Don’t you want to be popular at work and participate in the life of the office and colleagues? Of course you do, because every person is a social being, and the desire to belong to a social group is deeply rooted in us. Each group exerts a certain pressure on us, conscious or unconscious. Let’s take a closer look at the “matching effect”!
- A trip to conformism
- Conformity in the 21st century: today more than ever!
- Conformity arises from the modern "society of fear"
- Professional Compliance: How Can Pressure from Others Affect Jobs?
- Group intelligence - what does it really mean?
- Conformity as an enemy of intellect: together you are dumber!
- Conformity Prevention - Appeal to Managers...
So correspondence describes the pressure that a group puts on a person. That person then consciously or unconsciously conforms to the group’s expectations. In principle, this is nothing more than a well-known pressure from others. There are two different forms of matching:
- Authority Pressure: Under it, pressure comes from one or more people in the group who have special power. In professional life, this position is often occupied by superiors (authority through hierarchy), employees with the most experience (authority through competence), or conspicuous narcissists who are perceived as charismatic individuals (natural authority). The pressure of authority is usually consciously perceived as pressure from the members of the group.
- Majority pressure: On the other hand, majority pressure is more subtle and often not even consciously perceived as pressure. Here adaptation to the majority occurs voluntarily, almost automatically. As social beings, humans naturally tend to fit into a group and, at least to some extent, adapt to their behavior. Therefore, the pressure of the majority does not necessarily stem from power, but rather from the natural instincts of man.
The effect of such pressure is based on the principle of reward and sanctions. Everyone who fits into a group is, in principle, rewarded with belonging and, as a result, recognition and social support. This is a basic human need. After all, for a long time a person could only survive in a social group. On the other hand, opponents of pressure are punished by exclusion from the group.
Undoubtedly, in the conditions of modern social security, a person can quite survive without social support. Our instincts, however, have not yet reached the appropriate level and are still at the level of a primitive man fleeing a saber-toothed tiger. To avoid sanction, people adjust their behavior, opinions, judgments, attitudes, and life norms, whether or not the imposed norms contradict or conform to their own beliefs. As numerous experiments and studies have shown, it is extremely difficult to evade coercion into submission to a person.
A trip to conformism
The topic of conformism has long been of concern to scientists, because throughout history, conformism has shown itself from the most ugly side several times – just remember the Third Reich. For this reason, scientists have conducted countless exciting, and sometimes controversial, experiments to study social pressure:
Experiment 1: Muzaffer Zerif’s Information Social Influence Experiment, 1935
One of the earliest known experiments on conforming behavior was carried out in 1935 by Muzaffer Serif, a Turkish social psychologist. The means to achieve the goal was the so-called autokinetic effect, the illusion of the movement of luminous points in the dark. The subjects in the experiment had to evaluate the degree of movement of such light points in individual or group sessions. The conclusion will not be unexpected: the results of the groups showed clear differences from the results of individuals.
Experiment 2: Milgram experiment, 1961
Psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to investigate this effect more closely and conducted the famous Milgram experiment, which to this day makes headlines around the world for its cruelty and is part of the standard syllabus of many courses.
The experimental setup was simple: the subject acted as a teacher and gave the “student”, who was actually an actor, various tasks to make pairs of words. If a student answered incorrectly, the teacher would press the appropriate button, which allegedly shocked the student with an electric shock. The actor, who, of course, did not receive any electric shocks, acted out increasing pain and even begged to stop the experiment. The experimenter asked the teacher to continue and also assured him that he would take full responsibility for the experiment.
Experiment 3: Stanford prison experiment in 1971.
The world-famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which was carried out in 1971 by Curtis Banks, Philip Zimbardo, and Craig Haney at the Stanford University of the same name, is also considered a milestone in science. The experiment involved 24 students without psychological or other abnormalities, who were randomly divided into two different groups: prisoners and guards.
After signing a waiver of their rights, the prisoners were publicly arrested and held in a total of three prison cells in a realistic simulation. Guards armed with rubber truncheons were instructed to use only a number instead of a name when addressing prisoners. Different groups also differed from each other in form.
The experiment could only be carried out for six days, after which the humiliation of the prisoners by the guards turned into sadism and an attempt at ill-treatment. The “diagnosis” was clear: the guards had a uniform role behavior due to conformism.
Conformity in the 21st century: today more than ever!
But if you think that today’s generations have learned from the past and that the matching effect is therefore on the wane, you are wrong. Sociologists are sure that conformity has returned, and in the 21st century it has become more widespread than ever before. This does not mean that history repeats itself and must end in violence or war. Rather, it is a more subtle form of correspondence. According to experts, “today’s youth” are more adapted and conservative than their parents, grandparents. They are not interested in politics, only slightly integrated into society and instead put their own personal and professional well-being in the first place. Traditional values prevail in modern society: family, home, hard work, ambition, discipline and security.
