Conformity and social obedience

To look at and analyze the subject of conformance and social obedience, we need to address some common views and theories about man in society. Let's start with one main fact - the people around us (or others) play a crucial role in our lives. At different times and in different context situations, they are the source of many of our most satisfying forms of pleasure (love, support, approval, praise) and some of the most important forms of pain (criticism, irritation and anguish, rejection). We spend a great deal of time interacting with other people, thinking about them, trying to understand them. But we have to admit one thing - other people are usually a mystery. They say and do things that we do not expect, have motifs that we do not always understand, and sometimes they see the world with a look very different from ours. But precisely because a person is a "social animal" (as Elliot Aronson in his self-titled book Man-a Social Animal calls him), he is not capable of being totally isolated from others, and because the people around us play a key role in our lives, we are talking about a mystery that we can not afford not to try to solve. Social psychology as a scientific field is an increasingly powerful and evolving tool that aims not only to build on the observation and accumulated collective wisdom (proverbs, myths, films, books, history), but also through empirical verification to brought more accurately and accurately information about even the most complex aspects of social behavior and social thought. Despite the wide range of topics in social psychology, social psychologists generally focus on a central task - the understanding of nature and the causes of individual behavior in the social context. This context is the life lane depicting the movement, the forces and vulnerabilities of the social animal - man - including the true, imaginary and symbolic presence of other people; the actions and interactions between people, the characteristics of the place in which behavior is manifested, the expectations and norms that guide behavior in a given environment and context.
Our behavior and thoughts are much different than what we would have been if we were living in complete isolation. Social influence is the term by which we call the process by which others have a significant impact on our existence and development. This influence can be so pervasive and pervasive that few of the things we do, think or feel everyday are unaffected by it.

Despite the desire of people to be like others, to receive their approval, to be liked, they often desire to maintain their uniqueness and individuality. Every human being is unique in its kind, none of us wants to become a part of a gray and invisible mass at some point. No one wants to merge too much with the crowd and lose its individuality. This is the time when one decides to say "No!" Not to go along with the herd - a motive to maintain its uniqueness, and on the other hand to retain some control over its own existence. Being a member of a group, especially if it is our reference group (or, in other words, we share its values) definitely has its advantages and social benefits. On the other hand, this situation partly limits our freedom in terms of our behavior in certain ways that we would not, in principle, choose. It is precisely thanks to the people who do not succumb to social influence that, in consequence, they become the new factors that exert it - great scholars, explorers, travelers.

But the truth is that most people show compliance in most of their behavior. In today's world, for example, as if everyone wants to be beautiful, beauty is sought and valued - everyone wants to be attractive, weak, well-behaved, with impeccable smile and skin, and so on. And this is proven by the so-called reality shows, in which every average ugly person is capable of being converted into a trendy beauty. But why do people want it and do it? Because they believe they will like it more than others. Modern beauty standards include the aforementioned features as central. They are almost implied. But if we go back through the times and the epochs will find it, if we look at the different cultures around the world, we will find that these qualities are not universal neither in history nor in the context of different cultures. The point here, however, is that whatever they are in time and space, people are trying to do their best to achieve them. They accept the definition of beauty imposed by their own society and really try to achieve it or at least to get it as close as possible. At many times, our perceptions, attitudes and actions are strongly influenced by other people - individuals and collectives. However, when we think about our behavior when we explain it, we usually tend to emphasize how individual it is, individually, uniquely depending on our own personality and to a very small extent or even not at all around us and their influence on us. However, over the centuries-focused research in this area shows that the situation is far from what we think or would like to be.

The concept of social influence is closely linked to the notion of conformism. It is widely used in the public domain, but usually in the negative sense of "regen- ity" or "weakness", "softness," or as a commandment of a person who "copies" , "leads them to wits", non-original and / or without their own will. This broadly accepted definition is very limited and non-exhaustive. The scientific meaning of the concept of conformism is much wider. Conformity is seen as a social phenomenon that can have both negative and neutral, as well as more content. In its negative connotation, conformism is understood as obedience, retreat, adherence. However, its positive side reflects phenomena such as community sensitivity, cooperativity (willingness to cooperate), response and empathy (the term "social coordination" is also used). In fact, consciously or not (usually unconsciously), our behavior constantly includes many elements that can be defined as conformational. Drinking, smoking, eating, baking (fashion, old favorite clothes), talking (with people with whom we are different, with parents and friends, (such as university, shop queues, elevators, urban transport), popular music styles, television broadcasts. The explanation of the type "so is done so", "because it is so necessary". Conformity is spoken then when a person acts under the influence of a group different from what he would act if he was alone. Conformity exists when there is a contradiction between proprietary beliefs and the direction of social influence, or when our thoughts or actions are changed by other people. A more precise definition we can give to conformism, saying that it is the moment when individuals change their behavior in order to adhere to existing social norms - widely accepted ideas or rules that indicate how people should behave in certain situations. Our actions and behaviors change significantly when adopting such norms. Other forms of social influence besides conformism are consensus and obedience.

