Compliance, conformity and obedience: A comparison between each concept
Christine Boyle
Edith Cowan University
Abstract
This paper is a comparison between the similarities and differences of social influence concepts; compliance, conformity and obedience. These concepts use persuasion, group pressure, or power by an actual or implied presence of another person to influence the attitudes and behaviours of an individual. Compliance is a short-term superficial agreement with a request that occurs while under surveillance, whereas conformity is a long-term internalisation of group beliefs that occurs with or without surveillance. Obedience is the following of an authority figures direct command and like compliance, is dependent on proximity of the influencer, whereas conformity is a private acceptance of norms to validate an individual’s social identity. Each form of social influence allows an individual to appear more socially-acceptable, while also differentiating themselves from others.
Compliance, conformity and obedience: A comparison of each concept
Everyday social life is characterised by opinions, arguments and conflicts in which people attempt to change their attitudes or behaviours to be more socially-acceptable, while at the same time differentiating themselves from others so they appear unique and special (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). This process whereby the attitudes and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other people is called social influence and is achieved in three forms; compliance, conformity and obedience (Pronin, Berger & Molouki, 2007). These concepts use persuasion tactics, group pressure, power and sometimes fear or self-doubt within individuals to influence the behaviour or attitude of a person. They will be discussed later in this paper, along with Asch’s (1951) study of conformity and Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience (as cited in Friend, Rafferty & Bramel, 1990; Milgram, 1963; and Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Furthermore, a comparison of the similarities and differences between each concept will be examined.
The first form of social influence is compliance, a public and superficial change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in response to a request or group pressure (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). It occurs when an individual appears to comply with a request on the surface, as a result of their need for approval by another person that continues only when under surveillance (Bagozzi & Lee, 2002). Compliance is influenced by power relations, where the more power a person is perceived to have, the greater likelihood that compliance will occur. Also, it may be imposed by one of several persuasion tactics such as ingratiation, the reciprocity principle, a foot-in-the-door or a door-in-the-face tactic that yield compliance from either direct or indirect pressure, but don’t necessarily persuade the person in a genuine manner. A few of these are described below (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
Firstly, ingratiation is an impression management tactic used to get someone to like you so they will be more willing to comply with a request. It uses the effects of flattery, for example, the subtle form of remembering a person’s name in a social setting, to build up their self-esteem (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Also, it attempts to portray greater similarity between the influencer and the person being asked a request, based on perceived superficial matches such as birthdays, favourite music, same taste in fashion and so on, to make the person feel they have a new potential friend, inspiring them to comply with the request to gain the approval of the influencer and to be liked back (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
Secondly, the reciprocity principle is a tactic based on the rule that people should repay others for what they have received from them. This rule is so deeply ingrained in individuals due to socialisation that it powerfully leads behaviour in both public and private settings (Cialdini& Goldstein, 2004). For example, if a person helps a friend to move house then the friend will feel obliged to return the favour at a later date, such as buying the friend drinks at the pub. This form of social influence helps people to build trust with others and create equality in their relationships (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
Thirdly, is the door-in-the-face tactic that provokes compliance of a request by setting a person up for a desired goal and is done by firstly asking them a large request that is likely to be declined, so that a smaller request can be proposed and more likely to be accepted (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). The person being influenced feels relieved when the second request is put forward, as it should be easier to complete than the first one. Additionally, after the first request is rejected, the person may feel guilty and obliged to accept the second request, thus increasing compliance, so they don’t appear selfish or socially unreasonable (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
The second form of social influence is conformity, a private internalisation and long-term change in behaviour and attitudes, due to pressure to adhere to group norms (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). It is based on an individual’s subjective validity of the group, where if they agree with the consensus of the group then they are likely to change their own beliefs, expectations or behaviour to match or imitate those of the group (Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini & Kenrick, 2006).
Individuals may conform to increase their self-esteem in ambiguous situations where they accept information from others as evidence of reality, or they may seek social approval or avoid disapproval. Also, people tend to conform in certain situations only, implying that conformity is dependent on situational factors, such as culture, gender, group size and many others (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). For example, in groups of organised crime if a member disagrees with an action performed by the group, they are likely to still conform with group norms, including keeping a code of silence and hiding evidence of illegal activities from the authorities. The member may feel pressured by the group to remain silent, and chooses to conform because they fear rejection or ridicule from the group and the possibility of being punished. Therefore, they continue to imitate the behaviours and attitudes of the group.
Furthermore, individuals tend to conform more when under surveillance, but may also continue in the absence of an audience (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). For example, a child may actively participate in class discussions to appear smart in front of their friends, but if all their friends were absent from class one day, attending a sports carnival while the child was left behind with other students, they may continue to actively answer the teachers questions in class, because they believe it is socially-appropriate to participate.
