Two Explanations of Conformity, Side by Side
Putting generated explanations in front of a class can teach a skill that copying them cannot: asking what observation would tell two accounts apart.
Why do people go along with a group answer they privately doubt? Two explanations are standard in social psychology. One says people conform to be accepted and avoid disapproval. The other says they treat other people's answers as information about what is correct. Both can be partly true, and a generated comparison of the two will read smoothly either way. That smoothness is what makes it a good object for a class: the explanations are in front of everyone, and the live question is what observation would favor one over the other.
A discriminating observation
Consider a design a class could reason about. People give their answers either aloud in front of the group or privately in writing. If going along persists when answers are private, the information account looks more plausible, since immediate public disapproval is reduced. If it drops sharply, the acceptance account looks more plausible. Neither result would rule out the other explanation, and real people may be pulled both ways. The point of the exercise is the shape of the argument: a comparison is useful where two accounts predict different things, and a result that both would predict says little.
A classroom sequence follows. Students first write, alone, which observation would separate the two explanations and what each account predicts. Then the instructor shows a generated comparison, prepared in advance and checked, and asks students to mark any sentence that claims more than the observation could show. For instance, a sentence asserting that conformity is caused by fear of rejection, on the strength of a single result, goes beyond what that result can support. The order matters for a reason of design. Students who have formed their own prediction have something to compare against, and gaps between their view and the text become visible to them and to the instructor.
What the exercise shows
Marking a sentence is not yet understanding, so the exercise asks for a reason: this sentence treats one result as settling the matter, and here is a second explanation that predicts the same result. A student who can say that has shown something about this concept in this setting. Whether the same student can design a discriminating comparison for a different pair of explanations is a separate question, which a later task with a new pair would address. The instructor also learns which sentences passed unnoticed, which is information about the class.
Several cautions apply. Students who are told to look for errors may start to distrust every fluent text, which is a different skill from judging a text. Preparing the comparison costs time that a tool may not have saved. And nothing here reports that such exercises improve learning, since that would take a comparison with a class that did something else. The exercise is a design to try and examine. What it offers is a way to see, within a single class period, whether students can state what a result can and cannot tell them.
An original classroom example
Original, unevaluated classroom example. Students write, alone, which observation would separate the acceptance and information accounts of conformity and what each predicts (for example, public versus private answers). The instructor then shows a prepared and checked generated comparison containing one sentence that treats a single result as settling the matter. Students mark sentences that claim more than the observation shows, give a reason for each mark, and compare with their own prediction. The instructor notes which sentences went unmarked.
Questions for your course
- What would each explanation predict if answers were private rather than public?
- What would count as a sentence that claims more than a result shows?
- How does critiquing a comparison differ from designing one for a new pair of explanations?
- What would you need to compare to say the exercise helps learning?