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126-477: The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline ), to defend norms , to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime ), and to maintain the law —and respect for rule of law —under which the social group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of

252-529: A judicial corporal punishment for adults. On the first day of the lunar Chinese new year holidays, a week-long 'Spring Festival', the most important festival for Chinese people all over the world, thousands of Chinese visit the Taoist Dong Lung Gong temple in Tungkang to go through the century-old ritual to get rid of bad luck. Men traditionally receive spankings and women get whipped, with

378-421: A certain proportion of trust in the population can lead to self-governance without the need for punishment. There are also arguments against the notion of punishment requiring intelligence, based on studies of punishment in very small-brained animals such as insects . There is proof of honey bee workers with mutations that makes them fertile laying eggs only when other honey bees are not observing them, and that

504-494: A continuum from conversion to anticonformity. For example, a popular experiment in conformity research, known as the Asch situation or Asch conformity experiments , primarily includes compliance and independence . Also, other responses to conformity can be identified in groups such as juries, sports teams and work teams. Muzafer Sherif was interested in knowing how many people would change their opinions to bring them in line with

630-399: A contractual form of fine or demotion . Most hierarchical organizations, such as military and police forces, or even churches , still apply quite rigid internal discipline, even with a judicial system of their own ( court martial , canonical courts ). Punishment may also be applied on moral, especially religious, grounds, as in penance (which is voluntary) or imposed in a theocracy with

756-412: A desirable behavior. Conformity Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, guidance shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires – because it is often easier to follow

882-678: A family. Negative or unpleasant impositions that are not authorized or that are administered without a breach of rules are not considered to be punishment as defined here. The study and practice of the punishment of crimes , particularly as it applies to imprisonment, is called penology , or, often in modern texts, corrections ; in this context, the punishment process is euphemistically called "correctional process". Research into punishment often includes similar research into prevention. Justifications for punishment include retribution , deterrence , rehabilitation , and incapacitation . The last could include such measures as isolation, in order to prevent

1008-493: A group of individuals on how they should behave. People may be susceptible to conform to group norms because they want to gain acceptance from their group. Some adolescents gain acceptance and recognition from their peers by conformity. This peer moderated conformity increases from the transition of childhood to adolescence. It follows a U-shaped age pattern wherein conformity increases through childhood, peaking at sixth and ninth grades and then declines. Adolescents often follow

1134-413: A level of suffering. A principle often mentioned with respect to the degree of punishment to be meted out is that the punishment should match the crime. One standard for measurement is the degree to which a crime affects others or society. Measurements of the degree of seriousness of a crime have been developed. A felony is generally considered to be a crime of "high seriousness ", while a misdemeanor

1260-410: A line judgment task. When confronted with the line task, each confederate had already decided what response they would give. The real members of the experimental group sat in the last position, while the others were pre-arranged experimenters who gave apparently incorrect answers in unison; Asch recorded the last person's answer to analyze the influence of conformity. Surprisingly, about one third (32%) of

1386-407: A measure of retributive justice , in which the goal is to try to rebalance any unjust advantage gained by ensuring that the offender also suffers a loss. Sometimes viewed as a way of "getting even" with a wrongdoer—the suffering of the wrongdoer is seen as a desired goal in itself, even if it has no restorative benefits for the victim. One reason societies have administered punishments is to diminish

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1512-559: A negative emotional climate that interferes with healthy group functioning. They can be avoided by careful selection procedures and managed by reassigning them to positions that require less social interaction. Stanley Milgram found that individuals in Norway (from a collectivistic culture) exhibited a higher degree of conformity than individuals in France (from an individualistic culture). Similarly, Berry studied two different populations:

1638-412: A person is, the more valuable they are as a resource. Thus, people often turn to experts for help. But once again people must be careful, as experts can make mistakes too. Informational social influence often results in internalization or private acceptance , where a person genuinely believes that the information is right. Normative social influence occurs when one conforms to be liked or accepted by

1764-519: A position where they publicly agree with the group's decision yet privately disagrees with the group's consensus, they are experiencing compliance or acquiescence . This is also referenced as apparent conformity. This type of conformity recognizes that behavior is not always consistent with our beliefs and attitudes, which mimics Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. In turn, conversion , otherwise known as private acceptance or "true conformity", involves both publicly and privately agreeing with

1890-566: A pretend prison setting on the Stanford University Campus. The study was set to be over the course of two weeks but it was abruptly cut short because of the behaviors the subjects were exuding. It was terminated due to the "guards" taking on tyrannical and discriminatory characteristics while "prisoners" showed blatant signs of depression and distress. In essence, this study showed us a lot about conformity and power imbalance. For one, it demonstrates how situations determines

2016-740: A religious police (as in a strict Islamic state like Iran or under the Taliban ) or (though not a true theocracy) by Inquisition . Belief that an individual's ultimate punishment is being sent by God, the highest authority, to an existence in Hell , a place believed to exist in the after-life, typically corresponds to sins committed during their life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific, with damned souls suffering for each sin committed (see for example Plato's myth of Er or Dante's The Divine Comedy ), but sometimes they are general, with condemned sinners relegated to one or more chamber of Hell or to

2142-481: A right ". Critics argue that punishment is simply revenge . Professor Deirdre Golash, author of The Case against Punishment: Retribution, Crime Prevention, and the Law , says: We ought not to impose such harm on anyone unless we have a very good reason for doing so. This remark may seem trivially true, but the history of humankind is littered with examples of the deliberate infliction of harm by well-intentioned persons in