Another example of conformity is Asch’s (1951) study where groups of participants were instructed to match the length of a given line with one of three other lines (of differing lengths, where only one matched the given) and were ordered to come to a unanimous decision as a group (as cited in Friend et al., 1990; and Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Each group consisted of one subject who was naive to the procedure, as well as other participants acting as confederates, who were instructed prior to the study to purposively make incorrect responses (Friend et al., 1990). The results found that 63% of responses by the subject were correct and independent of the group, but 37% were yielded in the direction of the incorrect majority. It was believed this occurred because the subject felt pressured sometimes to disregard their own perceptions and conform to the group, by choosing answers that seemed correct and that they began believing were actually correct (Friend et al., 1990). The subject also turned to other participants for confirmation of responses, demonstrating that the confederates were a frame of reference, used by the individual to either seek rewards and recognition of accuracy or to avoid public disapproval (Friend et al., 1990; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
As discussed above, there are various differences and similarities between the compliance and conformity concepts. For example, compliance involves a short-term superficial behaviour by an individual in response to a request or group pressure that occurs on the surface only when under surveillance. This suggests that even if a person disagrees with a request, they may still comply due to social norms that may influence positive self-presentation in the public light, or rules of being open and kind to others (Bagozzi & Lee, 2002; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Whereas conformity is a long-term genuine behaviour by an individual in response to group pressure, that occurs with or without surveillance and does not require a request to be made. It results in an inward change of beliefs and an outward change of behaviour and expressed attitudes, where compliance only results in the latter (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Therefore, conformant behaviour is a private and internal validation of group norms, where the individual agrees with the consensus of the group, or finds the group desirable, so continues to imitate the behaviours of the group. Unlike compliance that does not require the individual to agree with the request made and does not involve internalisation of the other person or group beliefs (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Griskevicius et al., 2006; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
In addition, both conformity and compliance can result in self-presentation. With conformity, an individual seeks approval or reinforcement of their beliefs and behaviours, to appear socially-acceptable by the group’s standards. So that if the group disapproves, then the individual could go about a long-term change to match or imitate the presentation of the group (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Whereas with compliance, an individual will not feel pressured or influenced to change themselves permanently to be more like that of others. Rather they will be persuaded to feel they are socially responsible for acting in an appropriate way temporarily and when the obligation of the request has been fulfilled, the need to comply disappears (Bagozzi & Lee, 2002; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). It is apparent that compliance is associated with power relations, while conformity does not because it involves a subjective validation of social norms. Therefore, compliance will be an external and public behaviour only and conformity will be a private justification of behaviour that may increase when there’s a public audience (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). Also, irrespective of which concept is enforced, they will both contribute positively to the social norms of society that ensure people can live in harmony.
There is a third form of social influence known as obedience, that is the internalised prepositioning of ethics, sympathy and moral conduct that influences a person to blindly follow the orders of individuals or groups that are or appear to be in a position of authority (Milgram, 1963; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Obedience may be affected by the proximity and legitimacy of the authority figure, the proximity of a victim (if there is one) and by the degree of support for either obedience or disobedience socially and culturally (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). For example, if a man wearing a police uniform asked a shop assistant to hand over all the cash in the safe due to security concerns in the building, many individuals would believe the command to be valid and the person to be a legitimate authority figure. Therefore, they would follow the orders given without question which shows the overriding prepositioning within individuals that authority figures should be trusted (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
Another example is Milgram’s (1963) study, where a naive participant was instructed to act as a teacher in a word pairs test, administering increasingly intense electric shocks to a learner if an incorrect response (pairing) was given. The teacher was ordered to administer the shocks to the learner, via a simulated shock generator that ranged from 15 to 450 volts. The learner was a trained confederate instructed to give standardised responses, whilst being in a separate room (Milgram, 1963; and as cited in Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). The results found that only 12% of participants refused to complete the experiment all the way through to 450 volts, despite an earlier prediction of 97% of participants falling into this category. Also, 65% of participants went through to the end and obeyed the experimenter’s commands to finish the experiment, despite displaying fears of continuing at various stages (Milgram, 1963). This indicated that the participants knew it was immoral to harm another person, but disregarded this belief and blindly followed the commands of the authority figure because they believed they had to (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Furthermore, in repetitions of this study, participants who were in close proximity to the victim when administering the shocks were more likely to disobey orders and withdraw from the experiment. This suggests that proximity allows a person to identify with the victim and enhances their feelings of harm actually being inflicted, thus reducing obedience (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
Obedience is very similar to compliance, in that they are both public displays of socially-approved behaviour, except that obedience is more specific to an actual or perceived authority figure, rather than any individual trying to influence an outcome (Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Also, both concepts use forms of power relations to influence individuals and must have the influencing person or authority figure in close proximity, whereas conformity uses the private validation of group norms to influence a person and does not need a perceived powerful person close by to elicit a response, although it may increase the success of being influenced (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Additionally, people may be obedient to authority for self presentation purposes, so they appear to act as they believe they should in the eyes of the authority figure. This is similar to compliance and conformity that uses self presentation for a different purpose, such as compliance does so that the individual appears to behave socially-acceptable, where conformity does so that the individual can validate their social identity as a member of a group (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
In conclusion, each of the concepts, compliance, conformity and obedience use some form of persuasion, group pressure or power to influence the behaviour or attitude of a person. Compliance is a short-term superficial agreement with a request that occurs while under surveillance, whereas conformity is a long-term internalisation of group beliefs that occurs with or without surveillance (Bagozzi & Lee, 2002; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Griskevicius et al., 2006; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008). Obedience is the following of an authority figures direct command and like compliance is dependent on proximity of the influencer, whereas conformity is a private acceptance of norms to validate an individual’s social identity (Milgram, 1963; Vaughan & Hogg, 2008).
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