Asch Conformity
In what way does an individual’s change when s/he is part of a group?
Humans by nature are social creatures, therefore must have social behaviours, this suggests that individuals instinctively desire to be part of a group (Davis and Witte 1996). This contributed to the large amount of research and interest in the area of group behaviour. However there are difficulties in defining what exactly a group is. Definitions vary because of different ideas of what the purpose and nature of a group may have (Johnson and Johnson 2000). Cartwright and Zander (1968) (cited in Akert et al) define groups as just 2 or more people who interact with one another, and through interaction, influence each other’s behaviour. Whereas Rupert Brown (1988)(cited …show more content…
Smith) suggests that a group is only formed when individuals define themselves as a member and another member is required to acknowledge their existence. These are just a few of the definitions available. Because there are so many definitions, this complicated the study of groups, which results in a wide spread of research from all different perspectives. This essay will explore how behaviour is affected when an individual is part of a group, and discuss possible explanations of any changes in behaviour.
It is important to investigate behaviour of groups; however it is essential to have some understanding of the possible explanations of why groups are formed in the first place. Those from a social psychological perspective suggest that we form groups in order to assure self-esteem, have a sense of belonging and reduce fear (Hogg et al 2008) (cited Betts 2011). Whereas Baumeister and Leary 1995 (cited in Pearson) suggested that humans need to become part of a group derives from an evolutionary background. It’s suggested that groups were a key to survival, as, in a groups there would be better bonds that assisted during hunting, growing crops, look after children and finding a mate. All of which ensures a species survival, therefore forming groups is engraved into humans for survival purposes. Though according to the approach and avoidance motivation system, groups are formed in order to facilitate positive outcomes and reduce the occurrence of negative ones. This is the basis of the assumption that there is safety in numbers (Hinsz and Park 2006). Thought humans can survive individually in the present day, groups still form because there is a perceived benefit to being part of a group that compels individuals which band together in order to create a sense of safety and security, as suggested by the theories above. Conformity: In order to integrate with a group, individuals will moderate behaviour so that it mirrors those within a group and fit into the group’s normal behaviour, this is so that an individual will be accepted into the group (Alquist et al 2012). This is known as conformity, which is the yielding to comply due to group pressures and social influence, even when explicate orders are not present (Colman 2006). This is a psychological phenomenon that has been studied extensively due to how common and easily individuals will ignore or supress their own beliefs, traits and opinions in order to be part of a group.
A well know study that investigated conformity is Asch’s line study (1956), and is highly recognised in social psychology as a catalyst for the under and investigating into individuals behaviour (and the group as a whole) within a group (Bond and Smith 1996). Asch’s original study was designed to observe the lack of one’s independence when confronted with group pressure. The original results found that 75% of all participants conformed to the group’s answer, which was incorrect, at least once during the experiment. 33% of the participant’s conformed to the incorrect answered for the majority of the trials. Groups were made up of between 7 and 9 confederates, who knew the purpose of the study, and 1 participant.
Though Asch’s results were conclusive that individuals would conform to a group’s norm answered, the line study was heavily criticised because of its unrealistic methods. Because the study was conducted in laboratory conditions the results have low ecological validity, therefore cannot be used explain why individuals conform in real life settings, so has no generalizability. It’s is also possible that being such an unnatural circumstance would affect the behaviour of those involved in the study, conformity levels may have been influenced because they didn’t know anyone in the group therefore wanted to be accepted more so than in their own social groups or environments that were familiar. There were also problems with ethics as in order for the participant’s responses to uninhibited by the aim and purpose of the study; certain information was withheld in order to get accurate results. This means that informed consent could not be gained before the study began as some information was not given. This also means that participants were deceived by the experimenter. However if the individuals knew all the information about the study, they may of modified their behaviour accordingly. Having knowledge of the experiment may have led to the ‘screw you’ effect (Masling 1966 ,cited Murphy 1984), which is a theory that suggests that participant’s behaviour would be different due to knowledge as they may want to appear intelligent to the experimenter so use their knowledge to enhance performance. And so deceit can, arguable, be justified in order for the results to be reliable and provided that participants are properly and fully debriefed after the experiment.
