The first major experiment on conformity The WritePass Journal

The first major experiment on conformity Introduction The first major experiment on conformity IntroductionReferences:Related Introduction Conformity is defined as the act of matching attitude, beliefs and behaviour to what individual perceive as normal of their society or social group (Wikipedia ). Conformity is something that happens in everyday life. People conform because they like to be in a group or to go along with the group or society. This is the reason why we see same fashion, taste of music, movies, cars and many things of similar choices. So can we imagine a life without conformity? And what are the reasons of conformity. There are many reasons of conformity such as   normative social influence, informative social influence and social role conformity. The psychologists in the past have done researches on conformity. For example, Muzafer Sheriff (1938), Asch (1951), and Philip Zimbado (1973) had conducted experiments on why people confirm. In addition   Kelman (1958) identified three types of conformity. Compliance a type of conformity when people conform due to the views, opinions and beliefs of their fr iends or society. Internalization a type of conformity when one confirms to match a group and   Identification   a type of conformity when one adapts to a new behaviour of a group’s   view both privately and publicly. The first major experiment on conformity was done by Sherif (1935). He did an experiment to study the conformity. He wanted to see why people conform. With the use of auto kinetic effect, he asked the participants to look at the stationary spot of light in a darkened room in which small movements of the eyes made the light move. First, the participants were tested individually and then later in small groups of three. The answers were different when asked in individual   about the movement of light .Even so, when they were put in the group they ended up with similar answers to each other. This experiment showed that people conformed when in an ambiguous situation. They tend to seek informations and answers from others. However, this experiment was a total artificial situation so lacked ecological validity. The situation was unlikely to come across in everyday life. Moreover, there was no definite answer for it On the other hand, Asch (1951) conducted an experiment on conformity to see why people conform on an unambiguous situation. He   criticized Sherif’s experiment and suggested that the experiment had no definite answer .Asch `s experiment in contrast had a definite answer to the Sherif`s experiment. For this experiment, he participated seven people (confederates) whom were already told about the   behaviour beforehand, whereas one who was the real participant (subject) was not known about the experiment and believed that the others were also the real participants. The task was very simple to compare the line X with others A, B and C lines. Each participants were to deliver the answer aloud.   On each trial, the real participant was asked at last about his opinions on the lines. Asch found that the subject showed the influence by the majority and gave the wrong answers on average of 37% .74% at least conformed once and 26% never conformed. After the post experimental interv iew he concluded that people go along with the views of others for different reasons. Similarly, in 1980 the exact experiment was repeated by Perrin and Spencer with chemistry, engineering and mathematics students. In contrast to the result of Asch’s experiment ,conformity was high on only one trial out of 369 trials. So Perrin and Spencer (1980) suggested Asch study as â€Å"Child of its own time.† Asch’s experiment was   artificial as it was unlikely to come across in everyday life. And it was done at that time when Americans were high on conformity. In addition all the participants were males as the wider population was   ignored Philip Zimbado (1973) also conducted an experiment to see how people adapt to new roles of guards and prisoners. At that time in America, there were many reports of brutal attacks on prisoners by guards. So he was interested in finding out why the guards behave in such a way, was it because of the   sadistic personalities of the guard or   due to the environment of   the prison. The experiment was conducted on the basement of the Stanford University so was known as â€Å"Stanfords prison experiment†. For this, he selected   twenty- four students to become prisoners and guards, and he became the superintendent. He wanted to make the situation real so the ones who became prisoners were arrested with handcuffs and were put in the prison. They were given   prisoner’s uniforms and were referred by the numbers where as the ones who were guards were given military uniforms and were equipped with wooden batons and mirror shades glasses. The stimulation became so real that the guards became brutal   and sadist so the experiment had to stop in six days, which were rather planned for two weeks. From this experiment, he came to the conclusion that people conform to their social roles especially if the roles were strongly stereotype as the prison guards. The student who played the guards was not brutal before. After the post experimental interview he found out that people enjoyed the power and that the role had strongly influenced their behaviour and attitudes. Nevertheless, the experiment had important ethnical issues as the prisoners were mentally and physically tortured. Importantly mock prison was different from the real one, and the students were role playing. Apart from those reasons of conformity, there are various factors that influence the conformity .We humans are very complicated animals with lots of individual differences. Conformity also as well differs in individuals, and are influenced by many factors such as cultural, historical, gender, group size and so on. According to social psychologist culture are of two types, individualist culture such as of American and British and collective cultures such as of Asian and African. In individualist culture people tend to view oneself more   individually where as in collective they tend to view themselves as the member of   a group or society. So conformity tends to be high in collective cultures compare to individualist cultures. Historically, in 1950s Americans were high on conformity. It was the time when Asch conducted an experiment on conformity. Some studies have also found gender   differences in the conformity and found that higher conformity in women than in men. However, E agly (1978) suggested that the sex differences were due to their different social roles. Another important is the group size. Conformity is found higher in groups of three to five. On the other hand, conformity highly decreases when there is a lack of unanimity. When the tasks are more difficult, people are more   likely to conform as they seek others for information and answer. In addition if the person is knowledgeable he may stick and believes himself and may not go along with the group so are low in conformity. In conclusion, conformity is going along with the group for different reasons at various situations. It is something that dominates our lives. It happens everyday, and we cannot run from the fact that conformity exists in a society. In short it is about our society and the interaction we have in our society. It is neither   good nor bad but sometimes conformity is helpful sometimes not. Besides there are many types of conformity such as compliance, Internalisation and identification. Psychologists   had done various researches or experiments on conformity and different findings ,opinions and criticism were made. Sherif, Asch, and Zimbado have fairly justified the experiments. However, these things are unlikely to come across in everyday life. Besides, conformity is   influenced by factors such as cultural, historical, gender, type of task, size of the group and so many other factors. References: Michael W. Eysenck (2008) AS Level Psychology, Fourth Edition. East Sussex: Psychology Press Ltd. Mark Holah. Conformity. Available:http://holah.co.uk Last accessed on 19/04/2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/conformity McLeod, S.A (2007) Simply Psychology [On-line] UK Available: psychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk Accessed on 19/04/2011.

