Similarities and differences between the concepts of compliance, obedience and conformity

Rewritten opening sentence: Social influence shapes what people do, think, and feel in ways big and small, from harmless fashion choices to actions with serious moral consequences.

People live inside networks of expectations and pressures that quietly steer behaviour in everyday settings and in extreme situations alike.

Introduction

Social influence is the process whereby one or more people presence, whether real or imaginary can affect thoughts, feeling and behavior of individual under extreme or no pressure at all or even persuasion.

Anyone reading this will recognise how often other people — visible or imagined — change what we do, sometimes without our awareness.

There are three areas of social influence, namely, conformity, compliance and obedience.

Each of these operates through partly overlapping psychological processes and partly distinct mechanisms that matter for prediction and intervention.

This purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the concepts of compliance, obedience and conformity and also to look at the factors that influence each one of them to see the differences and similarities between them.

Comparing their antecedents and typical contexts helps clarify when two of the concepts may be functionally similar and when they diverge in important ways.

It seems that in conclusion, conformity stands apart from compliance and obedience, which share more similarities than differences.

Understanding those similarities and differences is useful for applied settings such as education, workplace management and public policy.

Compliance

Compliance happened frequently in everyday life, for example, when an individual performed a task when asked to, this individual is complying with a request.

We rarely stop to label these moments, yet they add up to a great deal of social coordination.

The unwritten law of the group and members is to stick to the rules in order to be considered as being part of the group, this is considered the most important characteristic of compliance.

Being seen to follow requests keeps social ties intact and often carries social reward.

Compliance refers to a form of social influence in which an individual gave in to expressed requests from another person or other people (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

That definition highlights the voluntary element: the target willingly accepts a requester’s explicit appeal even when they might have an alternative preference.

This is also known as social compliance.

Research shows that at times the appearance of voluntariness masks strong situational pressure and sophisticated influence tactics.

There were many research carried out to find out what really influence compliance.

There are five factors or strategies that influence compliance (Jones & Pittman, 1982).

Practitioners who study influence often teach these strategies as tools that can be used ethically or abused.

One of the factors, intimidation, is to generate fear in order to let the other to think that you are dangerous.

People who use intimidation may secure short-term compliance but often damage long-term relationships.

The second factor is known as exemplification, in which an individual attempt to make others to look upon him as a morally respectable person.

The third factor is known as supplication in which an individual make others believe that he is pitiful, helpless and needy.

Appeals to sympathy can be surprisingly effective where social norms encourage helping.

The fourth factor is self-promotion, in which an individual attempted to generate respect and confidence by convincing others that he is competent.

Self-promotion works especially well when competence cues resolve uncertainty about who should lead.

Ingratiation is the last factor whereby an individual will attempt to get others to like him before subsequently making request for others to comply with him.

Another strategy that increases compliance is the use of multiple requests instead of a single request.

Sequencing requests — a small ask followed by a larger one — exploits commitment and consistency.

Multiple requests uses a setup or softener by first making a ‘false’ request and follow by the real request.

The classic tactics are foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face and low-ball, each relying on different psychological mechanisms.

There are three classic tactics, known as the foot-in-the-door, the-door-in-face and low-ball (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

In accordance to foot-in-the-door tactics, an individual would most likely to agree to a larger request when an initial smaller request has been agreed.

As for the-door-in-face tactics, a person would ask for a big favour at first and then followed by a smaller second favour.

The low-ball tactics is based on the principle that one will agree to accept higher increase once he committed to an action.

Compliance is not only influenced by persuasive tactics used as mentioned but also by the power the requester has.

Power cues change perceived cost-benefit calculations and therefore shape whether a request is accepted.

There are 6 basic powers, the reward power, coercive power, informational power, expert power, legitimate power and referent power (Raven, 1993).

These six forms of power describe common social levers that requesters use, either intentionally or incidentally.

Once there is compliance, the reward power states that rewards will be given.

Coercive power states that punishment will be threaten or given when there is non-compliance.

The influencer will have the informational power if the targeted individuals thought that the influencer have more information than themselves.

And individual process the legitimate power if the person is an authorized person from recognized organizations with the authority give commands and make decisions.

Lastly, referent power refers to the attraction to or respect the influencer (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

Obedience

Obedience refers to a form of social influence in which a person gave in to express instructions or orders from an authority figure without question.

Obedience typically invokes a hierarchical relationship where the order-giver is seen as having legitimate authority.

Or simply defined as being simply acting in accordance with rules or orders (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

Many everyday systems depend on a basic level of obedience to function, though obedience can also enable harmful acts when authority is misapplied.

Obedience started at a very young age, for example, individual tends to obey orders or instructions coming from parents or school teachers and when the individual steps into the social to work, he tend to obey his boss.

Early socialisation teaches children that following certain adult directives brings safety and social approval.

There are also others who are the followers of spiritual leaders and they sees him as a legitimate authority and will tend to obey his orders even if it is wrong.

