Academic Conformity, Social Identity, and Achievement Motivation

Academic conformity is the type of conformity that is undergone within the context of school, classmates, and teachers. This is predominately measured through obedience to the set educational standards as well as other social influences found in childhood.

Taking a perspective from psycho-social human development, one can analyze children and their conformity within school with regards to how they relate to others.

The critical learning task of childhood is to learn to tie one's self to significant others, particularly how to get their approval. Children learn to ask themselves how their behavior is being evaluated. We call this concern about evaluation in the social world relatedness motivation (Veroff, 1978). 

In this scope, as children mature, they desire to establish a social identity by associating with others and by comparing their relative competencies.

Earlier, psychological research studied the effects of obedience on academic conformity, however, the more modern research looks into social influences found in childhood.

Given the susceptibility of children and adolescents to peer influence, much research has focused on describing behavioral conformity in a variety of negatively-valenced domains, including aggression, risk-taking, and depression (Masland, 2013). 

For example, a longitudinal examination of externalizing behaviors in preschool and kindergarten children indicated that children conform to the aggressive behaviors of their peers over time (Hanish et al., 2005).

Peer-based influence also occurs in positively-valenced domains of childhood behavior, such as academic achievement motivation.

Specifically, children in middle childhood have been shown to cluster into friendships and peer groups on the basis of academic motivation at the beginning of the school year (i.e, a selection effect). Additionally, a friend or peer group's average level of motivation at the beginning of the year predicts an individual's motivation at the end of the year, even when controlling for the individual's' initial level of academic motivation  (i.e socialization effect) (Masland, 2013). 

These studies suggest that children are influenced by the levels of academic motivation and engagement expressed by their friends and peers (Altermatt and Pomerantz, 2003).

Researchers hypothesize that the process of conformity - through changing their behaviors or attitudes to conform to others- typically occurs through reinforcement. For example, individuals can who are motivated can be reinforced through punishment or rewards (given by the institution), or by positive rewards obtained from group conformity. Students naturally associate themselves with others which creates the opportunity to assimilate negative or positive peer behaviors. Because academic achievement motivation is highly correlated to academic success (Durick et al 2006; Eccles et al., 1998) it is likely that unmotivated children would not copy positive peer behaviors.

That is, in order for children to conform to the positive academic behaviors of their peer group, they might need to feel efficacious (i.e., have high academic expectancy for) and to strongly enjoy and rate as important (i.e., have high academic value for the academic domain in which the behaviors are occurring (Masland, 2013).

This proposition by Masland is supported by society identity theory. Social identity theory has been defined as "that part of an individual's self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his memberships of a social group (or groups) together with the emotional significance attached to that membership" (Tajfel 1978). Simply put, aspects of an individual's identity are connected to group membership. This is significant, because if a child is a member of a peer group in which positive academic behaviors are normative, then social identity theory would conclude that a child is more likely to conform to positive academic behaviors.

Social identity theory seeks to understand an individual's appraisal of the strength of his or her connections to a target group as a variable that moderates conformity behavior. That is, not only do the norms of a peer group affects an individual's behavior, but the quality of the individual-peer group relationship determines whether or not a target individual conforms to peer group behavior.

Masland's use of the distinction of academic value and academic success is a significant one. Earlier, achievement motivation was conceptualized around an individual's need for achievement and fear of failure (Atkinson 1957). However, this idea of academic expectancy and academic value now serves as the most modern method of assessing academic achievement motivation in psychological literature.

As a side note, I have incorporated both of these scales of achievement motivation within my survey and am also striving to see the test the accuracy of both in relation to achievement goals and conformity.

All in all, academic conformity (adhering to peer norms for social rewards) provides us with a unique way of understanding academic behaviors and academic achievement motivation, particularly when seen through the lens of social identity.