live beyond the desires of the flesh. This is true for Christ, who, having been resurrected and glorified, is now beyond temptation; and therefore must also be true for all the departed, no matter the moral state in which they died.

Paul’s refutation of the antinomian objection to his preaching of grace is hopefully now clear. Christians are disallowed from the exploitation of God’s gracious gift of justification because they have been baptized into the death of Christ and are thus summoned to reckon themselves dead to sin.

Hopefully Ballou’s application of Paul’s argument in Rom 6:1-10 to the question of eschatological transformation is also now clear. “For he who has died is freed from sin” (Rom 6:7). Ballou designates the 7th verse as the “grand maxim” on which his whole argument rests. Once it is granted that the word dead means “the extinction of animal life,” 12 then the Apostle’s crucial thesis may be liberatingly stated: “whoever is literally dead, is of course freed from sin. And for this very good reason, the body of sin being destroyed, sin can no longer exist.” 13 If death is the end of sin for every human being, then it seems reasonable to conclude with Ballou (and Paul?) that all who all who have been raised into a glorified and immortal body (and that’s everybody) are necessarily free from the possibility of sin, no matter how wickedly they may have acted in their mortal lives, no matter how vicious their character. Their moral and spiritual state has been changed by sharing in the resurrection of Christ.

But what about repentance? we ask. If there is no afterlife punishment, how will the wicked be brought into the love of God? One gets the impression that Ballou is genuinely perplexed by the objections raised to his death and glory eschatology. Do not his opponents understand what it means for Jesus to be Savior? How is this even a question that needs to be addressed?

If one who goes out of this world ignorant of Jesus Christ, and inexperienced in that reconciliation to God, which a knowledge of the gospel effects in the soul, commences his sentient existence in the future state, in an immortal constitution, in which no temptation to sin will even try the soul but where the true light of divine wisdom will direct every thought, and fix the affections entirely on the beauties and glory of infinite goodness, by which the sweetest and most tranquil felicity will be enjoyed, how then is Jesus Christ the Saviour of this subject? 14

Repentance is unnecessary in the next life, asserts Ballou, for all will be raised into the knowledge and life of the risen Christ, every thought and affection perfectly and irrevocably fixed on the divine glory and goodness. The absence of repentance in the next life is hardly a problem for God. Resurrection in Christ effects the healing and restoration that needs to be accomplished to bring about the blessedness of the immortal state.

Yes; Jesus must, after all, be our resurrection and our life; he must be to us all, the wisdom and the power of God; he must be to us the truth, and the bright mirror in which we may behold the glory of the invisible God. 15

Ballou invites us to meditate upon 1 Corinthians 15:20-57. Consider how St Paul describes the resurrection body which all human beings will enjoy at the eschaton . At no point does he hint at a division between the righteous and the wicked. 16 Is not the general resurrection presented as an objective  salvific event for all?

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (15:22) And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. (15:49) So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (15:54-57)

“But if our ideas of the future state of man,” Ballou writes, “be conformable to the testimony of St. Paul in 1 Cor. XV, in which we are certified, that the state in which all men will be made alive in the resurrection, is Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, it seems unreasonable to believe that faith and repentance will be necessary in that state.” 17 Why unnecessary? Because resurrection in Christ is salvation . . . is sanctification . . .  is theosis .

But a final question is always put to the universalist at this point, whether it be Ballou, Thomas Talbott, or David Bentley Hart: If God wills the salvation of every human being, does that mean that “he will save them whether they will or not—whether they repent of their sins or not—whether they reform or remain sinful”? 18

Ballou advanced a final answer to this question shortly before his death in his article “ Salvation Irrespective of Character .” In this piece, he reveals that despite the unitarian understanding of the Deity that he adopted as a young man, he still retained much of his Calvinist upbringing. We see this in two ways.

First, Ballou emphatically upholds the anti-Pelagian sola gratia . Whereas his Unitarian opponents claimed that one’s eternal destiny is ultimately determined by the character one has freely formed over a lifetime, Ballou insisted that God saves sinners irrespective of character—that is precisely what it means for God to save!