Asch conducted many variations of his line study with different ratios of confederates and with different group sizes, Asch 1951 (cited Henly) (1953 cited Bramel) (1955) (1956).
Which support Asch’s initial results and therefore the providing Asch’s ideas and theory of conformity some amount of validity. Though Asch’s research is still relevant to society now and is theoretically important, the original research was conducted a long time ago, and may no longer be relevant in today’s society as much has changed since the 1950’. Bond and Smith (1996) suggested that conformity as a phenomena was decreasing and so this suggests that Asch’s research may have be relevant for its time however human behaviour appears to have change over a period of 40 years. Perrin and Spencer suggested that Ash’s research was a ‘child of its time’ as in 1950’s America it was normal to conform, so doing so in an experiment was nothing out of the ordinary. Perrin and spencer went on to conduct exact replicas of Asch’s study with engendering, chemistry and math university students, they concluded that individual didn’t conform as on only 1 occasion out of 396 trails did a participant agree with the majority(referenced in McLead). This change of levels of conformity was attributed to a cultural change (referenced in Keegan). These results could contribute to the decent in research into conformity more recently and the lack of contemporary research. The majority of research into conformity was …show more content…
conducted more than two decades ago, so it’s difficult to decipher whether how individuals would behave in these studies now so there is a large amount of genome lag, as conforming is no longer a social norm.
Conformity is interrelated with deindividuation as it is thought that individuals conform to a group because that is there identity whilst in it. The theories of individuation suggest that being part of a large group is one of the factors that make people loose there sense of identity and behaviour to be disinhibited (Krotoski 2010). Deindividuation has been predominantly used to explain group aggression (Innes et al 1982) being deindividuated refers to the loss of identity in a crowd which causes alterations to consciousness and a perceived reduction of responsibility (Li 2010).
Zimbardo’s prison study (1973) is one of the controversial studies of deindividuation, conformity and obedience because the methodology was extremely unethical and had to be abandoned before the study was due to finish. However it is still discussed in psychology today because of its contribution to the understanding of group behaviour. Though the study can also be used to examine conformity and obedience, during this part of the essay it will be discussed in reference to deindividuation. Zimbardo’s study consisted of 21 male participants which were separated randomly into 2 roles whilst in the prison setting. These were prisoners and guards, prisoners were given prison clothes and numbers to be identified with rather than their own name, guards wore uniforms, mirrored sun classes and were told that they could punish prisoners if they saw fit. These uniforms were designed to add to the realistic feel of a prison situation, and so participant’s become the role they have been assigned. Though Zimbardo’s had designed the study to see how each group would take to the roles, the situation became too convincing for participants, those who had guard roles relished there status of authority and took ‘great pleasure’ in their power, whereas those who had a prisoner role reported feeling a loss of identity and that their behaviour during the experiment seemed out of their own control.
Within psychology there are ethical guidelines which must be adhered to, one of these is informed consent. Informed consent was gained, and all participants signed a contract that stated that some civil rights suspended during the experiment, and therefore agreed to the conditions of the study. However these conditions were so horrific that prisoners arranged a hunger strike and one participant broke down and was removed from the study within a few days. Although in the contract it was stated that individuals could withdraw from the study ones involved, under the circumstances it appeared to the participants, because there rights were withdrawn that they had no choice or way out of the situation (psucd8 2011).