2268-427: A significant effect on performance in a stable environment. According to Herbert Kelman, there are three types of conformity: 1) compliance (which is public conformity, and it is motivated by the need for approval or the fear of disapproval; 2) identification (which is a deeper type of conformism than compliance); 3) internalization (which is to conform both publicly and privately). Major factors that influence

2394-621: A similar trend – older participants displayed less conformity when compared to younger participants. In the same way that gender has been viewed as corresponding to status, age has also been argued to have status implications. Berger, Rosenholtz and Zelditch suggest that age as a status role can be observed among college students. Younger students, such as those in their first year in college, are treated as lower-status individuals and older college students are treated as higher-status individuals. Therefore, given these status roles, it would be expected that younger individuals (low status) conform to

2520-400: A single, coherent framework. Instead of punishment requiring we choose between them, unified theorists argue that they work together as part of some wider goal such as the protection of rights. Some people think that punishment as a whole is unhelpful and even harmful to the people that it is used against. Detractors argue that punishment is simply wrong, of the same design as " two wrongs make

2646-463: A spanking is invariably administered to the bottom, a "smacking" is less specific and may refer to slapping the child's hands, arms or legs as well as its bottom. Parents commonly spank their children as a form of corporal punishment in the United States ; however, support for this practice appears to be declining amongst U.S. parents. Spanking is typically done with one or more slaps on

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2772-454: A standard line. All participants except one were accomplices and gave the wrong answer in 12 of the 18 trials. The results showed a surprisingly high degree of conformity: 74% of the participants conformed on at least one trial. On average people conformed one third of the time. A question is how the group would affect individuals in a situation where the correct answer is less obvious. After his first test, Asch wanted to investigate whether

2898-408: A stop to their children's apparent aggressive behaviors. However, research has shown that spanking (or any other form of corporal punishment) is associated with the opposite effect. When adults physically punish children, the children tend to obey parents less with time and develop more aggressive behaviors, including toward other children. This increase in aggressive behavior appears to reflect

3024-471: A subsequent research article, Eagly suggests that women are more likely to conform than men because of lower status roles of women in society. She suggests that more submissive roles (i.e., conforming) are expected of individuals that hold low status roles. Still, Eagly and Chrvala's results do conflict with previous research which have found higher conformity levels among younger rather than older individuals. Although conformity pressures generally increase as

3150-407: A suspect individually and then in a lineup of other suspects. They were given one second to identify him, making it a difficult task. One group was told that their input was very important and would be used by the legal community. To the other it was simply an experiment. Being more motivated to get the right answer increased the tendency to conform. Those who wanted to be more accurate conformed 51% of

3276-453: A system of pedagogy or behavioral modification which also includes rewards. There are a large number of different understandings of what punishment is. Various philosophers have presented definitions of punishment. Conditions commonly considered necessary properly to describe an action as punishment are that Introduced by B.F. Skinner , punishment has a more restrictive and technical definition. Along with reinforcement it belongs under

3402-469: A threat against social rejection. See: Normative influence vs. referent informational influence In a reinterpretation of the original data from these experiments Hodges and Geyer (2006) found that Asch's subjects were not so conformist after all: The experiments provide powerful evidence for people's tendency to tell the truth even when others do not. They also provide compelling evidence of people's concern for others and their views. By closely examining

3528-467: Is a jocular tradition that anyone who succeeds in climbing to the top of Mount Triglav receives a spanking or birching. In Poland there is a tradition named Pasowanie , which is celebrated on the 18th birthday. The birthday person receives eighteen smacks with the belt from the guests at the birthday party. Birthday spanking is a tradition within some parts of the United States. Within

3654-454: Is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or when watching television, even if alone. The Asch conformity experiment demonstrates how much influence conformity has on people. In a laboratory experiment, Asch asked 50 male students from Swarthmore College in the US to participate in a 'vision test'. Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges in

3780-828: Is also the factor that the mere presence of a person can influence whether one is conforming or not. Norman Triplett (1898) was the researcher that initially discovered the impact that mere presence has, especially among peers. In other words, all people can affect society. We are influenced by people doing things beside us, whether this is in a competitive atmosphere or not. People tend to be influenced by those who are their own age especially. Co-actors that are similar to us tend to push us more than those who are not. According to Donelson Forsyth , after submitting to group pressures, individuals may find themselves facing one of several responses to conformity. These types of responses to conformity vary in their degree of public agreement versus private agreement. When an individual finds themselves in

3906-454: Is intended to be sufficient that people would choose not to commit the crime rather than experience the punishment. The aim is to deter everyone in the community from committing offences. Some criminologists state that the number of people convicted for crime does not decrease as a result of more severe punishment and conclude that deterrence is ineffective. Other criminologists object to said conclusion, citing that while most people do not know

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4032-422: Is not acceptable behavior, it serves the dual function of preventing vigilante justice by acknowledging public anger, while concurrently deterring future criminal activity by stigmatizing the offender. This is sometimes called the "Expressive Theory" of denunciation. The pillory was a method for carrying out public denunciation. Some critics of the education and denunciation model cite evolutionary problems with