Consent, unlike conformism, is exercised directly by individuals, not imposed by norms and beliefs or views. It includes the efforts of one person to change the behavior of one or more other people through direct requests or other tactics. Social obedience consists in one person being ordered by a Drud to change his behavior. Typically, such an ordering person has certain methods of enhancing obedience or retreat - he has certain authority over other people. However, there is also the surprising fact that direct orders can be effective even if the commander does not have or has little authority or authority over the recipients. Undoubtedly, many of us have been in situations where they feel vulnerable and stand out among others, or in other words, each of us has had pressure to conformism at a certain point. In such cases, we would like to re-enter our environment. Such a kind of pressure seems to stem from the fact that in many situations written and unwritten norms indicate how we should behave. These rules are precisely the social norms - detailed and precise (governments - constitutions, sporting competitions with their rules and norms, signs, indicating or prohibiting certain directions and behaviors - on streets, airports and other public places) that describe the desired behavior in detail . But there are many implicit norms such as "Do not take candy from strangers" or "When you sneeze, put your hand in front of your mouth." Often we are influenced by the current, but also rapidly changing, standards of clothing, speech. But without these norms, life in society at one point would become a complete chaos - no order in the tails, no respect for the rules in the street movement, anarchy in the government and elsewhere. However, we can not claim here that conformism always helps. Sometimes the norms do not seem to have any specific purpose - an example of this is the tie as an element of the official male garment, which obviously does not fulfill any substantial finesse.

Despite its exact purposes and origin, the pressure to conformism exists in many situations. However, it is surprising to note that Conformation as a social process has not been explored in detail until 1950. Solomon Ash then made a series of experiments that contributed much to today's knowledge of this important form of social influence. Six attendees and one surveyed participated. It is said to be an experiment of perceptual research. There are three lines to compare with a reference line. In the beginning, the faces give the right answers. However, the third attempt gives the wrong answer. The investigated person gives his / her last commitment. Thus, the group gives unanimously faithful answers to trials 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 11 and wrong on 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12. When they are alone, the respondents give the correct answer in 99% ¬÷àèòå. However, when the group had the wrong answer, 37% of the respondents also gave the wrong answer. More than 80% of respondents give a consistent answer to at least one of the attempts. They do this to appeal to the group, or not to laugh or disrespect (getting approval or avoiding disapproval). Ash considers it rather worrying that 37% of the surveyed are willing to put the black white under the influence of the group. It depends on whether the answer is given publicly, aloud or in writing. The Ash experiment is an example of normative social influence.

Although Ash's experiment demonstrates strong social pressure on conformism, it indicates that this phenomenon is not equally observed in all situations or among all people. Important factors that determine the extent to which people succumb to conformism are first and foremost the attractiveness of the group - or, in other words, the attractiveness of the group that exerts influence. The higher it is, the more likely people are to be conformed in order to gain the approval of the group. The reason lies in the fact that the people who belong to it are usually very much liked by us and we have the desire to enjoy them and to be approved by them. The size of the group is also important - how many people exercise social influence. Here is the formula "More does not always mean better". After three to four people, the increase in the number of people in one group does not lead to a significant increase in the impact on conformism. Above that number of people, individuals who are under pressure from conformism tend to suspect conspiracy - or in other words, it is strange to find so many people in one place to think unanimously. It is normal for them to have somewhat varying opinions and to express a wide range of actions and preferences. When too many people agree with each other, this may be a signal for us to be alert. Presence or lack of social support is essential in the appearance of conformism - when a person has an ally, this helps to withstand the pressure. In the S. Ash experiment, as well as in other subsequent experiments, the subjects surveyed were subjected to social pressure by a unanimous group. Under such conditions, it is not surprising that most surveyed have succumbed to social pressure. But if those people surveyed had found at least one person in their opinion? In this case, the pressure from conformism is reduced. When people have an ally or a partner this situation reduces conformism - there is a form of social support - even if our ally is not competent in the situation and even does not share our views. It is important that he at least deviates from the opinion of the other members of the pressure group. The truth is that almost any form of social support can be of help in terms of resisting suicide pressure exercises. More effective support received at the beginning before the force of conformation pressure has begun to increase.