Obviously there were great ethical issues as participants suffered physical, psychological and emotional distress during the cores of the experiment. Though this distress was mainly during the study and mainly for those assigned the prisoner role, however many of those who were assigned the guard role became psychologically and emotionally distress after the study finished, as on reflection the realisation of their behaviour, which was in some cases violent and humiliating towards the prisoners. All participants were offered counselling and many individuals took this offer up for many weeks after. This demonstrates the profound effect that the study had on psychological state. Zimbardo later referred the behaviour during the of situation which the study tried to recreate, as the Lucifer effect (Zimbardo 2007) suggesting that certain conditions good people can behave in an evil manner. Zimbardo’s original study was released at the time that the riots broke out in Attica prison, in New York, and so Zimbardo’s findings and theories thought to be relevant to the riots and provide some sort of explanation (cited McDermott). More recently zimbardo has suggested that the same psychological forces were present in the Stanford experiment as were present in the Abu Ghraib prisoner where torture was being carried out in 2005 (cited UDaily). This demonstrated that Zimbardo’s finding have a great amount of ecological validity to real prison situations, so has great amount of validity when referring to deindividuation in prisons. However there isn’t much generalizability to other situations where individuals are deindividuated in a group’s behaviour.
Though Beaman et al (1976) conducted a naturalistic study which found that children had the highest rates of stealing when in a larger group whilst in costume. Which supports Zimbardo’s study and strengthens the theory of deindividualisation, as the individual children’s behaviour became increasingly antisocial as the risk of their identity being revealed was decreased. Beacause this was a natural study it had real world validity and therefore possesses high ecological validity. It is still important to research deindividuation as the theories can assist in explaining many group behaviours such as gangs, riots, bullying or protesting. Interest into deindividualisation was at the for front of psychology in the 1970’s however there have been many reviews and additions to the literature consistently since then, which implies that it was relevant to current to society as well as societies in the past.
Group behaviours such as conformity and deindividuation are hard topics to research as individuals are usually not consciously aware of behavioural changes whilst present in and of groups, therefore changes in behaviour have to be observed. Research only considers behaviour of individual whilst in the group therefore cannot compare with behaviour of an individual by themselves. For psychologists to truly know how behaviour changes within groups the method of which research is done must be altered.
References
Akert, R.M., Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., (2007) Social Psychology. 6th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Alquist, J.L., Ainsworth, S.E., Baumeister., R.F., (2012) ‘Determined to conform: disbelief in free will Increases conformity’ journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 49 (1) PP 80-86 [Online] Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0022103112001825 [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Asch, S.E., (1955) ‘Opinions and Social Pressure’ Scientific America.
193(5) PP 31-35 [Online] Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/terrace/w1001/readings/asch.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Asch, S.E., (1956) ‘ Studies of Independence and Conformity: . A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority.’ Psychological Monographs: General and Applied. 70 (9) PP 1-70 [Online] Available from: http://libary.hud.ac.uk/summon [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Beaman, A.L., Diener, E., Fraser, S.C., Kelem, G.T. (1976) ‘Effect of deindividuation variables on stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters.’ Journal of personality and social psychology. 37(2) PP178-183 Available at: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/33/2/178/ [Accessed 12 December 2012]
Banks, C., Haney, C., Zimbardo, P., (1973) ‘Interpersonal Dynamics in a simulated Prison’ International Journal of Criminology and Penology. 1 PP 69-97. [Online] Available at: http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/42 [Accessed: 11 December 2012]
Betts, K. (2011) Social Psychology Eye. Available at: http://socialpsychologyeye.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/why-do-we-join-groups/ [Accessed 3 December
2012]
Bond, R., and Smith, P.B., (1996) ‘culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgement task. Psychological Bulletin. 199(1) PP 111-137. [Online] Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1996-01401-008 [Accessed 5 December 2012]
Bramel, D., Friend, R., Rafferty, Y., (1990) ‘A Puzzling misinterpretation of Asch’s ‘conformity’ study’ European Journal of Social Psychology. 20(1) PP 29-44 [Online] Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2420200104/abstract [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Colman, A.M., (2006) Oxford Dictionary Of Psychology. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford. University press.
Davis., J.H. and Witte., E, (1996) Understanding Group Behaviour, Consensual Action by Small Groups. 1ST ED New jersey LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS.