4158-484: Is not. There are many possible reasons that might be given to justify or explain why someone ought to be punished; here follows a broad outline of typical, possibly conflicting, justifications. Two reasons given to justify punishment is that it is a measure to prevent people from committing an offense - deterring previous offenders from re-offending, and preventing those who may be contemplating an offence they have not committed from actually committing it. This punishment

4284-429: Is one example of normative influence. Even though John Turner et al. argued that the post experimental interviews showed that the respondents were uncertain about the correct answers in some cases. The answers might have been evident to the experimenters, but the participants did not have the same experience. Subsequent studies pointed out the fact that the participants were not known to each other and therefore did not pose

4410-448: Is only determined after the fact by the reduction in behavior; if the offending behavior of the subject does not decrease, it is not considered punishment. There is some conflation of punishment and aversives , though an aversion that does not decrease behavior is not considered punishment in psychology. Additionally, "aversive stimulus" is a label behaviorists generally apply to negative reinforcers (as in avoidance learning), rather than

4536-420: Is shown by life-course studies that long sentences for burglaries amongst offenders in their late teens and early twenties fail to incapacitate when the natural reduction in offending due to ageing is taken into account: the longer the sentence, in these cases, the less the incapacitative effect. Criminal activities typically give a benefit to the offender and a loss to the victim. Punishment has been justified as

4662-403: Is trying to be accepted by a group which has certain preferences, then individuals are more likely to conform to match the group. Similarly, the attractiveness of group members increases conformity. If an individual wishes to be liked by the group, they are increasingly likely to conform. Accuracy also effects conformity, as the more accurate and reasonable the majority is in their decision than

4788-619: Is typically considered only revenge or spite rather than punishment. In addition, the word "punishment" is used as a metaphor, as when a boxer experiences " punishment " during a fight. In other situations, breaking a rule may be rewarded, and so receiving such a reward naturally does not constitute punishment. Finally the condition of breaking (or breaching) the rules must be satisfied for consequences to be considered punishment. Punishments differ in their degree of severity, and may include sanctions such as reprimands , deprivations of privileges or liberty , fines, incarcerations , ostracism ,

4914-948: The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , the American Psychoanalytic Association , the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Society for Adolescent Medicine , the American Psychological Association , the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health , the Royal College of Psychiatrists , the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Australian Psychological Society , as well as

5040-779: The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) all recommend that no child should be spanked and instead favor the use of effective, healthy forms of discipline. Additionally, the AAP recommends that primary care providers (e.g., pediatricians and family medicine physicians ) begin to discuss parents' discipline methods no later than nine months of age and consider initiating such discussions by age 3–4 months. By eight months of age, 5% of parents report spanking and 5% report starting to spank by age three months. The AAP also recommends that pediatricians discuss effective discipline strategies and counsel parents about

5166-565: The University of Tokyo , along with Eiko Osaka reviewed four behavioral studies and found that the rate of conformity errors that the Japanese subjects manifested in the Asch paradigm was similar with that manifested by Americans. The study published in 1970 by Robert Frager from the University of California, Santa Cruz found that the percentage of conformity errors within the Asch paradigm

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5292-485: The age of majority are sometimes spanked by school officials. A number of medical, pediatric or psychological societies have issued statements opposing all forms of corporal punishment in schools, citing such outcomes as poorer academic achievements, increases in antisocial behaviors, injuries to students, and an unwelcoming learning environment. They include the American Medical Association ,

5418-529: The child's perception that hitting is the way to deal with anger and frustration. There are also many adverse physical, mental, and emotional effects correlated with spanking and other forms of corporal punishment, including various physical injuries , increased anxiety , depression , and antisocial behavior . Adults who were spanked during their childhood are more likely to abuse their children and spouse. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), and

5544-615: The operant conditioning category. Operant conditioning refers to learning with either punishment (often confused as negative reinforcement) or a reward that serves as a positive reinforcement of the lesson to be learned. In psychology, punishment is the reduction of a behavior via application of an unpleasant stimulus (" positive punishment") or removal of a pleasant stimulus (" negative punishment"). Extra chores or spanking are examples of positive punishment, while removing an offending student's recess or play privileges are examples of negative punishment. The definition requires that punishment

5670-511: The Temne (collectivists) and the Inuit (individualists) and found that the Temne conformed more than the Inuit when exposed to a conformity task. Bond and Smith compared 134 studies in a meta-analysis and found that there is a positive correlation between a country's level of collectivistic values and conformity rates in the Asch paradigm. Bond and Smith also reported that conformity has declined in

5796-543: The United States in 1977 held that the paddling of school students was not per se unlawful. However, 33 states have now banned paddling in public schools. It is still common in some schools in the South, and more than 167,000 students were paddled in the 2011–2012 school year in American public schools. Students can be physically punished from kindergarten to the end of high school, meaning that even adults who have reached

5922-533: The United States over time. Influenced by the writings of late-19th- and early-20th-century Western travelers, scholars or diplomats who visited Japan, such as Basil Hall Chamberlain , George Trumbull Ladd and Percival Lowell , as well as by Ruth Benedict 's influential book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword , many scholars of Japanese studies speculated that there would be a higher propensity to conform in Japanese culture than in American culture. However, this view

6048-482: The United States' National Association of School Psychologists and National Association of Secondary School Principals . Most spanking performed between adults in the 21st century within the Western world is erotic spanking . Within the early 20th century, American men spanking their wives and girlfriends was often seen as an acceptable form of domestic discipline. It was a common trope in American films, from