Did the Lord Jesus effect the conversion of Saul irrespective of his moral character? The whole subject is seen in this simple question: Was Saul fit to become a Christian? Is a sinner fit to be saved from sin? Is a sick person fit to be cured? Is a blind man fit to have his eyes opened? Are such as are dead in sin fit to be quickened into a life of holiness? 19

And of course no one is fit for salvation. If they were, they wouldn’t need a savior. They could simply save themselves by committing themselves to a life of repentance, virtue and prayer.  But that misrepresents both the human condition and God’s way of salvation:

Jesus represented the process of the sinner’s salvation by the recovery of a lost sheep which had gone astray. The owner, who went after it, found it, and carried it home on his own shoulder; and Jesus applied his parable by saying, “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” Who recovered the sheep that was lost? The owner. Who saves the sinner? Jesus Christ. How does he save him? By bringing him to repentance. Does he do this irrespective of moral character? The reader sees that the question proves either the ignorance or insincerity of him who asks it. 20

And if someone should object to the seeming injustice of God in saving those who have died in a state of impenitence by unilaterally bringing them into a state of divine charity, Ballou would remind them that God justifies men and women by his unconditional grace, not by their works and moral progress. “Could any sincere person,” he asks, “reasonably object to all this because it is unconditional as to moral character?” 21

In the end, it’s all about love—the love of the Father for his children:

Your child has fallen into the mire, and its body and its garments are defiled. You cleanse it, and array it in clean robes. The query is, Do you love your child because you have washed it? or, Did you wash it because you loved it? 22

Second, we see Ballou’s Calvinism at work in his unabashed assertion of God’s soteriological monergism through and in Christ’s resurrection, thus effecting the radical transformation of the incorrigible. For Calvin, only some human beings are divinely elected to glory; for Ballou, all are; but for both, God’s predestinating will is always successful. In his book Treatise on Atonement (1803), Ballou also speaks of the power of Christ to convert sinners from sin to love, thereby reconciling them to their Father. 23 Whether he understands this power as resistible by human beings, I do not know. But for our purposes, all that matters is that the sanctification of the wicked  is guaranteed. By the glorious resurrection of Christ Jesus, God will be all in all.

So what do I think about Hosea Ballou’s Ultra-Universalism? To be honest, I hope it’s true! I’d prefer to skip the painful purgatorial process altogether and jump directly to eschatological wholeness. What a joy it would be to awaken as a saint filled with overflowing love for my Savior and every human being.

Do I think the Ultra-Universalist construal of the greater hope more likely than the purgatorial proposals of St Gregory of Nyssa, George MacDonald, and Sergius Bulgakov? I have no idea. But purgatory as a process of healing and restoration has long made sense to me. As St Augustine remarked, “While God made you without you, he doesn’t justify you without you.” 24  And if the healing process should need a dash of efficacious grace to bring it to its promised consummation—again, I have no objections. I am happy to leave the mechanics of our deification to the absolute Love that is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I close my article with these beautiful words of the man whose fellow universalists knew as “Father Ballou”:

I close this work, humbly hoping and expecting the glorious increase and extensive growth of what I have (though feebly) contended for, viz. the holiness and happiness of mankind. I look with strong expectation for that period when all sin and every degree of unreconciliation will be destroyed by the divine power of that love which is stronger than death, which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown; in which alone I put my trust, and in which my hope is anchored for all mankind; earnestly praying, that the desire of the righteous may not be cut off. The fullness of times will come, and the times of the restitution of all things will be accomplished. Then shall truth be victorious, and all error flee to eternal night. Then shall universal songs of honor be sung to the praise of him who liveth forever and ever. All death, sorrow, and crying shall be done away; pains and disorders shall be no more felt, temptations no more trouble the lovers of God, nor sin poison the human heart. The blessed hand of the once crucified shall wipe tears from off all faces. O, transporting thought! Then shall the blessed Savior see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, when, through his mediation, universal nature shall be brought in perfect union with truth and holiness, and the spirit of God fill all rational beings. Then shall the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which maketh free from the law of sin, become the governing principle of the whole man once made subject to vanity, once enthralled in darkness, sin and misery, but then, delivered from the bondage of corruption, and restored to perfect reconciliation to God in the heavenly Adam. Then shall the great object of the Savior’s mission be accomplished. Then shall the question be asked, O death where is thy sting? But death shall not be, to give the answer. And, O grave, where is thy victory? But the boaster shall be silent. The Son shall deliver up the kingdom to God the Father; the eternal radiance shall smile, and GOD shall be ALL in ALL . 25

Death and glory!

[1] Michael J. Murray, “Three Versions of Universalism,” Faith and Philosophy , 16 (1999): 55.

[3] Ibid., 56.

