October 26, 2023

Bullying in schools can put tremendous pressure on students to conform. Social conformity has been described as “…a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group” (Spark, 2020). Statistics from PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center show that 49.8% of tweens (9 to 12 years old) said they experienced bullying at school and 14.5% of tweens shared they experienced bullying online (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020). Research by Davis & Nixon showed that the support from peers who were bystanders was the most helpful to students who were being bullied. When we examine the power of social conformity it is a great credit to our students who buck this natural reaction to group behavior and step in as allies to help students who are being bullied. 

Experiments on social conformity were conducted in the 1950’s by Solomon Asch. These were ground-breaking but the research is considered to be ethically questionable. There was criticism of the methodology due to bias and deception as the participants (all male), thought that they were taking part in a line test and not an experiment on conformity; however, this was necessary…