Conformity research

Research on the topic of conformity began in 1951,when Solomon Asch used groups of seven to nine people who were told they were participating in a study on visual perception. These subjects were asked to match the length of a standard line to three comparison lines. Each group had one real subject while the rest of the group was made up of confederates who were instructed to unanimously give incorrect responses in some trials. Those exposed to the incorrect responses conformed to these answers 33% of the time, with 75% of these subjects conforming at least once. Such is the power of the group to sway the individual, even when the majority is clearly incorrect (Asch, 1956).

Another classic work by Festinger (1950) uncovered strong pressures on group members to act in uniform ways. Leon Festinger was a social psychologist from New York City who became famous for his Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Festinger explained that group members (i.e., the majority) place pressure on other members to conform to group goals for two reasons: social reality and/or group locomotion. Social reality refers to the need of group members to validate their own opinions by having others agree with them. Group locomotion refers to the group's desire to move forward toward the completion of a goal. Thus, members of groups often experience strong pressure to agree with the rest of the group and to act in ways that will ensure movement toward the group's goal. His theory arose from his observations of a Wisconsin-based flying saucer cult of the 1950s whose prophecy of universal destruction failed to come true. The cult prophesied a vast flood would soon kill everyone on Earth except for the members of the cult, who would be carried away by flying saucers. Before the predicted flood, the cult was very secretive and very reluctant to speak to the media or make converts. After the predicted flood, they stopped being secretive and spoke very eagerly to the media.
Festinger explained this transformation as occurring because the prediction failed: there was no global flood and no flying saucers arrived to carry the cult to salvation. The cult was ridiculed, and though they had an explanation for the failure of their prophecy -- on the night in question their prayers "had spread so much light that God saved the world from destruction" -- nobody took it seriously. This is why Festinger suggested that the cult became fervently evangelistic. The only way for them to reverse their humiliation was to convert other people to their beliefs. If everyone believed, no one would laugh.

One of the most famous experiments on conformity and obedience was done by Stanley Milgram. The experiment involved two people. One, a confederate, played the part of a student trying to remember different words that they had heard. The other person was the subject who played the role of a teacher and gave him the test. The "teacher" was told to shock the "student" everytime he missed a word and to increase the dosage if the "student" got more answers wrong. Milgram found out that most people would shock his fellow man even to deadly levels and would be obedient to an authority even if compliance injured his fellow human.