Those followers often interpret obedience as a moral duty, complicating efforts to challenge harmful directives.

The authority that these individual have are given by the society to them.

In most case, obedience is a trait that human developed out of respect or fear.

Obedience is a trait that allows human beings to obey laws, belief in God, and follow social norms.

Obedience is a virtue that allows schools to be great learning centre as otherwise it would be difficult for a teacher to conduct a class if some students refuse to follow or take orders from the teacher.

Experimental research into this was pioneered by the US psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963) who conducted a series of experiments, in which, 65% of the participants administered what they believed to be extremely painful and possibly deadly electric shocks to an innocent victim, who was actually a confederate, when instructed to do so by an authoritative experimenter even though many of the participants became agitated and angry at the experimenter.

The Milgram studies exposed how ordinary people can carry out orders that clash with their private moral judgments when authority is salient and situational constraints are strong.

The level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver was used as the measure of obedience (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

However, some factors affecting the level of obedience had been identified by the Milgram’s experiment.

Follow-up studies and replications have isolated moderators that either amplify or reduce obedience.

The of the location is one of the factors.

When settings convey legitimacy — a university lab or official-sounding office — people are more likely to accept instructions.

In the experiment, when conducted at Yale University, a trusted academic institution, led to many participants to believe that the experiment would be safe and people also tend to obey others if they recognize them as ethical personality or legal authority.

In this case, the experimenters were perceived as from a trusted academic institution.

Obedience also increases when the personal responsibility of the carrying out the task decreases.

Diffusion of responsibility allows people to displace moral weight onto the authority that issued the order.

In the study, experimenter wore a uniform or laboratory coat which symbolized higher status of the person thus influencing the increasing obedience.

Peer support also influence the level of obedience, if the person have the social support of their friends or the presence of others that disobey the authority, this will reduces the level of obedience.

Proximity of the authority will also affect the level of obedience.

It is easier to resist orders or instruction from long distant than close by (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

Conformity

Conformity is a trait that makes people change their behaviour to fit social norms and behave according to the wishes of others (Crutchfield, 1955).

Conformity operates through normative and informational channels that alter both public behaviour and private belief.

In a group, people change their beliefs and attitudes to match them to the majority of the people within the group.

Matching attitudes reduces social friction and sometimes signals belonging to valued groups.

When an individual conform, he is also being obedient and in order for people to comply, there must be a perceived authority within the group who can influences the behavior of member of that group.

However, many acts of conformity occur without a single clear authority figure; group consensus itself can be the controlling force.

Without this authority figure, it is hard to make members of a group to conform.

And if a member of this group fails to conform, he faces the punishment of the authority and in turn loses his credibility which is so important for him.

It is this pressure that makes people to conform (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

There are much experiments (Asch, 1951; Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003) done to show that when confronted by social norms individuals will often adjust their behaviour to closer approximate of the perceived norm.

Those classic experiments established key boundary conditions and inspired decades of subsequent research, some of it reported below.

In the Aarts & Dijksterhuis (2003) experiment participants who were exposed to pictures of a situation where there is a social expectation of silence, a library, were later quieter on a pronunciation task than the participants who were shown pictures of a normally noisy situation, example, a railway station.

Priming situational cues can therefore activate normative scripts and change behaviour without conscious deliberation.

This showed that the normative behaviour of being silent had been unconsciously activated in those subjects who saw the library picture.

The Asch (1951) experiment involved subjects performing a perception task, saying which of a selection of lines matched a control line in length.

The results are often cited to show the power of majority influence even on clear factual judgements.

Unknown to the subject the other participants in the room were all confederates, and the seating was arranged so that the confederates would each give their answer to the trial in turn, with the subject giving their answer last or second to last.

On certain trials the confederates would all give the same incorrect answer to the question.

The experiment showed that around 76% of the subjects would conform to the incorrect answer at least once.

After the experiment ended, participants were asked on why they conformed to the incorrect majority during the trials.

All participants reported feeling uncertainty and doubt as a result of the differing opinions between themselves and that of the group.

The majority of participants admitted knowing that they saw the lines differently to the group but thought they may have perceived it wrongly and that the group actually is right.

Others simply went along with the group in order not to stand out or appeared as stupid and to avoid any conflict with the rest.

A small minority reported actually seeing the lines same as what the group did.

It seems that human beings conformed to avoid social disapproval and it also appeared that nobody wants to be the only outstanding person to voice a different answer or opinion (Asch, 1951).

From the study done by Asch (1951), there were factors found to influence the increase or decrease in conformity.

Group size, task difficulty, unanimity, public versus private response, and status are among the variables that moderate conformity effects.

First of all, conformity seems to increase as the size of the group grows and when the group size is small, with only four to five person, there seems to be lesser effect.

And when it comes to difficult task, participants who were uncertain of the answer will almost certainly tends to look at others in the group for conformity.

