Obedience: psychological mechanisms and behavioral patterns

¶ … Psychology of Conformity and Obedience

Conformity and Obedience:

All human societies maintain social and behavioral norms, expectations, and mores, although the specific value or connotations of various behaviors varies tremendously among different societies. The ordinary process of human socialization invariably generates large-scale social conformity to predominant social values and behaviors despite considerable flexibility (in many societies) for individuality and self-expression. To a great degree, socialization occurs completely without our awareness, particularly during infancy and childhood when we absorb fundamental social concepts.

Obedience is a more explicit or conscious phenomenon that implies a purposeful choice to submit to the authority of another or to conform one's behavior to the directions or wishes of a superior individual (or a larger entity). To a large degree, obedience is also a natural phenomenon that shapes our social behavior, because it plays an important role in our family-of-origin (and other formational) social relationships and experiences.

While that is generally true of all human (and many nonhuman) societies, particular human cultures may also regard obedience to authority as a specific moral or social value with an inherent significance. Throughout human history, dictatorships and other fanatical governmental authorities have exploited both the socialization process and the power of obedience to authority among the masses. More recently, several landmark psychological experiments and national events have illustrated the negative potential of social conformity and obedience.

Classical Study of Group Influence on the Individual:

In the early 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch (1907-1996) demonstrated the power of group influence and the susceptibility of the individual to blind conformity. Asch's experiments involved subjects within groups of confederates all of whom agreed unanimously on an obviously wrong answer, such as the comparative lengths of two lines depicted in a drawing. Those experiments revealed that many subjects will change their answer and support the group's consensus instead of maintaining their original position without being influenced by the group (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

It is thought that various factors determine whether or not (or to what degree) different people are susceptible to group influence. Generally, the size of the group, its degree of unanimity, its relative social status, and variation in aspects of individual psychology in the realm of self-esteem and confidence all contribute to the power of the group to influence the individual in specific cases (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

In 1970, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo conducted the (now) famous Stanford Prison Experiment in which psychology study volunteers were randomly assigned to be prisoners or prison guards in a simulated prison facility created for the experiment. Without any direction from Zimbardo, the guard group followed the lead of the most dominant individuals and the individual guards became so abusive to their fellow classmates playing the roles of prisoners that Zimbardo had to stop the experiment barely halfway through its scheduled two-week run. Subsequently, individuals from both groups of guards and prisoners required psychological counselling about their experiences. Some of the guards in particular suffered from the behavior that they expressed during the experiment (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

Contemporary Example of Group Influence on the Individual:

The revelation that members of the American Armed Forces stationed at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq had engaged in systematic abuse and torture of prisoners of war is one of the most recent and significant reminders of the detrimental effect of the phenomena of groupthink, conformity, and blind obedience to authority. In many ways, it demonstrated a natural occurrence of the experimental results produced by Zimbardo at Stanford almost four decades earlier (Zimbardo, 2004).

In highly-publicized criminal offenses and violations of international law, American servicemen in charge of the Abu Ghraib facility abused Iraqi prisoners by terrorizing them with military service dogs and the threat of electrical shocks. They also purposely humiliated them by dragging them around naked, forcing them to simulate homosexuality, and by various other degrading acts specifically intended to disgrace their religious beliefs and cultural values. In some cases, abusive conduct and other violations were precipitated by orders such as in connection with interrogating prisoners to recover usable military intelligence. However, in many other cases (such as those depicted in the photographs that appeared throughout the global media), the abuse represented loss of personal responsibility and moral judgment by virtue of the phenomena of conformity and groupthink.

In a much more benign way, social conformity is apparent throughout American society in clothing styles, the perpetual wave of social trends, and (of course) the tremendous reliance on commercial advertisement for profit. In principle, commercial advertising and paid celebrity endorsements produce a form of social conformity that is financially beneficial to product manufacturers.

More specifically, advertising is most often deigned to stimulate conformity through informational influence ("If the product worked so well for others and for a famous authority on the subject, it will work for me"); or it is designed to exploit normative influences (the desire to have things that others respect and admire or to emulate a famous individual associated with the product).

Individual and Societal Influences Leading to Deviance from Group Norms:

Individuals who conform to many societal expectations while violating others on a case-by-case basis because of specific differences in their personal beliefs or values are passive nonconformists. They experience no compulsion to violate social expectations as a statement or demonstration of their independence; they seek no attention (whether positive or negative) for displaying purposeful defiance of social norms.

To the passive nonconformist, conflict over their rejection of social norms is a price of independence, not a pretense for expressing anger or resentment toward society. Examples of passive nonconformity would include a respected college professor who enjoys smoking marijuana in the privacy of his home despite its illegal nature that violates established societal norms. Generally, the passive nonconformist makes no attempt to publicize or draw attention to his nonconformity (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).