6174-692: The ability to make intentional choices should instead be treasured as a source of possibilities of betterment, citing that complex cognition would have been an evolutionarily useless waste of energy if it led to justifications of fixed actions and no change as simple inability to understand arguments would have been the most thrifty protection from being misled by them if arguments were for social manipulation, and reject condemnation of people who intentionally did bad things. Punishment can be effective in stopping undesirable employee behaviors such as tardiness, absenteeism or substandard work performance. However, punishment does not necessarily cause an employee to demonstrate

6300-448: The amount of conformity that occurs with some degree of accuracy. Baron and his colleagues conducted a second eyewitness study that focused on normative influence. In this version, the task was easier. Each participant had five seconds to look at a slide instead of just one second. Once again, there were both high and low motives to be accurate, but the results were the reverse of the first study. The low motivation group conformed 33% of

6426-399: The appropriate behaviors necessary to interact and develop "correctly" within one's society. Conformity influences the formation and maintenance of social norms , and helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules . Conformity was found to impair group performance in a variable environment, but was not found to have

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6552-560: The argument that women conformed more because of a methodological bias. They argued that because stereotypes used in studies are generally male ones (sports, cars..) more than female ones (cooking, fashion..), women felt uncertain and conformed more, which was confirmed by their results. Research has noted age differences in conformity. For example, research with Australian children and adolescents ages 3 to 17 discovered that conformity decreases with age. Another study examined individuals that were ranged from ages 18 to 91. The results revealed

6678-526: The availability of costly punishment can enhance cooperative behavior, it does not improve the group's average payoff. Additionally, there is a significant negative relationship between the overall payoff and the employment of costly punishment. Individuals who achieve the highest total payoffs generally avoid using costly punishment. This indicates that employing costly punishment in cooperative games may be disadvantageous and suggests that it may have evolved for purposes other than promoting cooperation. Achieving

6804-869: The basis for penal responsibility impossible in populations subject to such selective punishment. Certain scientists argue that this disproves the notion of humans having a biological feeling of intentional transgressions deserving to be punished. Punishments are applied for various purposes, most generally, to encourage and enforce proper behavior as defined by society or family. Criminals are punished judicially, by fines , corporal punishment or custodial sentences such as prison ; detainees risk further punishments for breaches of internal rules. Children , pupils and other trainees may be punished by their educators or instructors (mainly parents , guardians , or teachers , tutors and coaches )—see Child discipline . Slaves , domestic and other servants were subject to punishment by their masters . Employees can still be subject to

6930-537: The case of more complex brains, the notion of evolution selecting for specific punishment of intentionally chosen breaches of rules and/or wrongdoers capable of intentional choices (for example, punishing humans for murder while not punishing lethal viruses ) is subject to criticism from coevolution issues. That punishment of individuals with certain characteristics (including but, in principle, not restricted to mental abilities) selects against those characteristics, making evolution of any mental abilities considered to be

7056-418: The child's buttocks with a bare hand, although, not uncommonly, various objects are used to spank children, such as a hairbrush or wooden spoon. Historically, adults have spanked boys more than girls. In the United States, adults commonly spank toddlers the most. The main reasons parents give for spanking their children are to make children more compliant and to promote better behavior, especially to put

7182-481: The degree of conformity include culture, gender, age, size of the group, situational factors, and different stimuli. In some cases, minority influence , a special case of informational influence, can resist the pressure to conform and influence the majority to accept the minority's belief or behaviors. Conformity is the tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms . Norms are implicit, specific rules shared by

7308-484: The earliest days up through the 1960s, and was often used to allude to romance between the man and woman. In the early 21st century, adherents of a small subculture known as Christian domestic discipline have on a literalist interpretation of the Bible justified spanking as a form of acceptable punishment of women by their husbands. Critics describe such practices as a form of domestic abuse . A few countries have

7434-423: The efficiency of crime fighting methods are a danger of creating a reward hack that makes the least efficient criminal justice systems appear to be best at fighting crime, and that the appearance of deterrence being ineffective may be an example of this. Some punishment includes work to reform and rehabilitate the culprit so that they will not commit the offence again. This is distinguished from deterrence, in that

7560-425: The exact severity of punishment such as whether the sentence for murder is 40 years or life, most people still know the rough outlines such as the punishments for armed robbery or forcible rape being more severe than the punishments for driving too fast or misparking a car. These criminologists therefore argue that lack of deterring effect of increasing the sentences for already severely punished crimes say nothing about

7686-442: The few that are caught in the act are killed. This is corroborated by computer simulations proving that a few simple reactions well within mainstream views of the extremely limited intelligence of insects are sufficient to emulate the "political" behavior observed in great apes . The authors argue that this falsifies the claim that punishment evolved as a strategy to deal with individuals capable of knowing what they are doing. In

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7812-464: The flesh in the religious setting, but is most often a form of social coercion . The unpleasant imposition may include a fine , penalty , or confinement , or be the removal or denial of something pleasant or desirable. The individual may be a person, or even an animal. The authority may be either a group or a single person, and punishment may be carried out formally under a system of law or informally in other kinds of social settings such as within

7938-428: The frequency or severity of spanking or use an object. Parents may spank less – or not at all – if they have learned effective discipline techniques, since many parents view spanking as a method of last resort to discipline their children. There are many alternatives to spanking and other forms of corporal punishment: Corporal punishment, usually delivered with an implement (such as a paddle or cane) rather than with