Henly, M. (1951) Documents of Gestalt Psychology. [e-book] London: Cambridge University Press. Available http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SOk8TFBYWHIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Hinsz, V.B., and Park, E.S., (2006) ‘ “Strength and Safety in Numbers”: A Theoretical Perspective on Group Influences on Approach and Avoidance Motivation.’ Motivation and Emotion. 30 (2), PP 135-142 [Online] Available from: http://link.springer.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-006-9024-y [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Innes, J.M., Mann. L., Newton, JW., (1982) ‘ A test between Deindividuation and Emergent norm theories of crowd aggression.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 42(2) PP 260-272 [Online] Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/42/2/260/ [Accessed: 11 December 2012]
Johnson ,D. and Johnson, F. (2000) Joining Together Group Theory And Group Skills. 7th ed. Needham high, USA: A Pearson Education Company.
Keegan, G. (N.D) Gerard Keegan and his Psychology site. Available at: http://www.gerardkeegan.co.uk/resource/seminalstudies.htm#asch [Accessed: 12 December 2012]
Krotoski, A. (2010) Untangling the Web with Aleks Krotoski. Available at: http://untanglingtheweb.tumblr.com/post/2132662100/deindividuation-theory-is-a-social-psychological [Accessed: 11 December 2012] li, B. (2010) theories of Deindividuation CMC Senior Thesis. Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=cmc_theses&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Ddeindividuation%2Btheory%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D6%26ved%3D0CFgQFjAF%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fscholarship.claremont.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1018%2526context%253Dcmc_theses%26ei%3DeX3IUNGVM8nX0QWX4oDICw%26usg%3DAFQjCNHWYaX5NY52Oc5JncX5kq4wFnMLKA%26bvm%3Dbv.1354675689%2Cd.d2k#search=%22deindividuation%20theory%22 [Accessed 12 December 2012]
McDermott, R. (2007) ‘The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil’ Political Psychology. 28(5) PP644-646 [Online] Available from: http://libary.hud.ac.uk/summon
McLeod, S. (2008) Simply Psychology. Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html [Accessed: 5 December 2012]
Murphy, J.H., (1984) ‘Methodological Problems Related to the Use of Fictitious or Obscure Issues to Investigate and Quot; Uniformed Responses and Quot: in Survey Research’ Advances in Consumer Research’ 11 PP 52-55 [Online] Accessed freely on web, Available at: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=6213 [Accessed 10 December 2012] psucd8 (2011) Is Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment really that unethical? [Online] Available at: http://psucd8.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/is-zimbardos-stanford-prison-experiment-really-that-unethical/ [Accessed 11 December 2012]
Smith, M. (2008) 'What is a group? ', the encyclopaedia of informal education. [Online] Available at: www.infed.org/groupwork/what_is_a_group.htm [Accessed 3 December 2012]
UDaily (N.D) Zimbardo blames military breaa for Abu Ghraib torture. [Online] Available at: http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2006/dec/zimbardo120705.html [Accessed: 12 December 2012]
Zimbardo, P. (2007) The Lucifer Effect, Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. [Online] Available at: http://www.translibri.com/pdf/Lucifer_Sample.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Humans by nature are social creatures, therefore must have social behaviours, this suggests that individuals instinctively desire to be part of a group (Davis and Witte 1996). This contributed to the large amount of research and interest in the area of group behaviour. However there are difficulties in defining what exactly a group is. Definitions vary because of different ideas of what the purpose and nature of a group may have (Johnson and Johnson 2000). Cartwright and Zander (1968) (cited in Akert et al) define groups as just 2 or more people who interact with one another, and through interaction, influence each other’s behaviour. Whereas Rupert Brown (1988)(cited …show more content…
Smith) suggests that a group is only formed when individuals define themselves as a member and another member is required to acknowledge their existence. These are just a few of the definitions available. Because there are so many definitions, this complicated the study of groups, which results in a wide spread of research from all different perspectives. This essay will explore how behaviour is affected when an individual is part of a group, and discuss possible explanations of any changes in behaviour.
