Nonconformism
In addition to people who approve of the norms of the group or treat them conformally, there are also people who are ready to resist the pressure of the group; they are called nonconformists. There are two main types of nonconformists: aggressive and creative. Aggressive nonconformists oppose almost all of the group's proposals. They are guided by a complex of superiority or inferiority and hostility.
Creative nonconformists resist the tendencies of “equalization” in the group. The original proposals of such a person can pose a problem for the group leader, who sometimes incorrectly interprets the initiative of a creative nonconformist as a threat to his own position or position in the group.
The phenomenon of group pressure
The presence of group members affects each of them differently. This is reflected in various phenomena that are established in social psychology: social facilitation, social inhibition, Ringelmann phenomenon, social loafing, risk shift, group polarization, group spirit, group pressure.
A number of phenomena relate to the effectiveness of group activities. The phenomenon of social facilitation is the encouragement of a person to perform better simple or familiar tasks in the presence of others; social inhibition - deterioration in the performance of such actions in the presence of others. It was found that the presence of others has a positive effect on the quantitative characteristics of activity and a negative effect on the qualitative ones.
According to the Ringelmann phenomenon, the efficiency of each group member depends on the size of the group and decreases as its size increases. An inverse relationship was also discovered between the attractiveness of a group for its members and its size: the larger the group, the less attractive it is for group members. The phenomenon of social laziness: people make less effort if their efforts are combined for a common goal than in the case of individual responsibility. However, if group members are friends, they mess around less.
A number of phenomena concern decisions made by a small group. Risk shift phenomenon: decisions made by a group are riskier than individual decisions. The phenomenon of group polarization: after discussion, the views of individual group members converge and strengthen the average tendency regarding the decision made. The phenomenon of group spirit: the obviously correct decision is sacrificed for the unanimity of the group.
Group members become intellectually insensitive to other views, in particular to opponents, and any alternative information is blocked. The most important factors in the formation of this phenomenon are a pronounced sense of “we,” high group cohesion, isolation of the group from an alternative source of information, and disapproval of the individual views of group members. In this case, the group becomes a victim of its cohesion. This often causes wrong decisions, particularly in politics.
Other types of intelligence
There are many different types of intelligence. The IQ test only measures innate intelligence (and there are many questions about its accuracy).
However, there are many other forms of intelligence, including:
Natural (understanding of nature).
Musical (understanding sounds).
Logical-mathematical (understanding of numbers and logical train of thought).
Existential (understanding of life).
Interpersonal (understanding emotions).
Bodily-kinesthetic (good physiological skills).
Linguistic (good skills in using words).
Personal (awareness of one’s own self).
Spatial (reasonable understanding of space, symbols, composition, etc.).
Factors influencing the development of conformity
There are factors due to which a completely independent, independent and spiritually strong person with the makings of a leader can back down and abandon his point of view. Thanks to them, it becomes possible to anticipate and predict the development of events in the group
Which is sometimes very important, especially if it is related to business
So, the factors influencing the desire to adapt and “merge” with the majority:
- Age and gender. It is believed that women and children are more prone to conforming behavior than men.
- Significance of information. The more valuable and closer to a person any material is, the more fiercely he will defend it.
- Status and authority. It has been observed that the higher the status of those who speak out, even if incorrectly, the majority will still accept their position, even if they doubt it. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the minority to win. And it put pressure on people whose numbers outnumbered them many times over.
- Number of like-minded people. The more there are, the more difficult it is to resist.
Information theory of conformity by Mr. Gerard and Mr. Deutsch. The influence of the majority and the minority.
Conformity must be considered in the context of a more general theory concerning the consequences of a person's information seeking in situations where he evaluates his behavior on the basis of its correlation with others. Such a comparison is necessary in order to reduce the uncertainty of one’s behavior in a situation. A person has to not only compare himself with others, but also compare his interpretations of the situation with the interpretations of others. Comparing two interpretations is especially meaningful when majority and minority interpretations collide. This has a lot to do with breaking social consensus: it can be interpreted as turning minority views into majority views.
In this theory, two types of group influence were identified: normative (when pressure is exerted by the majority and his opinion is perceived by a group member as the norm) and informational (when pressure is exerted by a minority and a group member views his opinion only as information on the basis of which he must carry out his own choice. The mechanism of influence in both cases is different: the majority in the full sense puts pressure on the minority with a norm, subordinating the opinion of the individual. At the same time, he changes his behavior, demonstrating agreement, remaining internally with his opinion (external conformism). The minority only suggests new information to the individual if the individual trusts her, then changes his opinion, i.e., as if his conversion occurs, the adoption of a new point of view (internal conformism).From the point of view of the formation of a group, the mechanism of social influence acts as pressure from the group, which obeys its norm.
Experiment by S. Moscovici:
Two groups of subjects are shown slides that depict the color blue. In an experimental group of 6 people, 2 of the experimenter’s confederates claim that the color is green; they are a minority that influences the position of the majority. 8.4% agreed that the color on the screen was green, and when the color scheme changed (a smooth transition from blue to green), they more often recorded the appearance of green earlier than subjects in the control group.
Moscovici's conclusion: the minority will be able to win with its influence and turn its position into the norm (transforming informational influence into normative), but for this it is necessary to comply with several conditions for the behavior of the minority: stability of the position, confidence in demonstrating it, argumentation in defending the information presented. In a situation of conflict between the opinion of an individual and the opinion of the majority, it is not agreement as such that is imposed, but a demonstration of agreement, but the effect comes faster. When resolving a conflict between an individual and a minority, on the part of the minority there is, as it were, an invitation to reflection by providing information, to search for something new. Moscovici suggested that all innovations in society should be expected from the minority rather than from the majority.
Examples of conformity
The first experiment that demonstrated the phenomenon of conformity was conducted by the American psychologist S. Asch (1951). A group of students (7-9 people) was asked to compare the lengths of the segments. Everyone was given two cards: in the right and left hand. In the left hand, the card showed one segment; on the right - three, of which one is equal in length to the segment on the left card. The other two were shorter and longer. The subjects had to determine which of the segments on the right card was the same length as the segment on the left.
In the first part of the experiment, during individual execution, the problems were solved correctly. In the second part of the experiment, a so-called “dummy group” was formed. The experimenter agreed in advance with all participants except one (“naive subject”) that they would answer incorrectly. The survey began with this “dummy group.” The results of the answers of such “naive subjects” were different, but more than a third (37%) accepted the view imposed by the majority, demonstrating a reluctance to defend their own view in conditions where it did not coincide with the opinion of other participants in the experiment. This proved the existence of conformism.
