The three factors influencing conformity and obedience I now intend to explore are authority, acceptance and roles.
I have found in research that there are many questions and studies on why people obey authority. It is believed that society defines authoritative figures and respect for these figures and their authority helps us to socially interact in an orderly way. Unfortunately the down side is that we, as a society, believe we must obey this authority then we may end up obeying even if the request is to do something that we don’t agree with or goes against our moral and ethical beliefs.
“Obedience is social influence in its most direct and powerful form” Morris, 1987. In addition, this is shown in Milgrams electric shock experiment in 1961. Milgram advertised for people to volunteer to take part in a scientific experiment. On arrival, Milgram explained to the subject that the experiment was “designed to test the effects of punishment on learning.” Morris, 1987. Infact the experiment was to find out “how many of us would resist authority figures who made immoral requests”. Rathus, 1990. The subjects then met with a researcher dressed in a white laboratory coat, in an impressive laboratory setting. Also present was another newspaper recruit. Both volunteers were told that one of them would be a ‘teacher’ and the other a ‘learner’ during the experiment. In entering a room, the ‘learner’ would be restrained in a chair and the ‘teacher’ would sit behind a screen. From behind this screen the ‘teacher’ was told to administer electric shocks to the ‘learner’ when they failed to “perform a simple task of memory” Dawninternational, Internet, 2000. A researcher in a white coat encouraged them whenever they hesitated and shockingly the results showed that two thirds of the volunteers “were ready to administer potentially lethal doses of electricity” Dawninternational, internet, 2000.
Due to ethics this experiment would be deeply frowned upon today. As with all experiments ethics must always be a priority. However, many people questioned milgrams ethics. Some of the factors that could have possibly concerned critics were the subjects consent, deception and distress. As Milgram advertised in the newspaper, he only had implied consent and not informed consent, as the subjects could not make a well-informed and conscious decision. Milgram also lied about the nature of the experiment therefore he unethically deceived his volunteers. Finally, the volunteers showed signs of distress, it is claimed that many subjects suffered nervous breakdowns during the time of the experiments and after although Milgram denied that volunteers suffered later.
This experiment can also be methodically criticised to show the validity of the results. Some people believe the validity is weakened by Milgrams abuse of his power by pressuring and intimidating his volunteers. On the other hand however, the experiment's purpose was to see how far people would go to obey authority and if they would pass the ethical limit so, this stands for validity. Another factor regarding validity is that the experiment did not test real life obedience in the sense that it was set in an artificial laboratory setting in laboratory conditions as opposed to being outside in a real life setting. Personally, I find these contradicting points make it very difficult to determine the validity of the experiment.
Professor Phillip Zimbardo also set up an experiment undertaken to determine why people obey authority in 1971.Zimbardo chose to create a prison in which he placed 30 young male volunteers half as guards half as prisoners this chosen purely by the flip of a coin. All volunteers gave their full informed consent before this experiment although the surprise arrest was kept from them. It was planned that for two weeks after the realistically arrested they would stay in a simulated prison setting where the ‘guards’ “were given the authority to dictate 24-hour-a-day rules” Prisonexp.org, Internet, 2001. It is important to remember that “at the beginning of our experiment there were no differences between boys assigned to be a guard” Prisonexp.org, Internet, 2001. This is important because all of the males accepted for the experiment were similar in terms of class, age, health and intelligence but still Zimbardo was surprised at how soon “both guards and prisoners’ personalities were warped by their given role” prisonexp.org, internet, 2001. Eventually after just six days, Zimbardo ended the experiment due to his ethical responsibilities, when ‘prisoners’ began to suffer mentally. “Zimbardo maintains that the student participants suffered no long term harm” prisonexp.org, Internet, 2001. However due to improved human rights and yet again ethical reasons this experiment never has been or will be repeated.
