Conformity and Creativity

Abstract

President Carter's description of his negotiations with President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel at Camp David in 1978 was coded to illustrate the extent to which levels of creativity and types of pressures toward conformity were involved. One set of categories was based on the social-psychological literature on conformity, social power, and social exchange. A second set of categories was the three-dimensional SYMLOG system of Bales and Cohen. From the first perspective it is evident that Carter used different approaches in his attempts to persuade Sadat and Begin. He used more social-emotional acts with Sadat and more task-related acts with Begin. From the second perspective it was evident that Carter used more images than direct attempts to persuade with both Sadat and Begin.