On the "How" and "Why" of the Social phenomenon of "Conformity"

“Traditional” Research on Conformity #

While the term “conformity” is present in psychology studies as early as in 1917 in Jastrow’s work: “The Psychology of Conviction”, explaining the term as “the dominant procedure by which uniformity is obtained […] as in the practical domain of customs and morals, it is a like-minded tendency to conformity” (Jastrow, 1917), the first experimental research on conformity is known to be Allport’s studies on the “J-Curve Hypothesis” (1935). In this study, Allport introduced a statistical model that calculated conforming behaviours of motorists stopping (or not stopping) at red lights. This hypothesis pointed out that there could be a mathematical ratio between non-conforming and conforming individuals to a specific stimulus. Allport’s hypothesis accepted a lot of constructive criticism from psychologists (Dudycha, 1937; Dickens & Solomon, 1938; Fearing & Krise, 1941; Zubin, 1943), furtherly testing and expanding the mathematical model, even introducing mathematical continuum to it (Allport’s initial take relied on discrete “degrees of conformity”).

Around the same time and in the studies of “norms”, the “Autokinetik Effect” experiment took place (Sherif, 1936). In this experiment, Sherif showed that people had the tendency to conform, allowing themselves to be influenced by others’ opinions, when given ambiguous tasks, forming a “norm”.

Probably the most well-known series of studies on social conformity are Solomon Asch’s experiment (1951), showing how a group’s nearly unanimous take on a subject can influence individual opinion, and the controversial Philip Zimbardo’s experiment (Craig et al., 1973), showing that non-violent individuals (refered to by the term “good apples”) can conduct abusive behaviours solely to conform with a “norm”.

Research on Neuroscience of Conformity #

In modern days, there is a rise in interest for conforming behaviour’s imprint to the brain itself. Brain-imaging technology has escaped the clinics and found its way in Psychology research labs, enabling scientists to perform “traditional” conformity experiments, such as confederate-driven conformity tasks, under the new eye of brain-imaging. With the first such experiment conducted by Berns et al. in 2005, more followed, such as Ultimatum Game (UG) experiments between subjects by Wei et al. (2013), as well as rich meta-studies in this field (Wu et al., 2016).

This new era of research has provided Psychology with a lot of interesting results, possibly linking conforming behaviours with systems already analyzed by the field, with the most prevalent one being the brain’s Reward System (Klucharev et al., 2009). Also, this new way of studying conformity unbinds scientists from studying answers of “when” we conform (“when given unclear instructions” - Sherif’s experiment, “when we feel social pressure” - Asch’s experiment, etc), but also “how” we conform - as in what happens in the brain when we do conform, and also “why” we conform - as in what makes the brain “want” to conform. The answers provided by brain-imaging studies to the “how” and “why” questions often reveal that there is little to none cognitive processes involved in these aspects of conformity, rendering the root causes of these findings transparent to the questionnaires, as the subjects can very well not even be actively aware of them.

“How” our brains conform? #

Berns et al. (2005) conducted a brain-imaging, confederate-assisted experiment using fMRI brain-imaging technique, asking the subjects to play a game of answering whether an image is a direct rotation of another image. Subjects performed the task at first without external stimuli and later they were also provided with the (often incorrect) judgement of another subject group, which could freely be taken into account for their judgement (the part of the experiment providing Computer judgements is not discussed here). All rounds of the experiment were monitored by the fMRI, both the ones where no external judgement was provided and the ones where there were external judgements.

Their findings could provide some ideas on why people conform, even without always actively noticing that they do. A concept, that was also suggested by Solomon Asch (Asch, 1952), is that the tendency to conform does effectively alter perception itself, and the above study showed evidence of exactly that. As Berns et al. (2005) put it: “We found evidence for modulation of the same visual cortical regions when participants were about to conform to the group”, which, simply put, means that “seeing” something with tendency to conform can differ from “seeing” something without having such tendency. This leads to the shocking idea that, when conformity is an option, our eyes might not be totally trusted. This result is repeated in different studies on neuropsychology of conformity and is more thorougly analized by Stallen and Sanfey (2015).

