Outline and Evaluate Explanations of Conformity

These explanations of conformity were based on the findings of Asch’s experiment in 1951. For this reason the criticisms of Asch’s study present weaknesses of the above explanations of conformity. For instance, considering the study was carried out in 1951, the explanations that participants gave as to why they conformed could have been greatly affected by the society at the time. This idea is supported by a replication of Asch’s experiment carried out by Perrin and Spencer in 1981. Their results showed drastically different overall conformity rates to Asch, with a 0.25% as their overall conformity rate versus Asch’s original 37%. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that due to the study being carried out in the 1950s there is a certain degree of historical bias in the results. Seeing that the findings of Asch’s experiment formed the basis of the outlined explanations of conformity, the reliability of them can therefore be questioned.

The explanations of conformity based on Asch’s results could have practical applications. This is because in knowing and understanding them, they can be useful, for example, to businesses in advertising and the government in pursuing policies such as recycling. With the knowledge that humans can conform in order to fit in with a majority, advertising companies could create campaigns that focus on an item or action being the latest trend that everybody has or does. In this way a person might purchase the item in order to fit in with everybody else. This would naturally be useful for companies as it could increase their sales. In addition to this the government could convince people to recycle by exposing them to persuasive facts provided by environmental experts. In this way a person could conform to recycling by accepting the need to recycle from the evidence of more knowledgable person on the matter. This could be useful for the government to know when they try and encourage environmentally friendly activities or policies.

It can be said that explanations of conformity outlined in the Dual Process theory are reductionist because they don’t take into account the importance of a sense of belonging to a group. Taifel’s research in 1971 supports this idea because the research findings highlighted the importance of a social identity. Teenage boys living in Bristol aged 14-15 were separated randomly into two groups and then proceeded to play a game. Within this game they were able to allocate points that could be exchanged for money, to their own group or the other group. It was found that the participants consistently chose to award more points to the group they were part of. Taifel argued that there was a tendency to discriminate groups that were not their own and favour the group that they were in. The conclusion from these results was that in conjunction with a personal identity, each human has a social identity. Included within this idea was that people define themselves by the groups that they belong to in society and these groups have powerful influences on their behaviour. Taifel’s results therefore show that there other factors that contribute to conformity, that are overlooked by the Duel Process theory’s explanations of conformity.