CONFORMITY BIAS

CONFORMITY BIAS

Name

Institution

Number 2. Activity-4 about conformity bias, you can see the questions underneath.

Can you think of a time when you did something just because everyone else was doing it- even when it did not feel quite right to you? Do you regret it?

I was overseeing production of milk and most of the milk was diluted greatly with water but when I asked why, I was told off and considered as not being part of the team. Therefore, I had to allow the more water to be added to the milk in the production tanks, which further led to a low quality in the final product. I regret the act because it was the same as stealing except in a more subtle way.

It was recently observed, “Cheating is contagious.” Does that sound true to you? Why or why not? It its true, why must this be the case?

It sounds true that cheating is contagious. This is because more people when told a lie spraed it as truth or as a rumor which may spread very quickly. As such, when there is a larger group of people, the lie can spread faster since the people in the group spread it to more people who further continue the lying cycle.

Loyalty is generally considered a good quality. When a group to which you owe loyalty seeks to be making a decision that seems unethical to you, how should you go about trying to balance your loyalty to the group against your own ethical integrity? Have you had an experience like that? If so, how did you resolve it?

Loyalty is an important value greatly held in high regard among group members especially the leaders who mostly want their subordinates to be loyal to the cause of the company especially concerning profits and company secrets. Balancing loyalty needs a lot of effort especially where the company is going against integrity in doing its business operations. One such operations was to go and lie to a customer about the product that was being made for him when the company had not yet started on the project and was working on another project. I told them I could not do that because it was against my ethical principles in working truthfully and honestly in many endeavors. Some said that if you can’t beat them join them which most had done easily and had experience in receiving money to do contracts faster for clients while those who did not give them a certain amount of funds had their works pending.

Can you explain how “groupthinks” works? Can you think of a time when you have been subject to groupthink?

Groupthink is a scenario where employs feel that they cannot truthfully speak out on various issues because they will be going against the groups interests and as such they cannot use their common sense leading to a warped decision making process. Cohesion is mostly stressed in such a scenario among group members and therefore they avoid any instances that may hinder the group’s unity though the contributions may be good and help solve various problems affecting the group. As such groupthink greatly contributes to conformity bias as it tends to push out any differing view points and people and thus maintain a status quo and those have opposing views are usually sidelined or removed total from the group.