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The results of our experiment were consistent with the findings of the cash experiment and plus we also detected psychological reactant to a little extent Literature Review In this article, the two authors and put out three different proposals in order to identify conformity in individuals. Firstly, they stated that there will be more conformity present when the subject’s responses are public rather than when they are private. Their second proposition indicated that there will be more conformity when the stimulus is ambiguous.
This basically Just puts out there that the subject’s ill have little confidence in their initial Judgments as opposed to when It is unambiguous. Thirdly, the two experimenting result seekers designated that there will be no conformity when no one else agrees with the subject than when the subject is faced with a non-anomalous majority. The researchers tested these three findings by providing college students from Michigan State University with questionnaire’s that were placed In a locked ballot box and were distributed In a random order in which the subject’s would never know which Individual would have what form.
There were four different kinds of forms utilized. All survey questionnaires were a part of various political and social Issues. Three of the forms displayed different responses from a recent national sample of college students and the fourth form was a control condition and gave no such Information. The surveys were given out privately but each questionnaire focused on whether or not the took this particular survey, however; the participants never knew of it.
The final part of the questionnaire’s asked subjects several questions concerning their own personal reactions to the interviewers and the survey which was meant to examine owe much attitude was involved within their conforming reactions towards the questionnaires. At the end of the experiment, the results were shown that no evidence of conformity had been exhibited from the fifteen experiment-takers who had undergone this experiment. The findings identified that at least one of the three proposals in experiencing conformity, as stated in the opening, had to be present in order for conformity to be displayed.
We learned through this specific experiment that the participants’ attitudes, behaviors, cognitive dissonance’s between the two, ND perhaps their egos got in the way of them conforming to the information provided within the questionnaires as a result of them taking the surveys privately as opposed to publicly, hence, showing prominent signs of anonymity. (Herbert L. Tyson, 1977) An experiment was undertaken to test the hypothesis that conformity develops in 2 stages, increasing up to the adolescent period and decreasing thereafter. A EX. factorial design was used involving sex and 4 age groups.
The apparatus was used similar to Crucified (1955). There were 24 Subjects (12 male and 12 female) were selected to compose 4 age groups. Group 1 consisted of ages from 7-9, Group 2 11-13, Group 3 15-17, Group 4 19-21. Subjects in each group were subjected to erroneous judgments in a simulated conformity situation. They were shown 12 stimulus cards were prepared, containing 3 comparison lines. They were to choose standard line in length. In agreement with the hypothesis, conformity increased to adolescence and decreased after adolescence. Conformity was least from 7-9, increased from 11-13, decreased from 15-17 and 19-21.
Females conformed more than the males at all ages. There was more conformity at the age of 12. In non pressure trails only two errors were made. Thus, the relationship between age and conformity is valid or situations involving pressure from peers or by high status persons. (Philip R. Staccatos, 1966) Another very significant study in the history of psychology is done by Philip Zanzibar who was trying to investigate whether people internalize social roles and in order to see this he carried out an experiment with 24 undergraduate students in a simulated prison.
He divided them into two groups’ prisoners and guards. The results showed that the guards internalized and conformed to the expectation of their roles and became increasingly aggressive and hostile in their attitude which led to very distressful psychological symptoms for the prisoners who became eager to withdraw. This study clearly shows that conformity and role initialization occurs in social situations. (F. Neil Brady, 1988) Based on the concept of Duckiest authoritarianism Thomas Petrel has investigated the authoritarian model.
Authoritarianism is defined as the belief about the suitable relationship that should exist between groups and their individual members. According to this model group authoritarianism reflects the situation specific activation of an authoritarian character in group contexts. This research holds the viewpoint that authoritarian personalities hold a hostile attitude towards not only one out group but a different variety of out groups. According to the original notion of From and Reich the nature of a capitalist society shapes specific personalities through familial colonization.
This and values, societal authorities and releases hatred towards the weaker members of a societal group. Cost Steelmaker, 2005) According to author Richard J Peach most of today’s organizations state they encourage innovative and creative behavior, many are in reality unable or unwilling to tolerate such behavior amongst their employees. This is partially due to the fashionable managerial trends in cost cutting and downsizing. Another cause for the lack of creative behavior may be due to a high need for conformity amongst organizational members.
Normative influence is an instinctive survival mechanism serving to establish and maintain uniformity and stability. Although conformity helps group stability and group cohesiveness, and the act of copying others may be an effective method of learning, the subsequent “groupies” rigidity of behavior and thought also serves to stifle creativity and innovation. This also proves the point that conformity is detrimental to progress cause it hinders creativity. In another research the role theory has been proven by Richard T. Save who investigated the conformity of an actor to their norms.
This research revolved much around the role theory in which students in 50 university classes were asked to indicate their expectations for a typical university instructor by filling a 55-item questionnaire to Judge the class instructor’s behavior. The results showed that those instructors who were recognized at an ordinary level conformed more to the expectations of the students whereas those who had earned a reputation y past performance were given freedom to deviate away from normative expectations. (Panderers, 1976) In this article written by M.
Eventuates, group influence is discussed, with relevance to the consumer buying behavior. Laboratory studies have shown that individuals can be very susceptible to group influence in the presence of enough group pressure, and when there are no objective standards. This claim is supported by the cash experiments and the sheriff experiment which basically concluded that in an unstructured situation, individuals are increasingly dependent on the group for making Judgments. After an in depth look into social psychological literature, Howard came up with two hypotheses : 1 .
Under excessive group pressure, perceptions of individuals can be altered and 2. In the absence of objective standards or an accepted authority, individuals look to others for Judgments and evaluations. In order to better understand how conformity effects the buying process, we also have to recognize to what degree a consumer is independent in making choices, for example if someone decides to buy a particular product by conforming, there degree of independence would still be maintained because they an choose from different colors or forms of that same product.
