Abstract
To help beginning psychology students understand how they are influenced by social pressures to conform, we developed a demonstration designed to elicit their conformity to a small group of students standing in the hallway before class. Results showed the demonstration increased students’ recognition of their own tendency to conform, knowledge of conformity, and appreciation of an in-class presentation about conformity.
Keywords
People often underestimate the profound impact that others can have on their behavior through social pressures for conformity and obedience (e.g., Cialdini, 2009; Milgram, 1963). Perhaps this is one reason why beginning psychology students have difficulty generating examples of how they conform to others or deny that others influence their behaviors (cf. Snyder, 2003). To help Introduction to Psychology (IP) students understand how they are influenced by social pressures to conform, we developed a demonstration designed to elicit conformity from them. Specifically, we arranged for several students to stand in the hallway outside their closed classroom door prior to class to find out if other students would conform to their behavior.
Useful ideas for classroom activities related to conformity and obedience have been published by other researchers (e.g., Bleske-Rechek, 2001; Hunter, 1981; LoSchiavo, Buckingham, & Yurak, 2002; Snyder, 2003). Although several of these authors described demonstrations designed to elicit obedience from students in class, the demonstrations of conformity they described involve role-playing or pointing out how students’ clothing choices may reflect conformity. Because extensive previous research has demonstrated the benefits of active experience for enhancing learning and persuasion (e.g., Cialdini, 2009; Lawson, 1995; Myers, 2010; Yoder & Hochevar, 2005), we wanted to actually elicit conformity from students in a real-life situation in order to demonstrate in a very salient and active manner that they conform to others’ behavior. We hoped this demonstration would increase their awareness and understanding of how they conform to others in their daily lives. We also examined whether the demonstration increased students’ understanding of concepts related to conformity.
Method
Participants
A total of 146 students (92 women and 54 men) in six sections of IP participated in the study. Three sections (n = 74) received the conformity demonstration; three (n = 72) served as control groups. Students ranged in age from 18 to 40 (M = 19.33, SD = 3.34).
Procedure
We assigned sections of IP to the demonstration and control groups in a manner that balanced sample sizes and course times as much as possible across the two groups. To keep the demonstration, in-class presentation, and instructor consistent across sections, the same instructor (the first author) taught all six sections (one of which was his course) on the first day the instructor scheduled social psychology to be covered.
About 12 min prior to class the instructor asked several (at least three or four) students who showed up early to class to stand outside in the hallway as an “experiment” to find out how other students would respond. The instructor left the lights on in the classroom, closed the door, instructed the students to talk with one another (to prevent the other students from asking questions), and went back to his office. The instructor waited until approximately 2 min prior to class time to return to the classroom. Upon seeing all of the students standing in the hallway, the instructor asked why they were all standing there. After students responded, he explained that the room was empty and invited them into the classroom. Once everyone was inside, the instructor pointed out that all the students had been standing out in the hallway when they could have been sitting comfortably in their seats in the classroom, he asked if anyone tried to open the door, and asked them to explain their behavior. The instructor then explained that he asked several students to stand in the hallway prior to class and indicated he would discuss concepts later that would help explain the behavior of those who waited in the hallway with the student confederates. 1
The instructor delivered his standard 40-min presentation about social psychology, including the topics of attribution, conformity, and obedience. While discussing conformity, he asked the students to write down two examples of how they have conformed recently. Students shared their responses with the class, and if nobody mentioned their conformity in the hallway, the instructor pointed it out. After defining and giving examples of normative social influence (e.g., conforming in order to be accepted by others) and informational social influence (e.g., conforming because others provide information about the correct behavior), the instructor asked the students which type of social influence their behavior in the hallway illustrated. Students in control sections of IP received the same in-class presentation, but it included examples of conformity other than the hallway example.
At the end of the class period, the instructor asked the students to complete a 7-item questionnaire. All items were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The questionnaire included 3 items concerning perceptions of their own tendency to conform (i.e., When I am unsure what to do in a social situation, I tend to conform to what others are doing; I am generally able to resist social pressures to conform to what others are doing; What other people are doing in a social situation influences my behavior in that situation) and 4 items concerning their perceptions of the “in-class lecture/discussion of conformity” (i.e., The in-class lecture/discussion increased my understanding of conformity; I thought the in-class lecture/discussion of conformity was interesting; The in-class lecture/discussion of conformity increased my awareness of how I conform to others’ behavior; I would recommend using the same in-class lecture/discussion in future introductory psychology courses). The demonstration sections’ questionnaire had four additional items that were nearly identical to the “in-class lecture/discussion” items, but they concerned the “before-class demonstration of conformity (i.e., standing in the hallway prior to class) and the related discussion of that demonstration in class.”