In fact, the world is open to ambitious youth. She can roam the world as a digital nomad, try out a new lifestyle or experiment with different beliefs. Can become politically active, cause change or rebel against discontent.
Conformity arises from the modern “society of fear”
Whether there is authority or majority pressure: in professional life you will also find conformity in its various forms. Fear for work and a modest salary have recently been holding the professional world securely. The mechanism that works is as simple as it is logical: after our society suffered constant losses after World War II, our grandparents and parents worked hard to restore a comfortable level of well-being. And the one who has a lot can, as you know, lose a lot.
In professional life, the fear of losing a job manifests itself above all. Indefinite employment contracts give way to scrappy careers, and cost-cutting measures continually result in job cuts or wage cuts.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel: the shortage of skilled workers is becoming more and more visible. This puts employees back in a stronger position in interviews, can provide the security they want with an indefinite employment contract, negotiate good pay, or even work flexible hours in favor of work-life balance. Will this be the end of conformity?
Professional Compliance: How Can Pressure from Others Affect Jobs?
Conformity will never completely disappear, even if Generation Y is freed from their fears. Because pressure from the outside, as already described, is a firmly rooted phenomenon in people, which should one day ensure their survival. And today it still plays a similar role in professional life: employees try to ensure their “social survival” in the company through passive compliance.
Another experiment illustrates the effect of peer pressure on work: Asch’s conformity experiment. The task was very simple: the subjects were asked to choose two lines from four lines of the same length.
Other people in the room were specifically encouraged to give incorrect answers. The results are not surprising: three-quarters of the subjects succumbed to peer pressure and also gave the wrong answer. There were two main reasons for this:
- Information matching: the subjects were convinced that the group opinion must be correct, especially since many people could not be wrong. Thus, the subject changed his behavior and his opinion.
- Normative compliance: the subjects were well aware of the fallacy of their answer, but fear of the group’s reaction prevailed. The subject changed his behavior, but not his opinion.
These two types of correspondence can be observed more and more often in professional life. This may mean that individual employees do not dare to come up with their own creative ideas. It’s also possible that none of the leader’s co-workers—be it the boss or just a charismatic authority figure—dares to object, and so mistakes are sometimes made or opportunities missed. The intelligence of the group, which should really be the result of the heterogeneity of the people in the team, is thus nullified by conformity.
Group intelligence – what does it really mean?
Group intelligence is also called collective intelligence or group intelligence and describes the phenomenon where “normal” organisms can become a kind of “superorganism” through communication and appropriate action. On an example, this means: one ant is a limited living creature with limited room for maneuver. On the other hand, the ant colony as a whole is a sentient and functional “super-organism” without separate individuals, i.e. ants, which become more intelligent on their own.
Of course, this can also be transferred to the world of work: one employee cannot create a company. Only the combination of many different experts, specialists, managers and their interaction and coordination with each other make them a functioning whole.
Conformity as an enemy of intellect: together you are dumber!
Therefore, in a company that optimally functions according to the model, the team must be smarter than each individual person in the system. But this is where conformity comes into play: the effect of swarm intelligence only occurs when each member of the group contributes their own knowledge or opinion without being (previously) influenced by the group. The collective mind can only function if individuals act independently of each other.
Conformity Prevention – Appeal to Managers…
Therefore, in professional life, the influence of the correspondence mechanism should be avoided as much as possible. In this process, a leader is especially needed. As already mentioned, group pressure in professional life is primarily fueled by a culture of fear, i.e. when an employee fears for their job, their professional reputation or their financial well-being, as soon as he or she stands up against the group as an individual. What does this mean for a manager? To prevent conformity and thus be able to make optimal use of the team’s intelligence, you should:
- Break up hierarchies and offer employees the option of anonymity (e.g. for ideas or suggestions for improvement).
- Promote employees in personal discussions and invite experts as needed.
- Find authority within the team and limit its influence.
- Don’t punish mistakes, encourage innovation and creativity.
- Ensure a professional atmosphere for any discussion. If necessary, involve a mediator, create a pleasant atmosphere.
But every person seeking self-awareness and improvement can also test themselves for fit: exchange is important, and informational fit (the power of persuasion through arguments and information) can certainly be needed as well. If your colleague understands the subject you’re working on more than you do, stubbornness is out of place, and changing your mind doesn’t mean losing face. But if you submit to group pressure just to avoid resistance or bullying, you should be sounding alarm bells. If you feel pressure from the group, try to talk one-on-one with your leader.
Do not be afraid to go against the majority and, if necessary, swim against the current on your own. After all, you are doing the company a huge favor. And even if it’s not appreciated or accepted in your professional environment, at least stay true to yourself and thus be happier and healthier in the long run. Do you really want to (continue to) work in an atmosphere of fear and adaptation? Is it time to change jobs? Actually, then you have nothing to lose, but you can gain a lot.