It is important to investigate behaviour of groups; however it is essential to have some understanding of the possible explanations of why groups are formed in the first place. Those from a social psychological perspective suggest that we form groups in order to assure self-esteem, have a sense of belonging and reduce fear (Hogg et al 2008) (cited Betts 2011). Whereas Baumeister and Leary 1995 (cited in Pearson) suggested that humans need to become part of a group derives from an evolutionary background. It’s suggested that groups were a key to survival, as, in a groups there would be better bonds that assisted during hunting, growing crops, look after children and finding a mate. All of which ensures a species survival, therefore forming groups is engraved into humans for survival purposes. Though according to the approach and avoidance motivation system, groups are formed in order to facilitate positive outcomes and reduce the occurrence of negative ones. This is the basis of the assumption that there is safety in numbers (Hinsz and Park 2006). Thought humans can survive individually in the present day, groups still form because there is a perceived benefit to being part of a group that compels individuals which band together in order to create a sense of safety and security, as suggested by the theories above. Conformity: In order to integrate with a group, individuals will moderate behaviour so that it mirrors those within a group and fit into the group’s normal behaviour, this is so that an individual will be accepted into the group (Alquist et al 2012). This is known as conformity, which is the yielding to comply due to group pressures and social influence, even when explicate orders are not present (Colman 2006). This is a psychological phenomenon that has been studied extensively due to how common and easily individuals will ignore or supress their own beliefs, traits and opinions in order to be part of a group.
A well know study that investigated conformity is Asch’s line study (1956), and is highly recognised in social psychology as a catalyst for the under and investigating into individuals behaviour (and the group as a whole) within a group (Bond and Smith 1996). Asch’s original study was designed to observe the lack of one’s independence when confronted with group pressure. The original results found that 75% of all participants conformed to the group’s answer, which was incorrect, at least once during the experiment. 33% of the participant’s conformed to the incorrect answered for the majority of the trials. Groups were made up of between 7 and 9 confederates, who knew the purpose of the study, and 1 participant.
Though Asch’s results were conclusive that individuals would conform to a group’s norm answered, the line study was heavily criticised because of its unrealistic methods. Because the study was conducted in laboratory conditions the results have low ecological validity, therefore cannot be used explain why individuals conform in real life settings, so has no generalizability. It’s is also possible that being such an unnatural circumstance would affect the behaviour of those involved in the study, conformity levels may have been influenced because they didn’t know anyone in the group therefore wanted to be accepted more so than in their own social groups or environments that were familiar. There were also problems with ethics as in order for the participant’s responses to uninhibited by the aim and purpose of the study; certain information was withheld in order to get accurate results. This means that informed consent could not be gained before the study began as some information was not given. This also means that participants were deceived by the experimenter. However if the individuals knew all the information about the study, they may of modified their behaviour accordingly. Having knowledge of the experiment may have led to the ‘screw you’ effect (Masling 1966 ,cited Murphy 1984), which is a theory that suggests that participant’s behaviour would be different due to knowledge as they may want to appear intelligent to the experimenter so use their knowledge to enhance performance. And so deceit can, arguable, be justified in order for the results to be reliable and provided that participants are properly and fully debriefed after the experiment.
Asch conducted many variations of his line study with different ratios of confederates and with different group sizes, Asch 1951 (cited Henly) (1953 cited Bramel) (1955) (1956).
