What is the difference between conformity and cooperation

If both the participant and her partner gave away their tickets, they would each end up with total. But if they both kept all their tickets, they would only have the that they started with. Importantly, the participants played last and could see the previous rounds between the partner and each group members before making their own decision.

Overall, participants were more likely to cooperate when others cooperated — that is, they gave more tickets away when they saw that their group members gave their tickets away and when they saw that the partner tended to give his tickets away.

But the results were especially revealing when the partner and the group members responded differently. Participants were more cooperative when they had a cooperative partner and an uncooperative group than when they had an uncooperative partner and a cooperative group.

Additional experiments supported these results, even when the researchers included additional factors that strengthened group norms. APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February , you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments.

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For more information, please see our Community Guidelines. For more information about this research, please contact study author: Angelo Romano. For a copy of the research article and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact: - When the field is ready to do the bedrock research necessary for generalizable psychological science, it will have to confront the inconvenient realities of where the science must take place.

If you follow the pack are you more likely to co-operate with others in it? Not necessarily according to research into social behaviour by academics at the University of East Anglia. The study, published in the August issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences , shows that people who do not conform are most likely to work together for the greater good, while conforming to social norms can actually make people less likely to co-operate — a finding which surprised the researchers and could have implications in the workplace for team design and operations management.

Psychologist Dr Piers Fleming and economist Prof Daniel Zizzo, of the Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science at UEA, conducted an experiment in which they first measured participants' conformity levels and then let them play a game where they could choose whether to contribute financially to the public good.

The twist was that although co-operation was mutually beneficial, being unco-operative could produce greater personal gains because of other people's generosity. Participants' conformity was measured by how much they wished to conform to social expectations and be seen in a positive light, known as 'social desirability'. They completed a standardised measure and were also asked about their attitude towards paying tax. But if they both kept all their tickets, they would only have the that they started with.

Importantly, the participants played last and could see the previous rounds between the partner and each group members before making their own decision. Overall, participants were more likely to cooperate when others cooperated -- that is, they gave more tickets away when they saw that their group members gave their tickets away and when they saw that the partner tended to give his tickets away.

But the results were especially revealing when the partner and the group members responded differently. Participants were more cooperative when they had a cooperative partner and an uncooperative group than when they had an uncooperative partner and a cooperative group. In other words, when the options to reciprocate the partner's behavior or conform to the group's behavior were in direct conflict, people were more likely to cooperate with the partner than fall in line with the group.

Additional experiments supported these results, even when the researchers included additional factors that strengthened group norms. Taken together, the experiments shed light on the mechanisms that drive our decisions to cooperate with people who aren't genetically related to us -- a topic that has long perplexed behavioral, evolutionary, and biological scientists. Materials provided by Association for Psychological Science. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Science News. The researchers conducted a series of three online experiments to find out. Reciprocity Outperforms Conformity to Promote Cooperation. Psychological Science , ; DOI: ScienceDaily, 11 September