8064-425: The goal here is to change the offender's attitude to what they have done, and make them come to see that their behavior was wrong. Incapacitation as a justification of punishment refers to the offender's ability to commit further offences being removed. Imprisonment separates offenders from the community, for example, Australia was a dumping ground for early British criminals. This was their way of removing or reducing

8190-406: The group has a surprising effect. As the number increases, each person has less of an impact. A group's strength is how important the group is to a person. Groups we value generally have more social influence. Immediacy is how close the group is in time and space when the influence is taking place. Psychologists have constructed a mathematical model using these three factors and are able to predict

8316-476: The group in the past are also more likely to succeed. Another form of minority influence can sometimes override conformity effects and lead to unhealthy group dynamics. A 2007 review of two dozen studies by the University of Washington found that a single " bad apple " (an inconsiderate or negligent group member) can substantially increase conflicts and reduce performance in work groups. Bad apples often create

8442-653: The group making decisions. Spanking Spanking is a form of corporal punishment involving the act of striking, with either the palm of the hand or an implement, the buttocks of a person to cause physical pain. The term spanking broadly encompasses the use of either the hand or implement, though the use of certain implements can also be characterized as other, more specific types of corporal punishment such as belting , caning , paddling and slippering . Some parents spank children in response to undesired behavior. Adults more commonly spank boys than girls both at home and in school. Some countries have outlawed

8568-423: The group plays a role in conformity as well. In a study by Reitan and Shaw, it was found that men and women conformed more when there were participants of both sexes involved versus participants of the same sex. Subjects in the groups with both sexes were more apprehensive when there was a discrepancy amongst group members, and thus the subjects reported that they doubted their own judgments. Sistrunk and McDavid made

8694-451: The group size ranges from two to seven people. According to Latane's 1981 study, the number of the majority is one factor that influences the degree of conformity, and there are other factors like strength and immediacy. Moreover, a study suggests that the effects of group size depend on the type of social influence operating. This means that in situations where the group is clearly wrong, conformity will be motivated by normative influence;

8820-415: The group's decision. In the case of private acceptance, the person conforms to the group by changing their beliefs and attitudes. Thus, this represents a true change of opinion to match the majority. Another type of social response, which does not involve conformity with the majority of the group, is called convergence . In this type of social response, the group member agrees with the group's decision from

8946-513: The harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service." The restorative justice approach aims to help the offender want to avoid future offences. Punishment can be explained by positive prevention theory to use the criminal justice system to teach people what are the social norms for what is correct, and acts as a reinforcement. Punishment can serve as a means for society to publicly express denunciation of an action as being criminal. Besides educating people regarding what

9072-425: The immoral orders or not. One of the most important factors of the experiment is the position of the authority figure relative to the subject (the shocker) along with the position of the learner (the one getting shocked). There is a reduction in conformity depending on if the authority figure or learner was in the same room as the subject. When the authority figure was in another room and only phoned to give their orders

9198-424: The increasing majority was only influential up to a point: from three or more opponents, there is more than 30% of conformity. Besides that, this experiment proved that conformity is powerful, but also fragile. It is powerful because just by having actors giving the wrong answer made the participant to also give the wrong answer, even though they knew it was not correct. It is also fragile, however, because in one of

9324-466: The ineffectiveness of spanking and the risks of harmful effects associated with the practice to minimize harm to children and guide parents. Although parents and other advocates of spanking often claim that spanking is necessary to promote child discipline , studies have shown that parents tend to apply physical punishment inconsistently and tend to spank more often when they are angry or under stress . The use of corporal punishment by parents increases

9450-409: The infliction of pain , amputation and the death penalty . Corporal punishment refers to punishments in which physical pain is intended to be inflicted upon the transgressor. Punishments may be judged as fair or unfair in terms of their degree of reciprocity and proportionality to the offense. Punishment can be an integral part of socialization, and punishing unwanted behavior is often part of

9576-455: The likelihood that children will suffer physical abuse , and most documented cases of physical abuse in Canada and the United States begin as disciplinary spankings. If a child is frequently spanked, this form of corporal punishment tends to become less effective at modifying behavior over time (also known as extinction). In response to decreased effectiveness of spanking, some parents increase

9702-515: The logic that "if everyone else is doing it, then it must be good and right". However, it is found that they are more likely to conform if peer pressure involves neutral activities such as those in sports, entertainment, and prosocial behaviors rather than anti-social behaviors . Researchers have found that peer conformity is strongest for individuals who reported strong identification with their friends or groups, making them more likely to adopt beliefs and behaviors accepted in such circles. There

9828-862: The majority whereas older individuals (high status) would be expected not to conform. Researchers have also reported an interaction of gender and age on conformity. Eagly and Chrvala examined the role of age (under 19 years vs. 19 years and older), gender and surveillance (anticipating responses to be shared with group members vs. not anticipating responses being shared) on conformity to group opinions. They discovered that among participants that were 19 years or older, females conformed to group opinions more so than males when under surveillance (i.e., anticipated that their responses would be shared with group members). However, there were no gender differences in conformity among participants who were under 19 years of age and in surveillance conditions. There were also no gender differences when participants were not under surveillance. In