Yet, the fact that this tendency exists, affecting what we perceive, does not provide any clues on “why” there is such tendency, and how this tendency manifests in the brain.

“Why” our brains conform? #

As the subjects of the above experiment (Berns et al., 2005) performed monitored rounds of the task without external judgement, a benchmark of their brain activity for the task of mental image rotation was recorded. Such point of reference was proven useful when comparing with the benchmarks of the same task with external judgement added.

Specifically, an effect of “off-loading” was noticed, where the same task activated the responsible brain areas less, when external judgements were available. This provides us with some evidence that a brain can “take it easy” when asked for a solution of a cognitive task (image rotation, in the mentioned experiment), but also provided with an external judgement for that solution. This implies that relying on judgements of others, hence conforming, could save processing time, and thous energy, which is in line with what Kahneman (2003) suggests, in his “Psychology for Behavioral Economics”, is a good reason we fall for cognitive distortions - the brain’s tendency to save energy and deliver as “effortlessly” as possible. This could start explaining the tendency for conformity in a non-social way.

Another result of the same experiment (Berns et al., 2005), is that there is amygdalar activation when a subject is not conforming - as in “standing out” of the group. As put by Berns et al.: “The amygdala activation in our experiment was perhaps the clearest marker of the emotional load associated with standing up for one’s belief.”.

This finding opens the way for more holistic approaches on why we conform. “Feeling bad” due to amygdalar activation (Berns et al., 2005), engagement of the posterior Medial Frontal Cortex (pMFC) when disagreeing with other people (Wu et al., 2016), as well as conflict-related signal in Rostral Cingulate Zone (RCZ) and Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) (Klucharev et al., 2009) are all indicators that conforming behaviour can be interpreted as the outcome of the neural process called “prediction error”, that carries all the aforementioned characteristics and is found in Reinforcement Learning (Klucharev et al., 2009). The Reinforcement Learning account analyzes conforming behaviour as an adjustment, driven by punishment and reward, with “punishment” being the effects potentially caused by discrepancy from social norms, as in social marginalization and lack of acceptance, while “reward” being the effects potentially following conformity with the norm, which can mean acceptance by the peers and feeling of belonging.

Finally, the amygdalar activation and pMFC engagement when a person “stands out” from a group, seem to also support a different, non-behavioural take on conforming behaviours. It has been found by Izuma & Adolphs (2013), that such brain activity can also describe the brain’s need for “Cognitive Balance” (Heider, 1946), an approach heavily diverging from the Reinforcement Learning account. The “Cognitive Balance” theory suggests that non-conforming behaviours towards a favourable group, does create a cognitive inconsistency, that the mind tries to avoid, adjusting behaviour accordingly. As “Cognitive Balance” theory also takes ito account insentives towards different groups, it makes possible to explain non-conforming behaviours towards groups which are not “liked” by the individual.

Conclusion #

In this essay, a brief historical review was performed on the concept of conformity, familiarizing the reader with some of the research that has been conducted on the subject, including famous experiments and theories that have occured along the years. This is a meaningful process, that can help the reader understand why current research subjects are selected by the Psychologists, for further studying through the new means that this era has to offer.

Specifically, the brain-imaging technology is the new mean that helps testing the old, “traditional” and well-established theories on social conformity. Through this new tool, the scientists are able to explain both “how” and “why” our brains have the tendency for conforming behaviour in social groups, questions that could not be thoroughly answered in the past, without filling gaps with assumptions or worse - preoccupations.

Finally, with the help of Wu et al. (2016) thorough meta-review, exactly on the subject of neuropsychology of social conformity, it was possible to dive a bit deeper into “why” our brains conform, a debate, which even with today’s means, remains open.

References #