1. Why do people conform?

2. A teacher has asked a question of the class
A teacher has asked a question of the class. You know the answer, but no one else has put their hand up. Despite the fact that you know you are right do you give the answer or not?
Always a good starter to see example in action!
Fear of being wrong or fear of being laughed at?

3. You are driving down the motorway
You are driving down the motorway. The speed limit changes from 70 to 50 as you enter an area with road works. The cars around you do not seem to be slowing down at all. Do you keep the same speed as them or slow down?
Does it matter if there is a speed camera? Link to obedience

4. You arrive at you classroom late and the teacher has not yet turned up yet. She may be late or she may be absent today. Most of the class get up and leave, do you follow them?

5. You are walking down the street
You are walking down the street. A man is stumbling around in front of you, then collapses on the pavement. The street is crowded and nobody stops to help him. Do you do the same?
Link to bystander behaviour and how research sometimes shows we do things we think we wouldn’t.
How about if you were a doc/nurse? If you recognised him? If he looked like a homeless man?

6. You are a junior member of a company who has been invited to a meeting
You are a junior member of a company who has been invited to a meeting. A suggestion is made, which you think is stupid, but everyone else seems to agree and think it is a good idea. Do you point out their mistake or keep quiet?
What might the consequences of keeping quiet be? Link to whistleblowers

7. You are a white American during the apartheid travelling on a train
You are a white American during the apartheid travelling on a train. You are desperately tired and want to sit down to ease the pain in your legs. The only seats available are in the Coloureds Only carriage. Where do you go?
Who would judge you?
What if the situation was reversed and you were black?
If you lived there versus visiting?

8. You go to a lecture. When you arrive outside, you are unsure what you should be doing but you notice a group of people filing through a side door. Do you join the back of the group and do what they do?
What do you assume about everyone else?

9. You live in Nazi Germany
You live in Nazi Germany. You are walking home with a group of friends when you come across a group of Germans beating up two Jewish men. They say that the Jewish men cheated them out of money, and you think that this is probably true. Do you walk away?
Highlight issues of historical and cultural significance – link to obedience and propaganda

10. Conformity (Majority Influence)
DEFINITION
‘Conformity is the tendency to change
what we do, think or say in response
to the influence of real or imagined
pressure from a majority group’.
What are the key parts of this definition? Give examples.
Behaviour includes things we think and say as well as what we do
Pressure can be imagined – eg peer pressure (unlike obedience)
Majority group – not in hierarchy, these are peers

11. Kelman (1958) There are different types of conformity: Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
Shallow Level
Don’t need to know about identification! Not on 2014 spec
Deep Level

12. Compliance Conforms publicly Disagrees privately Shallow
A person might laugh at the joke that others are laughing at while privately not finding it very funny

13. Identification Conforms publicly Conforms privately
a sense of group membership
temporary
A person might support a new football team every time they move to a new town

14. Internalisation Conform publicly Conform privately
Internalised and accepted the views
deepest
A person may become a vegetarian after sharing a flat with a group of vegetarians at university