conformity

The social psychological study of conformity examines the pressures on individuals to conform to the expectations of a group, society, organization, or leader. The classic experiments were conducted by Solomon E. Asch, an American gestalt psychologist who undertook a series of small-group studies on the social pressures to conform. His subjects were asked to answer a basic puzzle (for example on the length of a line) when others provided a manifestly incorrect answer. Many subjects felt under pressure to give the same incorrect answer; however, the majority resisted pressures to conform, and even those who acquiesced offered reasonable explanations for doing so, despite subsequently expressed doubts about their behaviour (see his Social Psychology, 1952). Asch argues that the results confirm his view of human nature , which is of human beings as creative and rational organisms, in contrast to the tradition that views them as passive and responding only to environmental pressures. The concept of conformity was also used by Robert Merton in Social Theory and Social Structure (1968) to refer to acceptance of cultural goals and the legitimate or approved means of achieving them. See also behavioural conformity.