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The major goal of the study was to investigate how members of a group respond in a situation whereby one member, referred to as the deviant, is wrongly mistreated or misunderstood by the group. In the study that specifically espoused aspects of group dynamics and conformity, a deviant is not considered as a social misfit but rather as an individual who stands strong and sticks to his or her beliefs in the face of considerable pressure from the group (Chan et al 1104).
The study made use of two hypotheses, namely (a) group member’s negativity towards the deviant member would be ultimately eliminated if it is perceived that the deviant was right, and (b) group members’ negativity towards the deviant member may persist even if the member was perceived as wrongly accused.
While the major independent variable concerned the treatment of the deviant by the group, it is evident that this independent variable was divided further into two novel independent variables namely “(a) whether the group rejects changes to its own opinion, or embraces a deviant’s opinion; and (b) whether the group continues to punish and marginalize the former deviant, or reintegrates him or her” (Chan et al 1104).
The major dependent variables included in the study concerned the extent of negativity towards the individual considered as deviant, as well as the effects of the perceived negativity on group conformity and identification.
The study made use of two experiments to prove or reject the hypotheses mentioned above. While the first experiment recruited 73 first-year psychology students at a large Australian university, the second experiment recruited 94 first-year Catholic participants, also from the university.
In the first experiment, participants were recruited for an experiment apparently on thinking styles and academic performance, before been provided with information on deductive and inductive thinking styles and afterwards supposed “to complete a computerized word and number associations for the group induction task” (Chan et al 1005).
In the second experiment, the information about Galileo’s dispute with the Catholic Church (that the earth moves around the sun) was introduced to participants to test the opposing predictions versus siding up with the accused. Both experiments were largely quantitative in method as empirical data was sought using a seven-point Licket-type scale (“1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree”). Data for the study was collected using these scales and statistical models (e.g., descriptive means, analysis of variance) used to analyse the data.
The main findings of the study showed that (a) negativity towards the deviant individual in the group was highest when the sampled group’s opinion or attitude was unchanged and the deviant was not restored back into the group (that is, group members were disposed to remain aggressive towards the wrongfully accused person when their group stuck to its guns), and (b) opinion change or reintegration back into the group defused negativity towards the individual presumed to be deviant.
In critiquing the study, it can be argued that the scholarly writing demonstrated by the authors is excellent to the extent that the article is easily readable and to the point. However, bias issues arise owing to the fact that the moral and Christian values used in both experiments are highly subjective.
For example, not all people share religious convictions, hence it was untenable for the authors to use religion in the second experiment to evaluate elements of group dynamics and conformity. Overall, the authors receive credit for documenting other previous studies in their discussion of the results, and hence it could be argued that they have succeeded to link their findings with other well-established research studies demonstrating that group members conform to group norms.
Works Cited
Chan, Marc K.H., Winnifred R. Louis and Jolanda Jetten. “When Groups are wrong and Deviants are Right.” European Journal of Social Psychology. 40.7 (2010): 1103-1109. Academic Search Premier. Web.
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