Which support Asch’s initial results and therefore the providing Asch’s ideas and theory of conformity some amount of validity. Though Asch’s research is still relevant to society now and is theoretically important, the original research was conducted a long time ago, and may no longer be relevant in today’s society as much has changed since the 1950’. Bond and Smith (1996) suggested that conformity as a phenomena was decreasing and so this suggests that Asch’s research may have be relevant for its time however human behaviour appears to have change over a period of 40 years. Perrin and Spencer suggested that Ash’s research was a ‘child of its time’ as in 1950’s America it was normal to conform, so doing so in an experiment was nothing out of the ordinary. Perrin and spencer went on to conduct exact replicas of Asch’s study with engendering, chemistry and math university students, they concluded that individual didn’t conform as on only 1 occasion out of 396 trails did a participant agree with the majority(referenced in McLead). This change of levels of conformity was attributed to a cultural change (referenced in Keegan). These results could contribute to the decent in research into conformity more recently and the lack of contemporary research. The majority of research into conformity was …show more content…
conducted more than two decades ago, so it’s difficult to decipher whether how individuals would behave in these studies now so there is a large amount of genome lag, as conforming is no longer a social norm.
Conformity is interrelated with deindividuation as it is thought that individuals conform to a group because that is there identity whilst in it. The theories of individuation suggest that being part of a large group is one of the factors that make people loose there sense of identity and behaviour to be disinhibited (Krotoski 2010). Deindividuation has been predominantly used to explain group aggression (Innes et al 1982) being deindividuated refers to the loss of identity in a crowd which causes alterations to consciousness and a perceived reduction of responsibility (Li 2010).
Zimbardo’s prison study (1973) is one of the controversial studies of deindividuation, conformity and obedience because the methodology was extremely unethical and had to be abandoned before the study was due to finish. However it is still discussed in psychology today because of its contribution to the understanding of group behaviour. Though the study can also be used to examine conformity and obedience, during this part of the essay it will be discussed in reference to deindividuation. Zimbardo’s study consisted of 21 male participants which were separated randomly into 2 roles whilst in the prison setting. These were prisoners and guards, prisoners were given prison clothes and numbers to be identified with rather than their own name, guards wore uniforms, mirrored sun classes and were told that they could punish prisoners if they saw fit. These uniforms were designed to add to the realistic feel of a prison situation, and so participant’s become the role they have been assigned. Though Zimbardo’s had designed the study to see how each group would take to the roles, the situation became too convincing for participants, those who had guard roles relished there status of authority and took ‘great pleasure’ in their power, whereas those who had a prisoner role reported feeling a loss of identity and that their behaviour during the experiment seemed out of their own control.
Within psychology there are ethical guidelines which must be adhered to, one of these is informed consent. Informed consent was gained, and all participants signed a contract that stated that some civil rights suspended during the experiment, and therefore agreed to the conditions of the study. However these conditions were so horrific that prisoners arranged a hunger strike and one participant broke down and was removed from the study within a few days. Although in the contract it was stated that individuals could withdraw from the study ones involved, under the circumstances it appeared to the participants, because there rights were withdrawn that they had no choice or way out of the situation (psucd8 2011).
Obviously there were great ethical issues as participants suffered physical, psychological and emotional distress during the cores of the experiment. Though this distress was mainly during the study and mainly for those assigned the prisoner role, however many of those who were assigned the guard role became psychologically and emotionally distress after the study finished, as on reflection the realisation of their behaviour, which was in some cases violent and humiliating towards the prisoners. All participants were offered counselling and many individuals took this offer up for many weeks after. This demonstrates the profound effect that the study had on psychological state. Zimbardo later referred the behaviour during the of situation which the study tried to recreate, as the Lucifer effect (Zimbardo 2007) suggesting that certain conditions good people can behave in an evil manner. Zimbardo’s original study was released at the time that the riots broke out in Attica prison, in New York, and so Zimbardo’s findings and theories thought to be relevant to the riots and provide some sort of explanation (cited McDermott). More recently zimbardo has suggested that the same psychological forces were present in the Stanford experiment as were present in the Abu Ghraib prisoner where torture was being carried out in 2005 (cited UDaily). This demonstrated that Zimbardo’s finding have a great amount of ecological validity to real prison situations, so has great amount of validity when referring to deindividuation in prisons. However there isn’t much generalizability to other situations where individuals are deindividuated in a group’s behaviour.