Conformity also increases when the status of the group is higher or more knowledgeable and almost always decreases when individuals were to provide answer privately without the presence of the rest of the group.

The study suggested that individual conformed so as to go along with the majority as the individual are concern of how they appeared in the eyes of others.

It is interesting to note that while conformity emphasizes on the power of the majority to force the minority to conform their behaviour to the group’s expectations of how they should act, there are research being done recently on minority social influence (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011).

Recent systematic reviews and empirical papers show renewed interest in conditions under which minorities can shift majority views over time.

Minority social influence refers to a form of social influence in which the deviant minority rejects the group norms and influence the majority to change their behaviour.

Given this change in the process, researchers have begun to explore how certain kinds of minorities can persuaded the majority to change their behaviour.

The research shows that a minority which presents its point of view in a confident, consistent, yet flexible manner can overcome an uncertain or uninvolved majority.

Difference

The differences between obedience, conformity and compliance is that, in obedience, there is a perceived difference of status between the one who gives the instruction and the individual who obeys without question.

Hierarchy and clear authority legitimacy are the key distinguishing features of obedience in contrast to conformity and compliance.

And in conformity, it is the individual’s fear of social disapproved and being different from the group.

Fear of social sanction and the desire for social belonging often drive conformity in peer contexts.

On the other hand, it is peer pressure that brings in the conformity among the members of a group.

Conformity sometimes operates through diffuse group norms rather than direct interpersonal pressure.

Conformity is also affected by whether the individual’s culture is orientated towards individualism or collectivism (Bond & Smith, 1996), however, compliance and obedience are less likely to be affected by this particular factor.

Similarity

The concepts of compliance, obedience and conformity, are all interrelated and shared with some similarities between them.

At a process level they frequently involve social information, norms, and power dynamics that bias choices.

Both compliance and conformity have shown to be improved when there are positive inter-personal attitudes (Gordon, 1996).

Positive relationships and rapport lower resistance to requests and increase willingness to align with group expectations.

Likewise, having attention to incidental similarities between the requester and the individual who obeys has shown to increase compliance (Burger et al., 2004) by improving the relationship between the two.

Similarly cohesiveness of the group has been shown to affect the conformity (Crandall, 1988).

Compliance and obedience also have a similarity in the foot-in-the-door approach.

Both processes can exploit initial small commitments to escalate compliance or obedience over time.

Studies have shown that having the participant commit to a small act initially, such as accepting a taster at a supermarket, can lead to improvement in compliance to further request in the later stage (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).

This escalation mechanism is a shared pathway through which small acts become larger commitments.

This is also reflected in the Milgram (1963) experiments on obedience where the subject built up from smaller shocks to larger ones.

Compliance, obedience and conformity are all subjected to the effects of informational social influence.

When information is ambiguous, people look to others or to authorities for cues on how to act.

Conformity is obviously based on informational social influence and studies (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1990, 2000) have further provided evidence for the normative focus theory; that the saliency of the social norm has a significant correlation to conformity.

When norms are salient, they guide behaviour even among those who privately dissent.

Compliance is subject to informational social influence under Cialdini’s category of social validation (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011), which targeted on the individual’s desire to fit with the actions and expectations of the society.

Studies have also shown that the rate of obedience to destructive commands drops sharply if the participants are reminded about the amount of responsibility that will falls on their shoulders (Hamilton, 1978).

Additional paragraph (recent evidence and implications)

Recent systematic reviews and empirical work (for example Capuano, 2024; Prislin, 2022; Cislaghi & Heise, 2021; Annual Review 2024) indicate that social norms, identity processes and context cues together explain much of the variance in conformity, compliance and obedience across domains such as health, climate behaviour and organisational settings.

These contemporary studies show that interventions targeting norm salience and group identity can reduce harmful obedience and increase beneficial compliance with prosocial policies, but they must be carefully designed to avoid reactance and backfire effects.

Practical implication: programmes that want to change group-level behaviour should assess whether the target behaviour is driven more by normative identity, by explicit requests from authorities, or by situational requests and then select techniques that map onto those drivers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are indeed many common aspects between compliance, obedience and conformity, however, there seems to be more similarities between compliance and obedience than those shared by conformity.

Practically, this suggests interventions aiming to change behaviour will be more effective when they diagnose whether social pressure is coming from explicit authority, from group majority norms, or from interpersonal requests — and tailor strategies accordingly.

References

Capuano, C., et al. (2024). A systematic review of research on conformity. International Review of Social Psychology. (Open access / PMC). PMC

Prislin, R., & colleagues. (2022). Minority influence: An agenda for the study of social change. Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers

Cislaghi, B., & Heise, L. (2021). The evolution of social norms interventions for behaviour change. (Review, open access). Global Public Health / relevant edited volume. PMC

‘‘The Power and Pitfalls of Social Norms’’ (2024). Annual Review of Psychology — review of social norms, norm salience and behavioural effects. Annual Reviews