During the next class period (i.e., 2 days later), we gave students in all sections a five-question multiple choice quiz to assess their knowledge of conformity (each item had four response options). The quiz covered normative social influence, informational social influence, the definition of conformity, and classic research on conformity. On the quiz form, students also indicated whether they attended the previous class period.
Results
Because students’ ratings were highly correlated across the (a) 4 items related to the in-class lecture and discussion (Cronbach’s α = .84) and (b) 4 items related to the conformity demonstration and discussion (Cronbach’s α = .80), we averaged students’ responses across the 4 items to create an overall rating scale for each topic. Students’ responses to the 3 items concerning their perceptions of personal conformity were not highly correlated (after reverse scoring the second item, Cronbach’s α = .53), so we analyzed these items separately. We performed one-tailed tests for all analyses because we expected the conformity demonstration would have a positive effect on students’ ratings and quiz scores.
As shown in Table 1, students in the demonstration sections, compared to those in control sections, showed greater acknowledgment of their personal conformity. They were marginally more likely to agree that other people’s behavior influences their own; they were significantly more likely to agree that they conform to others when they are unsure what to do and less likely to agree that they are able to resist pressures to conform. Compared to those in the control sections, students in the demonstration sections also gave significantly higher ratings (i.e., of increased understanding, awareness, etc.) to the in-class lecture on and discussion of conformity. Finally, students in the demonstration sections rated the conformity demonstration itself very positively.
Mean Ratings of Conformity, In-Class Presentation, and Conformity Demonstration by Group.
Note. All p values reflect one-tailed tests. Mean ratings for in-class lecture and discussion and conformity demonstration and discussion reflect the mean of students’ average ratings across 4 scales for each topic.
A total of 140 students completed the quiz about conformity, but four students who were in the demonstration sections did not attend the demonstration class period; we excluded these students from further analysis. Because one control group section of IP (a) required students to take a brief online quiz over each chapter prior to the first day that chapter was covered in class and (b) contained 17 honors students, we also excluded them from this analysis (because we thought their higher level of before-demonstration preparation might bias the quiz results). The result was a final group of 104 students (demonstration condition: n = 68; control condition: n = 36). An independent measures t-test revealed that students in the demonstration sections (M = 3.24, SD = 1.08) scored much higher than those in the control sections (M = 2.72, SD = 1.14), t(102) = 2.26, p = .01, r 2 = .05. If we had counted this quiz toward students’ grades, demonstration section students’ average score would have been an average of 10 percentage points higher (one letter grade) than that of control section students. 2
Discussion
Our main goal for this demonstration was to increase students’ understanding that they are influenced by social pressures to conform in their daily lives. Thus, we were pleased that students in the demonstration sections, compared to control sections, indicated a higher level of agreement that (a) they conform to others when they are unsure what to do in a social situation and that (b) other people’s behavior influences their own behavior, and that they indicated a lower level of agreement with the statement that they are generally able to resist social pressures to conform.
The in-class presentation was identical in the demonstration and control sections of IP, except that the instructor mentioned the hallway demonstration as an example several times during the presentation in the demonstration sections (and used different examples in the control sections). Thus, we found it very interesting and encouraging that a relatively minor difference in the presentation resulted in students in the demonstration sections giving significantly higher ratings (compared to those in the control sections) to the in-class presentation. The quiz results provide evidence that students’ perceptions of increased understanding of conformity in the demonstration sections (compared to control sections) were veridical. 3
Overall, the results suggest that this conformity demonstration is an effective way to increase students’ recognition of their own conformity, appreciation of in-class presentations about conformity, and knowledge of conformity. Students’ ratings of the demonstration itself suggested they found it interesting and recommended it for use in future IP classes. An additional advantage of this demonstration is that it required no additional class time beyond what we normally devote to topics related to social psychology. Thus, although the effect sizes for our results were small, we believe students’ increased recognition of their own conformity and understanding of conformity concepts make this demonstration well worth the minimal time and effort it requires.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
We presented an earlier version of this article at the annual meeting of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology at the Midwestern Psychological Association (STP-MPA), Chicago, IL, May 2012.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.