Though Beaman et al (1976) conducted a naturalistic study which found that children had the highest rates of stealing when in a larger group whilst in costume. Which supports Zimbardo’s study and strengthens the theory of deindividualisation, as the individual children’s behaviour became increasingly antisocial as the risk of their identity being revealed was decreased. Beacause this was a natural study it had real world validity and therefore possesses high ecological validity. It is still important to research deindividuation as the theories can assist in explaining many group behaviours such as gangs, riots, bullying or protesting. Interest into deindividualisation was at the for front of psychology in the 1970’s however there have been many reviews and additions to the literature consistently since then, which implies that it was relevant to current to society as well as societies in the past.
Group behaviours such as conformity and deindividuation are hard topics to research as individuals are usually not consciously aware of behavioural changes whilst present in and of groups, therefore changes in behaviour have to be observed. Research only considers behaviour of individual whilst in the group therefore cannot compare with behaviour of an individual by themselves. For psychologists to truly know how behaviour changes within groups the method of which research is done must be altered.
References
Akert, R.M., Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., (2007) Social Psychology. 6th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Alquist, J.L., Ainsworth, S.E., Baumeister., R.F., (2012) ‘Determined to conform: disbelief in free will Increases conformity’ journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 49 (1) PP 80-86 [Online] Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0022103112001825 [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Asch, S.E., (1955) ‘Opinions and Social Pressure’ Scientific America.
193(5) PP 31-35 [Online] Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/terrace/w1001/readings/asch.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Asch, S.E., (1956) ‘ Studies of Independence and Conformity: . A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority.’ Psychological Monographs: General and Applied. 70 (9) PP 1-70 [Online] Available from: http://libary.hud.ac.uk/summon [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Beaman, A.L., Diener, E., Fraser, S.C., Kelem, G.T. (1976) ‘Effect of deindividuation variables on stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters.’ Journal of personality and social psychology. 37(2) PP178-183 Available at: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/33/2/178/ [Accessed 12 December 2012]
Banks, C., Haney, C., Zimbardo, P., (1973) ‘Interpersonal Dynamics in a simulated Prison’ International Journal of Criminology and Penology. 1 PP 69-97. [Online] Available at: http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/42 [Accessed: 11 December 2012]
Betts, K. (2011) Social Psychology Eye. Available at: http://socialpsychologyeye.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/why-do-we-join-groups/ [Accessed 3 December
2012]
Bond, R., and Smith, P.B., (1996) ‘culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgement task. Psychological Bulletin. 199(1) PP 111-137. [Online] Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1996-01401-008 [Accessed 5 December 2012]
Bramel, D., Friend, R., Rafferty, Y., (1990) ‘A Puzzling misinterpretation of Asch’s ‘conformity’ study’ European Journal of Social Psychology. 20(1) PP 29-44 [Online] Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2420200104/abstract [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Colman, A.M., (2006) Oxford Dictionary Of Psychology. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford. University press.
Davis., J.H. and Witte., E, (1996) Understanding Group Behaviour, Consensual Action by Small Groups. 1ST ED New jersey LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS.
Henly, M. (1951) Documents of Gestalt Psychology. [e-book] London: Cambridge University Press. Available http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SOk8TFBYWHIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed 10 December 2012]
Hinsz, V.B., and Park, E.S., (2006) ‘ “Strength and Safety in Numbers”: A Theoretical Perspective on Group Influences on Approach and Avoidance Motivation.’ Motivation and Emotion. 30 (2), PP 135-142 [Online] Available from: http://link.springer.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-006-9024-y [Accessed 4 December 2012]
Innes, J.M., Mann. L., Newton, JW., (1982) ‘ A test between Deindividuation and Emergent norm theories of crowd aggression.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 42(2) PP 260-272 [Online] Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/42/2/260/ [Accessed: 11 December 2012]
Johnson ,D. and Johnson, F. (2000) Joining Together Group Theory And Group Skills. 7th ed. Needham high, USA: A Pearson Education Company.
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