9954-438: The means we choose will indeed secure them. Golash also writes about imprisonment : Imprisonment means, at minimum, the loss of liberty and autonomy, as well as many material comforts, personal security, and access to heterosexual relations. These deprivations, according to Gresham Sykes (who first identified them) "together dealt 'a profound hurt' that went to 'the very foundations of the prisoner's being. But these are only

10080-491: The members of one's group to obtain and accept accurate information about reality. A person is most likely to use informational social influence in certain situations: when a situation is ambiguous, people become uncertain about what to do and they are more likely to depend on others for the answer; and during a crisis when immediate action is necessary, in spite of panic. Looking to other people can help ease fears, but unfortunately, they are not always right. The more knowledgeable

10206-403: The members of the group. This need of social approval and acceptance is part of our state of humans. In addition to this, we know that when people do not conform with their group and therefore are deviants, they are less liked and even punished by the group. Normative influence usually results in public compliance , doing or saying something without believing in it. The experiment of Asch in 1951

10332-575: The minimum harms, suffered by the least vulnerable inmates in the best-run prisons. Most prisons are run badly, and in some, conditions are more squalid than in the worst of slums. In the District of Columbia jail, for example, inmates must wash their clothes and sheets in cell toilets because the laundry machines are broken. Vermin and insects infest the building, in which air vents are clogged with decades' accumulation of dust and grime. But even inmates in prisons where conditions are sanitary must still face

10458-480: The more likely the individual will be to conform. As mentioned earlier, size also effects individuals' likelihood to conform. The larger the majority the more likely an individual will conform to that majority. Similarly, the less ambiguous the task or decision is, the more likely someone will conform to the group. When tasks are ambiguous people are less pressured to conform. Task difficulty also increases conformity, but research has found that conformity increases when

10584-461: The need for participants to care for the integrity and well-being of other participants, the experimenter, themselves, and the worth of scientific research. Deutsch & Gérard (1955) designed different situations that variated from Asch' experiment and found that when participants were writing their answer privately, they gave the correct one. Normative influence, a function of social impact theory , has three components. The number of people in

10710-530: The normative influence, while otherwise the normative influence dominates. People often conform from a desire for security within a group, also known as normative influence —typically a group of a similar age, culture , religion or educational status. This is often referred to as groupthink : a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics , which ignores realistic appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries

10836-495: The notion of "varieties" of conformity based upon "social influence" is ambiguous and indefinable in this context. According to Deutsch and Gérard (1955), conformity results from a motivational conflict (between the fear of being socially rejected and the wish to say what we think is correct) that leads to normative influence, and a cognitive conflict (others create doubts in what we think) which leads to informational influence. Informational social influence occurs when one turns to

10962-522: The notion that a feeling for punishment as a social signal system evolved if punishment was not effective. The critics argue that some individuals spending time and energy and taking risks in punishing others, and the possible loss of the punished group members, would have been selected against if punishment served no function other than signals that could evolve to work by less risky means. A unified theory of punishment brings together multiple penal purposes—such as retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation—in

11088-458: The number of strokes to be administered (always lightly) by the temple staff being decided in either case by the god Wang Ye and by burning incense and tossing two pieces of wood, after which all go home happily, believing their luck will improve. On Easter Monday , there is a Slavic tradition of spanking girls and young ladies with woven willow switches (Czech: pomlázka ; Slovak: korbáč ) and dousing them with water. In Slovenia , there

11214-458: The numbing boredom and emptiness of prison life—a vast desert of wasted days in which little in the way of meaningful activity is possible. There are critics of punishment who argue that punishment aimed at intentional actions forces people to suppress their ability to act on intent. Advocates of this viewpoint argue that such suppression of intention causes the harmful behaviors to remain, making punishment counterproductive. These people suggest that

11340-426: The obedience rate went down to 20.5%. When the learner was in the same room as the subject the obedience rate dropped to 40%. This experiment, led by psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo, recruited Stanford students using a local newspaper ad, who he checked to be both physically and mentally healthy. Subjects were either assigned the role of a "prisoner" or "guard" at random over an extended period of time, within

11466-402: The offenders ability to carry out certain crimes. The death penalty does this in a permanent (and irrevocable) way. In some societies, people who stole have been punished by having their hands amputated. Crewe however, has pointed out that for incapacitation of an offender to work, it must be the case that the offender would have committed a crime had they not been restricted in this way. Should

11592-513: The open hand, used to be a common form of school discipline in many countries, but it is now banned in most of the Western World. Corporal punishment, such as caning, remains a common form of discipline in schools in several Asian and African countries, even in countries in which this practice has been deemed illegal such as India and South Africa . In these cultures it is referred to as "caning" and not "spanking." The Supreme Court of

11718-442: The opinion of a group. In his experiment, participants were placed in a dark room and asked to stare at a small dot of light 15 feet away. They were then asked to estimate the amount it moved. The trick was, there was no movement, it was caused by a visual illusion known as the autokinetic effect . The participants stated estimates ranging from 1–10 inches. On the first day, each person perceived different amounts of movement, but from

11844-438: The outset and thus does not need to shift their opinion on the matter at hand. In addition, Forsyth shows that nonconformity can also fall into one of two response categories. Firstly, an individual who does not conform to the majority can display independence . Independence , or dissent , can be defined as the unwillingness to bend to group pressures. Thus, this individual stays true to his or her personal standards instead of