Juvenile Incarceration Linked to More Crime

Juvenile Incarceration Linked to More Crime Juvenile offenders who are incarcerated for their crimes are more likely to have significantly worse outcomes in their life than youngsters who commit the same crimes, but receive some other form of punishment and are not incarcerated. A study of 35,000 Chicago juvenile offenders over a 10-year period by economists at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management found substantial differences in outcomes between kids who were incarcerated and those who were not sent to detention. Those who were incarcerated were much less likely to graduate from high school and much more likely to wind up in prison as adults. A Deterrent to Crime? One might think that it would be a logical conclusion that teens who commit crimes bad enough to be incarcerated for will naturally be more likely to drop out of school and wind up in adult prison, but the MIT study compared those juveniles with others who committed the same crimes but happened to draw a judge who was less likely to send them to detention. Approximately 130,000 juveniles are incarcerated in the United States each year with an estimated 70,000 of them in detention on any given day. The MIT researchers wanted to determine if jailing juvenile offenders actually deterred future crime or it disrupted the childs life in such a way that it increases the likelihood of future crime. In the juvenile justice system, there are judges who tend to hand out sentences that include incarceration and there are judges who tend to mete out punishment that doesnt include actual incarceration. In Chicago, juvenile cases are randomly assigned to judge with different sentencing tendencies. The researchers, using a database created by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago looked at cases in which judges had wide latitude in determining sentencing. More Likely to End Up in Prison The system of randomly assigning cases to judges with different approaches to sentencing set up a natural experiment for the researchers. They found that juveniles who were incarcerated were less likely to return to high school and graduate. The graduation rate was 13% lower for those who were jailed than offenders who were not incarcerated. They also found that those who were incarcerated were 23% more likely to end up in prison as adults and more likely to have committed a violent crime. Teen offenders, especially those around age 16, were not only less likely to graduate from high school if they had been incarcerated, but they were also less likely to return to school at all. Less Likely to Return to School The researchers found that incarceration proved to be so disruptive in the juveniles lives, many dont return to school afterward and those who do go back to school are much more likely to be classified as having an emotional or behavior disorder, compared with those who committed the very same crimes, but werent jailed. The kids who go to juvenile detention are very unlikely to go back to school at all, said MIT economist Joseph Doyle in a news release. Getting to know other kids in trouble may create social networks that might not be desirable. There could be a stigma attached to it, maybe you think youre particularly problematic, so that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The authors want to see their research duplicated in other jurisdictions to see if the results hold up, but the conclusions of this one study seem to indicate that incarcerating juveniles does not act as a deterrent to crime, but actually has the opposite effect. Source: Aizer, A, et al. Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. Quarterly Journal of Economics February 2015.