In both experiments, Milgram and Zimbardo likened there subjects to the nazi’s, another group who conformed and obeyed authority. At the time of Milligram’s studies, “The nazi atrocities were still fresh in the memories of millions”. Psychology.obedience, Internet, 2000. Similarities included the abuse of power held by authoritarian personalities and the belief that as they were obeying orders from their superiors the blame was not on their shoulders but of those who were commanding the orders. Zimbardo said of his volunteers who became guards “These guys were all peaceniks, They became like nazi’s.” Even though the experiment was artificial and volunteers were informed the validity of this experiment, seems to me, to remain due to the element of surprise from the arrests, the extent of the findings and the way each boy was completely absorbed in his role.
Acceptance is a popular reason to conform or obey, with many everyday examples. Simple illustration would be children of school age as they are eager to please others, be liked and accepted by their peers. We can also relate this back to the nazi’s as they long to be accepted into the group that classed themselves as the master race. Acceptance goes hand in hand with conforming in a group situation, which I will briefly discuss, but to define them I will use a personal experience. At sixteen, I became a smoker. When I did this, I conformed without knowing to the ideas of my peers who believed smoking a way of appearing popular and older. I was not obedient, as my peers did not command me to smoke but looking back, I believe I conformed to be accepted in a group of my peers.
In 1952 Soloman Asch decided to conduct an experiment to “examine the extent to which pressure from other people could affect one’s perceptions” Age-of-the-sage.org, Internet, 1999. To do this he invited eight people to sit in a room. All of the people except the person in the seventh seat were assisting Asch with this experiment, at the time this was obviously unknown to the seventh person. There was a man at the front of the room with a series of cards. On another separate card were numbered comparison lines and your task was to compare the series of cards one at a time to the comparison lines. “This was repeated several times with different cards” Age-of-the-sage, Internet, 1999.
Bibliography.
Cardwell, Mike Clark, Liz Psychology for A-level. 1996.
Meldrum, Claire.
Gleitman, Henry. Psychology, Third edition. 1981.
Morris, Charles. Psychology, An introduction. 1987.
Rathus, Spencer. Psychology. 1990.
http:/designweb.org
As everyone took turns, all of the people agreed as the answers were obvious. However, as the experiment continued the majority of the group appeared to agree on the wrong answer although the answers still seemed obvious. As everybody else was giving the same answer the seventh person began to doubt their own judgement and therefore in the majority of cases conformed to everybody else’s idea of the correct answer. In conclusion, according to Rathus in Psychology Asch found that 75% of people conformed to the group idea of the right answers. It is believed there are many reasons why the seventh person conformed including the group size, the fact that everyone in the group were similar and therefore were a reference group and also that they didn’t want “to appear silly” Cultsock, internet, 2001 in giving an incorrect answer. The main aim was to see if people would be persuaded by others ideas so this experiment seems valid although as always there was criticism. This is because people believed that in more complex, real life situations where people feel more passionately about their views there are less likely to conform. However, the studies “suggest that group pressure can be so strong that we are willing to deny the evidence of our own eyes for the sake of conforming with the rest of the group.” Cultsock, Internet, 2001. This study also shows that we are naturally uncomfortable with being in the minority and therefore where possible we will conform.
We conform everyday in the roles we play. These can be roles in the family such as parents providing for their children both morally and financially by setting good examples of social standards and going to work, children’s roles include respecting their parents by obeying rules set in the home. It appears the hardest way to conform is to conform by proxy. This means that a person such as a child who is unable to make their own decision must have decisions made for them. Even though we may not be aware of it, we conform everyday whether it be in the workplace or an unspoken social norm such as tipping in hotels or hairdressers, even knowing that it is unacceptable to speak when someone else is talking is a form of conformity. I have taken different roles and conformed to different societies when travelling abroad it is polite and you discover different cultures.
Overall, my research has shown me that there are many factors why we conform, depending on the situation and the individual. When conducting experiments it is difficult to determine validity as everybody can interpret the results differently. “Research finding don’t have any meaning until they are interpreted, and these interpretations are not demanded by the findings themselves” Gergen, Cultsock, Internet, 2001.
It is very important to remember ethical issues, as they are paramount in all experiments. From my research, I can conclude that it seems that generally people conform to be accepted and so as not to be different. However, they obey as society expects it and authority enforces it.