11970-422: The participants shocked all the way to 450 volts, fully obeying the instruction, even if they did so reluctantly. Additionally, all participants shocked to at least 300 volts. In this experiment, the subjects did not have punishments or rewards if they chose to disobey or obey. All they might receive is disapproval or approval from the experimenter. Since this is the case they had no motives to sway them to perform

12096-430: The participants who were placed in this situation sided with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once. After being interviewed, subjects acknowledged that they did not actually agree with the answers given by others. The majority of them, however, believe that groups are wiser or do not want to appear as mavericks and choose to repeat

12222-429: The participants will conform in order to be accepted by the group. A participant may not feel much pressure to conform when the first person gives an incorrect response. However, conformity pressure will increase as each additional group member also gives the same incorrect response. Research has found different group and situation factors that affect conformity.  Accountability increases conformity, if an individual

12348-402: The path others have made already, rather than forging a new one. Thus, conformity is sometimes a product of group communication . This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or in society as a whole and may result from subtle unconscious influences (predisposed state of mind), or from direct and overt social pressure . Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual

12474-516: The people around them. This is known as minority influence , a special case of informational influence. Minority influence is most likely when people can make a clear and consistent case for their point of view. If the minority fluctuates and shows uncertainty, the chance of influence is small. However, a minority that makes a strong, convincing case increases the probability of changing the majority's beliefs and behaviors. Minority members who are perceived as experts, are high in status, or have benefited

12600-414: The people they interact with. There are two other main reasons for conformity: informational influence and normative influence . People display conformity in response to informational influence when they believe the group is better informed, or in response to normative influence when they are afraid of rejection. When the advocated norm could be correct, the informational influence is more important than

12726-483: The perceived need for retaliatory "street justice", blood feud , and vigilantism . Especially applied to minor offenses, punishment may take the form of the offender "righting the wrong", or making restitution to the victim. Community service or compensation orders are examples of this sort of penalty. In models of restorative justice , victims take an active role in a process with their offenders who are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair

12852-892: The prisoners before the experiment) were subject to pathological reactions. These aspects are also traceable to situational forces. This experiment also demonstrated the notion of the banality of evil which explains that evil is not something special or rare, but it is something that exists in all ordinary people. Harvard psychologist Herbert Kelman identified three major types of conformity. Although Kelman's distinction has been influential, research in social psychology has focused primarily on two varieties of conformity. These are informational conformity, or informational social influence , and normative conformity, also called normative social influence . In Kelman's terminology, these correspond to internalization and compliance, respectively. There are naturally more than two or three variables in society influential on human psychology and conformity;

12978-425: The punishers. Punishment is sometimes called retaliatory or moralistic aggression ; it has been observed in all species of social animals , leading evolutionary biologists to conclude that it is an evolutionarily stable strategy , selected because it favors cooperative behavior . However, other evolutionary biologists have argued against punishment to favour cooperation. Dreber et al. demonstrate that while

13104-406: The putative offender not be going to commit further crimes, then they have not been incapacitated . The more heinous crimes such as murders have the lowest levels of recidivism and hence are the least likely offences to be subject to incapacitative effects. Antisocial behaviour and the like display high levels of recidivism and hence are the kind of crimes most susceptible to incapacitative effects. It

13230-468: The risk of social rejection . Conformity is often associated in media with adolescence and youth culture , but strongly affects humans of all ages. Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can be regarded as either good or bad. Driving on the conventionally-approved side of the road may be seen as beneficial conformity. With the appropriate environmental influence, conforming, in early childhood years, allows one to learn and thus, adopt

13356-454: The same obvious misconception. It is clear from this that conformity has a powerful effect on human perception and behavior, even to the extent that it can be faked against a person's basic belief system. Changing one's behaviors to match the responses of others, which is conformity, can be conscious or not. People have an intrinsic tendency to unconsciously imitate other's behaviors such as gesture, language, talking speed, and other actions of

13482-574: The second to the fourth day, the same estimate was agreed on and others conformed to it. Over time, the personal estimates converged with the other group members' estimates once discussing their judgments aloud. Sherif suggested this was a simulation for how social norms develop in a society, providing a common frame of reference for people. His findings emphasize that people rely on others to interpret ambiguous stimuli and new situations. Subsequent experiments were based on more realistic situations. In an eyewitness identification task, participants were shown

13608-436: The sick to leeches to rid them of excess blood, and put suspects to the rack and the thumbscrew in the service of truth. They schooled themselves to feel no pity—to renounce human compassion in the service of a higher end. The deliberate doing of harm in the mistaken belief that it promotes some greater good is the essence of tragedy. We would do well to ask whether the goods we seek in harming offenders are worthwhile, and whether

13734-424: The significance of the existence of punishment as a deterring factor. Some criminologists argue that increasing the sentences for crimes can cause criminal investigators to give higher priority to said crimes so that a higher percentage of those committing them are convicted for them, causing statistics to give a false appearance of such crimes increasing. These criminologists argue that the use of statistics to gauge

13860-449: The situation in which Asch's subjects find themselves they find that the situation places multiple demands on participants: They include truth (i.e., expressing one's own view accurately), trust (i.e., taking seriously the value of others' claims), and social solidarity (i.e., a commitment to integrate the views of self and others without deprecating). In addition to these epistemic values, there are multiple moral claims as well: These include