An attempt to force a consumer into compliance by reducing the number of choices he can make, will result in caging his independence and hence, he will be motivated to exercise his freedom, and this phenomenon has been referred to as “reactant” by Bream. Bream carried out an experiment in which he tested his theory on reactant, the tendency of an individual to avoid compliance. The main objectives of this study was to learn more about the phenomenon of conformity under the influence of group erasure and the influence of choice restriction by group pressure, in consumer buying behavior.
The two hypotheses were derived as follows: 1 . In the consumer decision making process, when there is an absence of objective standards, standards are present and people are exposed to group norms, but are forced to comply will tend to resist and show less tendency to conform. 144 students were selected. Subjects were required to select the best suit out of three absolutely identical suits, branded A, B and C.
The subjects were told that there were quality differences, the three suits were from three different manufacturers, previous tidies showed that experienced clothiers and tailors were able to select the best suit and that the study was conducted to see whether the subjects were able to select the best suit or not. 3 experimental conditions were created but the task remained the same. The control condition was free from any group influence, whereas condition 1 and 2 individuals had to make choices in a face to face group.
The naive subjects in groups in condition 1 faced group opinion which was the group norm, to which they had to conform and the naive subjects in groups in condition 2 faced group pressure which was aimed at restricting their freedom. The findings supported the hypotheses stated. Subjects under condition 1 conformed to the group opinion whereas subjects under condition 2 (reactant condition) negated group pressure either by being indifferent or deliberately choosing the suit that was not selected by the majority.
Although it is hard to estimate the extent to which the results of this study were a reflection of an actual marketing environment, since the experiment was carried in a laboratory. There were still important observations which can, to an extent, be prevalent in the market. Group opinions on quality or there factors that are not obvious, are well accepted and taken as a frame of reference, and this becomes one of the initial steps in the consumer buying process.
It is also evident that when an attempt is made to restrict an individual’s freedom of choosing, he will on most occasions tend to resist the pressure in an effort to maintain his independence. (Eventuates, 1966) This particular paper, talks about psychological reactant, too. But, it is more focused on its implications in the political arena. Carrying on from what Bream deems ‘psychological reactant’, the same phenomenon is analyzed with relevance to its implications in politics. Exposure to stimuli and the subsequent change in attitude is the real focus.
We know that psychological reactant is when an individual is motivated to exercise his freedom and react accordingly, which results in negative evaluation. It is the longevity of these effects on attitude resulting from mere exposure that need to be analyzed, hence the persistence of reactant is a key factor that needed to be looked at while preparing political campaigns. For example, if reactant effects endure, then moderate exposure would be a reasonable strategy, n the other hand if reactant effects are only temporary then maximum exposure is likely to be a more fruitful strategy.
The present study seeks to clarify the relationship between exposure and the persistence of psychological reactant, while looking at its effects on attitude enhancement in a political campaign. There were a total of 115 subjects who a resided in a dormitory building and the stimulus was a poster stating “Reduce foreign aid”. Subjects were randomly assigned to four different treatment conditions: no exposure (pre-test), moderate exposure, overexposure and exposure removal (delayed post test).
The dependent measure was a 10 item questionnaire attitude was the number of subjects agreeing to volunteer in the campaign. The results for attitudinal and behavioral measures were different. Positive evaluation was observed when subjects were exposed to the persuasive stimulus moderately but positive evaluation was reduced when overexposure occurred, even though the evaluation ratings were still higher than no exposure. The behavioral response demonstrated a linear function I. E increasing exposure to stimuli lead to more volunteering.
This probably suggests that changing behaviors requires greater retirement than changing attitudes. It was also discovered that reactant lead to negative evaluations from those who held neutral opinions, and it was also deduced that subjects who previously held slightly positive opinions, after overexposure, were likely to act on their attitudes. Finally the conclusion would be that exposure too stimulus will result in creating awareness amongst the target population, and if the exposure results in reactant, a period of non exposure can correct the results from overexposure. Miller, 1976) Aim: The aim of our experiment was to see whether the real participant would hang his answer and respond in the same way as the confederates, despite it being the wrong answer. Methodology: Our experiment is a replication of the Cash conformity experiment conducted in 1951. In this experiment 10 students from the Lahore School of Economics had been taken who were all confederates of the experimenter except one who was the actual subject.
The independent variable was the number of confederates providing the wrong answer and the dependent variable was the level of conformity. The subject was told that a visual Judgment test is being carried out. The responses had been dually decided among the confederates and the subject was led to believe that the other nine participants were real participants like him. The participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 4 lines on it labeled A, B, C and D.
The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length. Each line question was called a “trial. The answer was obvious. This task was carried out 10 times and out of ten times the subject conformed 8 times to social pressure and gave the incorrect answer when the right answer was unmistakably clear. Results: (1) In our control experiment with no pressure to conform to a flawed view, only three participants out of ten conformed.
This shows that majority of participants would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion. (2) The results prove that normative social influence plays a significant role in bringing upon conformity. This suggests that individuals conform because they are concerned about what other people think of them. (3) Informational Influence also took place as confederates started saying loudly that the answer is obvious and the experimenter knows better since she has designed it.
This shows that if someone is of high status or has a lot of knowledge they might be more influential. (4) Conformity tends to improve in larger groups as compared to smaller groups. (5) As the task was made more difficult and ambiguous by giving only. With such uncertainty it seems we look to others for confirmation. The more ambiguous the task the greater the conformity. (6) Conformity is higher when members of in-group are present as compared to members of out-group.