Conformity and Deviation, Essay Example

John and Susan Darley present an interesting set of assessments and definitions of the title elements of their study, Conformity and Deviation.  To begin with, the authors are careful to construct and maintain a clear and understandable trajectory of analysis; they appeal to the lay reader as well as to the serious student of psychology, and their reasoning is invariably clear and sound.  Then, the Darleys are successful in terms of addressing many of the complexities not immediately apparent or associated with the subjects.  They “break down” generalizations and, largely through citing experiments and results, explore multiple aspects of both conformity and deviation.  What they fail to do, however, is examine the seemingly critical causal agents of both.  These are in fact presented as understood, when their impact so strongly goes to the actual generating of either compliance or deviant behavior.  Ultimately, while the Darleys provide and interesting and thorough analysis of the conformity and deviation, it is thorough only up to a point, and the study suffers from a lack of attention as to the motivations or driving forces behind the key behaviors.

Critique

John and Susan Darley set the tone for their study with the opening statement: “Conformity is bad” (1973,  p. 1).  The irony or sarcasm is blatant, as is the impression that the reader will be appealed to in a conversational and somewhat casual way.  The effect is successful, just as the opening commands the readers attention by, not merely expressing standardized ideas of conformity and deviation, but also by more rationally offering the basic reasoning behind the generalizations.  Even more effective than this – and perhaps the most compelling part of the study as a whole – is how the authors then investigate the essential validity of the generalizations and expose them as completely inadequate.  This is done, not by delving into layers of meaning within the subjects, but by interestingly noting how such assessments are uniformly negative; that is to say, and generally speaking, both conformity and deviation are denounced, even as the nature of each wholly contradicts the other.  As the Darleys correctly observe, then, these are value judgments which cannot be of help in understanding the real natures of the subjects.

Even here, however – and acknowledging space limitations of any such study – it seems interesting that the authors do not in any way pursue the reality behind this negativity.  The question is basic, particularly in light of how the subjects both go to mass thinking: why would any society that values compliance condemn conformity?  This suggests within the society a mistrust of its own, standardized behavior, and potentially a suppressed admiration for deviance beneath the condemnation also applied to it.  These are questions raised by the introduction, yet they are ignored by the authors, and the failure is regrettable.

Moving on, the study does hold to an interesting level as the authors break down components within conformity, and clarify how even conventions have dual meanings as both suspect and valued.  This then leads to a further inquiry exposing, as with conformity itself, the danger of attaching social weight to the inevitably shifting properties conventions themselves are, as in how beauty may be variously defined by differing generations and eras.  The example of how politicians are perceived is also effective in revealing that conventions rely on set assumptions held by the individual or group, and the term is then easily interpreted differently as a “convention” by others.  When, however, the authors employ the illustration of the man staggering on the street to examine how individual reaction conforms or deviates depending upon the responses of others present, there is a conspicuous lack of address as to, again, actual motive.  The Darleys observe here, as in the other experiments or scenarios they present, that such external responses invariably impact on the individual’s choice in the matter, but they neglect the seemingly critical factor of social risk.  They note the influence but they ignore why the responses have such influence, and this seems particularly important in a case where an individual may refrain from helping another in physical distress.  Certainly, some reference to the likely risk of incurring social disfavor by acting in a helpful way here would be appropriate.

This same focus on external effect as promoting conformity similarly – and strikingly – remains only “topical” elsewhere in the study.  The Darleys describe several fascinating experiments of Solomon Asch and others, and one conducted by either John or Susan Darley and Latane.  In one, white smoke pours into a room; when the subject is alone and filling out a form, there was a consistent reporting of the smoke to the receptionist outside of the room; when confederates were used and ignored the smoke, the subject was more likely to do the same: “These people had integrated the physical fact of the smoke with the social facts provided by the behavior of other people in the same situation and had decided that the smoke did not indicate danger” (p. 5).  The conclusion is sound.  Nonetheless,  there is no discussion of the extraordinary reality indicated by it, in that social pressure is such as to influence an individual to dismiss what is typically a very real sign of danger.

To the authors’ credit, the logic of their investigation is strong throughout, as they also follow one component with another generated by association.  For example, in discussing how individuals express compliance in various group settings, they note the important and pragmatic impetus of locomotion, as individuals perceive a need to accomplish the group’s objectives and thus are more prone to conform.  Then, the distinction between types of compliance within conforming, either of an internal change in viewpoint or only the surface effort to “go along” made, is valuable, if only in that dimensions is added to a behavior generally seen as lacking in it.  The attention paid to deviance is less here, but this is excusable in that deviance is implicitly present in the discussions of compliance.  The authors in fact turn their attention here to a more analytical assessment of dissonance theory as applied to social deviation and, not unexpectedly, employ a variety of hypothetical scenarios to illustrate varying degrees of dissonance.  Nonetheless, there remains only the attention to behaviors and influences, and a further conspicuous lack of notice to the issue of the nature of the influences.  The summary, moreover, reinforces this neglect in that, after all the many case studies,  observations, and logical extrapolations, the authors conclude only that deviant behavior is disconcerting when, as is usually the case, individuals are compelled to conform.  In a parallel with physics, deviation represents an unacceptable shift in the social order demanding response, a view that is, if valid, disappointing in an expert study of conformity and deviation.

Conclusion

It is unreasonable to dismiss the Darleys’ study as invalid or of suspect quality.  In compelling prose, the authors follow an interesting path through the many avenues of conformity and deviation they so correctly identify.  This identification, in fact, is the study’s strongest feature, as there is a consistent and important examination of exponential relationships and various facets of the primary subjects.  What is missing, however, is the equally important matter of what creates the power of the influences, beyond references to an acknowledged desire to conform as expressed by individuals and virtually required by society.  This in turn relates to a neglect of how and why conformity is simultaneously adhered to and condemned which, as noted earlier, would seem to indicate a general dissatisfaction with it.  The reader ultimately comes away from the study frustrated because, some interesting perspectives aside, John and Susan Darley do not sufficiently “deviate” from the surface aspects of their subjects.

References

Darley, John M., & Darley, Susan A.  (1973).  Conformity and Deviation.  Morristown: General Learning Press.