13986-405: The size of the majority increases, Asch's experiment in 1951 stated that increasing the size of the group will have no additional impact beyond a majority of size three. Brown and Byrne's 1997 study described a possible explanation that people may suspect collusion when the majority exceeds three or four. Gerard's 1968 study reported a linear relationship between the group size and conformity when

14112-437: The size or unanimity of the majority had greater influence on test subjects. "Which aspect of the influence of a majority is more important – the size of the majority or its unanimity? The experiment was modified to examine this question. In one series the size of the opposition was varied from one to 15 persons." The results clearly showed that as more people opposed the subject, the subject became more likely to conform. However,

14238-432: The spanking of children in every setting, including homes, schools, and penal institutions , while others permit it when done by a parent or guardian . In American English , dictionaries define spanking as being administered with either the open hand or an implement such as a paddle . Thus, the standard form of corporal punishment in US schools (use of a paddle) is often referred to as a spanking . In North America ,

14364-418: The swaying toward group standards. Secondly, a nonconformist could be displaying anticonformity or counterconformity which involves the taking of opinions that are opposite to what the group believes. This type of nonconformity can be motivated by a need to rebel against the status quo instead of the need to be accurate in one's opinion. To conclude, social responses to conformity can be seen to vary along

14490-482: The task is difficult but also important. Research has also found that as individuals become more aware that they disagree with the majority they feel more pressure, and hence are more likely to conform to the decisions of the group. Likewise, when responses must be made face-face, individuals increasingly conform, and therefore conformity increases as the anonymity of the response in a group decreases. Conformity also increases when individuals have committed themselves to

14616-826: The time (similar to Asch's findings). The high motivation group conformed less at 16%. These results show that when accuracy is not very important, it is better to get the wrong answer than to risk social disapproval. An experiment using procedures similar to Asch's found that there was significantly less conformity in six-person groups of friends as compared to six-person groups of strangers. Because friends already know and accept each other, there may be less normative pressure to conform in some situations. Field studies on cigarette and alcohol abuse, however, generally demonstrate evidence of friends exerting normative social influence on each other. Although conformity generally leads individuals to think and act more like groups, individuals are occasionally able to reverse this tendency and change

14742-412: The time as opposed to 35% in the other group. Sherif's study provided a framework for subsequent studies of influence such as Solomon Asch's 1955 study. Solomon E. Asch conducted a modification of Sherif's study, assuming that when the situation was very clear, conformity would be drastically reduced. He exposed people in a group to a series of lines, and the participants were asked to match one line with

14868-409: The vain pursuit of ends which that harm did not further, or in the successful pursuit of questionable ends. These benefactors of humanity sacrificed their fellows to appease mythical gods and tortured them to save their souls from a mythical hell, broke and bound the feet of children to promote their eventual marriageability, beat slow schoolchildren to promote learning and respect for teachers, subjected

14994-409: The variants for the experiment, one of the actors was supposed to give the correct answer, being an "ally" to the participant. With an ally, the participant was more likely to give the correct answer than he was before the ally. In addition, if the participant was able to write down the answer, instead of saying out loud, he was also more likely to put the correct answer. The reason for that is because he

15120-496: The way men and women conform to social influence. For example, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli performed a meta-analysis of 148 studies of influenceability. They found that women are more persuadable and more conforming than men in group pressure situations that involve surveillance. Eagly has proposed that this sex difference may be due to different sex roles in society. Women are generally taught to be more agreeable whereas men are taught to be more independent. The composition of

15246-432: The way our behavior is shaped and predominates over our personality, attitudes, and individual morals. Those chosen to be "guards" were not mean-spirited. But, the situation they were put in made them act accordingly to their role. Furthermore, this study elucidates the idea that humans conform to expected roles. Good people (i.e. the guards before the experiment) were transformed into perpetrators of evil. Healthy people (i.e.

15372-562: The word "spanking" has often been used as a synonym for an official paddling in school, and sometimes even as a euphemism for the formal corporal punishment of adults in an institution. In British English , most dictionaries define "spanking" as being given only with the open hand. In the United Kingdom , Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, the word "smacking" is generally used in preference to "spanking" when describing striking with an open hand, rather than with an implement. Whereas

15498-403: The wrongdoer's having contact with potential victims, or the removal of a hand in order to make theft more difficult. If only some of the conditions included in the definition of punishment are present, descriptions other than "punishment" may be considered more accurate. Inflicting something negative, or unpleasant, on a person or animal, without authority or not on the basis of a breach of rules

15624-564: Was not afraid of being different from the rest of the group since the answers were hidden. This experiment was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in order to portray obedience to authority. They measured the willingness of participants (men aged 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with different levels of education) to obey the instructions from an authority figure to supply fake electric shocks that would gradually increase to fatal levels. Regardless of these instructions going against their personal conscience, 65% of

15750-470: Was not formed on the basis of empirical evidence collected in a systematic way , but rather on the basis of anecdotes and casual observations, which are subject to a variety of cognitive biases . Modern scientific studies comparing conformity in Japan and the United States show that Americans conform in general as much as the Japanese and, in some situations, even more. Psychology professor Yohtaro Takano from

15876-478: Was significantly lower in Japan than in the United States, especially in the prize condition. Another study published in 2008, which compared the level of conformity among Japanese in-groups (peers from the same college clubs) with that found among Americans found no substantial difference in the level of conformity manifested by the two nations, even in the case of in-groups. Societal norms often establish gender differences and researchers have reported differences in

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