The personal characteristics of people are crucial to whether they will succumb to conformism and other forms of social influence. These include gender, cultural peculiarities, intelligence, competence (as experience and ability in a particular situation) as well as self-assessment. The gender of people who are exposed to conformism - people say as a rule that women are more likely than men to adhere to changes dictated, for example, by fashion, and that women are more concerned about men liking others. But do we have uncontroversial empirical evidence for such statements? In fact, modern surveys in the field that exclude external contaminating factors (such as uncertainty about how to perform an assignment placed on individuals, for example) indicate that gender is not diverted in this aspect. The fact that some people prefer to maintain such an opinion is probably due to the fact that women generally have a lower status in society and, as a result, are more easily influenced. On the other hand, individuals with high self-esteem and competence in a given task are less affected by the pressure to conformism.Despite these factors influencing conformism and especially their variation, this is a very common phenomenon. If we have to identify the underlying factors that contribute to the very force of influence of conformism, they include two basic needs of human beings - the desire to be liked and the desire to be right.

The desire to be liked is expressed through the normative social influence. As much as we strive to be individualists, and no matter how much we claim that we do not pay a "public opinion tax", we all want to be liked, praised, seen by others in the best light, because that satisfies us. This increases our self-esteem when we are in a group. This is shown by Leon Festinger's studies in the area. Festinger creates the theory of social comparisons It is related to mechanisms of self-evaluation and has several basic postulates. First of all, one has a congenital need to maintain a high self-esteem. At the core of self-assessment lie the bimodality of human consciousness. It relates to the ability of man to simultaneously reflect both objective reality and himself in this objective reality. To maintain self-esteem, one usually seeks information from objective sources. If you can not find information from objective sources to maintain your self-esteem, one is looking for information from other people. This information can be found primarily in the group, in the organization. Some members of a group may be present in it for that reason - the satisfaction of their self-esteem. One compares first and foremost with people who are at the same social level, close to him or a little less successful than him - not to lose himself in his self-esteem. Our strategies to be liked by others are different - one of them is to be more similar to others - in accordance with their behavior as well as their expectations. And this behavior has been observed since early childhood. Regulatory social influence involves a change in behavior to be in harmony with the expectations of others, or in other words, this is our daily life. The desire to be right is called information social influence. Some things are simple and measurable and verifiable - space, volume, length of objects - through objective instruments, but others - like philosophical questions about life, political views and fashion, for example, are too subjective and not subject to mathematical measurements. For these issues, we need to address other people and their opinions and actions as starting points, guiding and somewhat determining our opinion.

M. Sherif puts an experiment exploring social coordination of perception. The experiment consists of the following: Self-employed or working in groups of two or three in a dark room and at a distance of 5 meters, a fixed point is exposed, creating conditions for individual group registration of the so-called "auto kinetic effect "consisting of the illusion of movement of the otherwise stationary point. As a result, in a totally dark room without a starting point, static light seems to be chaotic in all directions. The experimenter makes the persons orally point the way to the point. Half of the participants in the experiment initially work alone and then in groups; the other half initially worked in groups and later on alone. In this way, Sheriff examines the extent to which the group can subordinate individual opinion or to what extent individual opinion is influenced by group pressure. Those who initially work on their own are relatively quick to develop a standard around the assessment of how the point moves. This standard is called a personal norm. The conclusions of each person individually move around the personality norm. This personality norm appears to be stable, albeit different for each person. After working in groups, they are able to create a group norm. In cases where they first work in a group and later on independently, they create a group norm, which is usually agreed "average". On self-employment, they continue to adhere to it, not the personal norm. With the help of this classic experiment and a series of transformed experiments, it is revealed that in the case of unclear, unstructured information or stimulus, one builds his knowledge by creating a stable starting point that, if possible, cooperates with other people's knowledge of it. That is, when physical reality becomes uncertain, people increasingly rely on "social reality" and are already conforming not because they are afraid of punishment but because only the group's behavior gives them valuable information about what is expected of them . In social psychology this kind of conformism is called informative social influence. It is through him that we can explain the results of Shahter's experiment: people do not know how to accept their physiological symptoms and are informed about them from the group. And when one takes into account the opinions of others in order to satisfy the need to enjoy or to avoid punishment we are talking about normative social influence. This type of conformism explains the false statements of the people surveyed by the Ash experiment.

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