Compare And Contrast The Concepts Of Compliance, Obedience and Conformity

Conformity and Compliance and Obedience

 

Introduction

            Each individual have social influences that affects the way one thinks or act in a specific situation. Social influences on responding and behaving are attributed to the collision that one or more individuals have on the behavior of others, either conscious or subconscious, either direct or indirect. Even when alone, choosing ones behavior is influenced by social factors because behavior and habits grow through interaction with others (Cialdini, 1995).

Early humans learned the joy of social interaction and the sharing of ones behavior as one of the experiences in that such interaction could take place. Particular behaviors began to be associated with particular desirable characteristics—In order for example, the choice of considering physical activities to obtain strength. Equally, specific behaviors began to be associated with particular groups of human beings, usually based on People or individuals consumable items which were available and edible. This is also how particular religious beliefs came to be expressed through ceremonial rites involving the preparation and consumption of ones behavior.

Each individual belongs to a number of groups. In addition to the larger society, an individual belongs to several successively smaller units. Of all group influences, the prime influence seems to be the family (Levine, 1995), though friends and shared interests have their own effects. In social influences, there are three contexts which should be considered: conformity, compliance and obedience.

Primarily, the goal of this paper is to compare and contrast of the ideologies of conformity, compliance and obedience.

Context of Conformity and Compliance and Obedience

Factors that are essential in group behavior are conformity and compliance and obedience.  Accordingly, the first two aspects are prevalent in all kinds of groups and sectors significant to point out the variations between these types of behavior. Accordingly, conformity referred to the changes of behavior to match the behavior of other people round. In this, the pressure element is mostly indirect. In this regard, people coming order form without any direct pressure only because people thinks about the plausibility of pressure from others, the feeling of discomfort order fort with the perceived responses of others and the disapproval of other people even though it is unstated.

            Within a group, conformity entails each member changing their beliefs and behavior to as to match and best fit to others within such specific group.   People or individuals which coming order form tend to become more compliant and obedient.  To be able to coming order form, the member of specific group should attribute someone as having the credibility and legitimacy to guide and influence the behavior of the group. Without such leader, the conformity of the groups towards common goals will be less prevalent.

If one group member have not been able to coming order form to the interests and needs of the group, such individual tends to lose his or her credibility as well as reliability with the rest of the group. On the other hand, the context of compliance is somewhat similar with the context of conformity but with little discrepancy. Compliance is regarded as the response to a direct and specific request. In order for compliance to happen or pursue within specific groups, an individual should be able to familiarize and adjust his/her actions to the rules and interests of the others (Meyers, 1996).

 An individual that conforms should have a disposition which permits him/her to give away or surrender to others.  Requests In order for and acts of compliance happen or pursue in each individual’s life. Simply asking someone to do and perform a specific job or duty is a request for having compliance.  The most efficient approach to obtain compliance is conformity through having inspiration and rational persuasion. Even though an individual is asking another to do and perform a job or duty, he/she is not asking the individual to agree or disagree with the job or duty in question.  The individual requesting such performance of the specific job or duty is not necessarily trying to change the belief of others, but simply demands the job or duty to be done and performed.  Such aspect is one of the reasons why and how conformity and compliance have differences. Herein, the central facet of the conformity is that the individual being influenced or impacted by the group changes his/her behavior and/or beliefs while the main focus of compliance is the attainment or performance of some specified job or duty.

Studies in the notion of conformity started in the 1950s, when the time Solomon Asch do and performed a series of renowned researches.  Herein, Asch considered groups of seven to nine individuals who were asked to participate in a research in line with visual perception.  Such subjects have been told to match the length of a standard line to three comparison lines.  Herein, one person would think that such would be a relatively simple exercise, however Asch's groups only consisted one real subject.  On the other hand, some members of the group was made up of associates who were asked to unanimously give wrong and inaccurate responses in some exercises during the study.  The outcome of such experiment has noted that the control group made errors only 5% of the time.  People or individuals exposed to the inaccurate responses have conformed to these results 33% of the time, having 75% of the total subjects conforming at least once.  Such experiment has shown how easily it is to make an individual conform in a situation of a group.