[4] Ibid. Murray mentions Marilyn McCord Adams as a possible exception but notes that she only entertains the possibility of a miraculous transformation but does not endorse it. Murray directs readers to D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell (1964). Walker writes: “There is only a limited number of possible ways of eliminating eternal torment. . . . All the other ways involve universal salvation. Of these the simplest is that everyone should be saved straight away, at death or the Last Judgment. No one has ever proposed this way. All the remaining ways suppose for the wicked a period of torment before salvation” (67).

[5] On Ultra-Universalism and the 19th century restorationist controversy, see Ernest Cassara, Hosea Ballou (1961), 116-150.

[6] Hosea Ballou, An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution (1834), 22-23.

[7] Ibid., 24.

[9] Ibid., 128.

[11] Ibid., 128-29.

[12] Ibid., 133.

[13] Ibid. I have taken the liberty of rephrasing the quotation from the past tense into the present tense. I trust Rev. Ballou will not mind.

[14] Ballou, 152-153.

[15] Ibid, 154.

[16] “Paul thought of resurrection as part of salvation, a transformation towards conformity to the resurrected Christ, rather than as a prerequisite for rewards and punishments following a general judgment.” Thomas D. McGlothlin, Resurrection as Salvation (2018), 34. McGlothlin does not, however, believe that the Pauline data allows us to say that Paul espoused universal salvation. For example: “Significantly, the Pauline epistles not only integrate resurrection into salvation, but they also fail to connect resurrection to a general judgment. Paul does not say that the dead will be resurrected on the coming day of judgment, when God will repay all according to their works (Rom. 2:5-10). If the vengeance and punishment of eternal destruction unleashed at Christ’s second coming on those who do not follow God involves their resurrection from the dead, Paul does not mention it (2 Thess. 1:6-10). When he does describe the resurrection that occurs at Christ’s coming, he only mentions Christians: first the dead in Christ will rise, then those who are living will meet the Lord to remain with him forever (1 Thess. 4:16-17). Paul’s discussion of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 illustrates well both of these aspects of his thought—his integration of resurrection into salvation and his silence on the resurrection of those who are not united to Christ. The resurrection of Christ serves as the paradigm for all resurrection (15:3, 12-16), and this resurrection has salvific and moral implications, for without the resurrection of Christ the Corinthians remain trapped in their sins (15:17) and the rational lifestyle is one of debauchery (15:32). Resurrection involves a transformation into imperishability, and there is no hint anywhere that the purpose of this imperishability for some might be eternal torments (15:35-55). Quite the contrary, resurrection is presented as ipso facto a transition into bearing the image of the second Adam, Christ. Correspondingly, Paul’s description of what it means for ‘all’ to be made alive in Christ stops short of describing the resurrection of anyone other than Christians” (39-40).

I imagine Ballou respectfully replying to Dr McGlothlin: “Brother, we need to talk further. I may not  have a Ph.D., but I have studied the Scriptures all my life. Jesus Christ, I tell you with the greatest conviction, is the eternal life of the world. This the Apostle Paul believed most fervently. All will be saved.”

[17] Ballou, 155-156.

[18] Hosea Ballou, “ Salvation Irrespective of Character ,” Trumpet and Universalist Magazine , XXII (18 August 1849), 37.

[22] Quoted by Cassara, 150.

[23] Hosea Ballou,  Treatise on Atonement (1805), 120-136.

[24] Augustine, Sermo 169.13.

[25] Ballou,  Atonement , 228.

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3 responses to death and glory: the ultra-universalism of hosea ballou.

It seems to me that Ballou’s objections to the idea post-mortem punishment of sin and his detractors’ concerns at the “free pass” given to those who die in sin might be resolved by the Orthodox “river of fire” concept of hell / Gehenna, in that though Ballou may be right that all will be equally sanctified and perfected and raised to glory after death regardless of their sins in this life, he seems to assume that this transformation must automatically be a pleasant or at least painless one, which, it seems to me, is an unwarranted assumption with respect to those of us who die determined to reject God and cling on to our sin.

Somehow my absolute universalism feels a bit ‘limp’ in light of this article. 😉

But seriously my biggest objection to Ballou is that of monergism, I just don’t see a one-sided account of salvation comport with life experience, not to speak of scripture and tradition. And there’s an account of wrongs that have to be given as well, “God is not mocked” – wrongs have to be revealed to be what they are – utterly devoid of value, meaning, and worth in the light of the Light. I suppose this could be entailed in God’s revelation of Himself. So I’m back to the objection of monergism – a robust imago dei means it takes two to tango.

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If death is the end of sin, it would equally be the end of all deeds, including the good deeds that the New Testament indicates we are saved to do.

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