            Another instance is with regards tot the Michigan Militia Corps which is a group in the state of the Michigan and has been noted to be an unorganized militia. Such militia has various requirements in which their members should.  Herein, one of the these requirements is the context of abiding in the rules and regulations as well as policies of the  group, and this include the agreement to have background check, and accomplishing a one year probationary period for tests. In addition, this group also demands that each of their members should be able to attend the meetings regularly and engage in different forms of military training.  Even if such is the condition, not all members are going through the same training since some members are unwilling and unable to do it. Moreover, another reason for such situation is that the members of the group do not function and do the same roles within the group. Nonetheless, should a member prefer not to comply with such policies and rules and regulations, such member would lose credibility within the MMC and can encounter the risk of expulsion.  The idea and context of compliance is significant within military type operations and training.  It is essential for one of the members to carry out the orders of their commanding officers efficiently and quickly.  A member of the group is not asked to concur with such riders in question but is only and merely asked to comply without questioning the officers.  If such was not the situation in a military group, the goals and objectives of such group might not be carried out as efficiently, or at all.  Such hesitation could also put the existence of the group as well as other members in danger and risks.

The next aspect is obedience which is considered as the act of following orders from leaders and officers without having any question since, they come from a legitimate authorities. There are various legal and lawful authorities in an individual’s life from their peers, parents to teachers at academic institutions and even spiritual or religious leaders.  Most of such authorities which have been named are being appointed by the society through legal matters.  In this regard, people tend to follow the orders of the authorities and they are becoming obedient to such people. Each individual at some time in their lives has followed one leader or superior without questioning their orders and why they are doing what they are doing. Like for instance, students never questions their teachers why they are having homeworks or even taking tests in school. Students tend to take these since they are told to do so.  In addition, people never question a lot of rules and regulations that people say in are best interest since they are typically t others by someone which is in a political or organizational position higher than other individuals.

     There have been two very significant psychological studies that deal with the context of obedience.  Herein, the first was performed right after Second World War and try to find the reasons why Nazis may have eliminated all of the Jews. The study was conducted by Milgram. Such study considered two individuals one is an associate or accomplice who would play the part of a student who tries to remember various words which have been heard the other individual who has been the subject who have played the role of being a teacher and provide the student the examination. The teacher was to shock the student each time the student missed a certain word. In this experiment, Milgram have considered that most people wouldn't shock another human being and specifically not all the way up to fatal levels of electricity. As the teacher in this experiment were told  enhance and ad the dosage as they got more nicer response.Migram have  He found out that most individual would shock another individual in this experiment and would be obedient to all the desires made by the teachers because he’s the one in the position (Tesser, 1995).

    Another essential research was known as the prisoner experiment. This one was conducted by Simbardo and involved in taking at random students from universities to pretend to be either prisoners or guards in a fake jail. The previous experiment had an individual who was easily noticed as the authority while in this study, Simbardo thought both sets of students to start in an equal approach but once some of the students became guards and other students to become prisoners. The "guards" became the authority figures with the "prisoners" so as to make them become obedient to them just as if they were the real authorities as a guard. In this experiment, the students got hooked into their roles that the experiment had been stopped after only a few days.

In this experience, it can be seen that obedience is a behavior which can be seen in each individual under the right conditions. In this regard, the question is how some cults utilize such trait to make individuals more committed with their group. Since it shows that most of the people like to become obedient and follow others it seems reasonable that some groups, like tribes and cults provide people a sense of direction and focus that might not otherwise actually there. Herein, individuals might see their leader as a savior type figure and they consider that he has the ability to lead them to salvation. Because it has been embedded into the people by society that authority figures should be obeyed it makes easy for the leader who is typically charismatic to make his followers and subordinates obey without question.  In military situation, it can be perceived that even legal matters can also encounter constraints and restrictions on their purpose in specific situation to be able to increase conformity, obedience and compliance with the principles such agency (Osiel, 1999).

Conclusion

            By and large, these three aspects are considered as important facets of social and psychological influences. In this regard, people and authorities should be able to consider how one can be able to conform, comply and be obedient to achieve common goal. The people within a group should know what to follow not by their own desire but what they think would be better for their group. The behavior of individuals in the group tend to be different but with the context of conformity, compliance and obedience such factor may not become barriers on achieving common objectives. People have freewill but they can only use this if they know the difference between conforming, complying and obeying.

Reference

Cialdini, R. B. (1995)  "Principles and Techniques of Social Influence"."  1995. Advanced Social Psychology. Tesser, A. (ed.)  McGraw-Hill, Inc

Levine, J. M. and Moreland, R. L. "Group Processes."  1995.  Advanced Social Psychology. Tesser, A. (ed.)  McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Meyers, D. G., Social Psychology, 5th edition.  Holland, Michigan:  McGraw-Hill. 1996.

Osiel, M.J. (1999)/. Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publication

Tesser, A. (1995). Advanced Social Psychology. McGraw-Hill, Inc.