1) conformity✅ Flashcards
(27 cards)
what are some evaluation points of Asch’s research?
- low levels of external validity
- ethically questionable
- biased sample of participants
what is the aim of Asch’s conformity research?
to examine the extent to which social pressure to confirm from unanimous majority affects conformity in an unambiguous situation.
what are the findings of Asch’s results?
- on average participants conformed on 32% of trials
- 74% of participants confirmed on at least one trial
- 26% never conformed
what are the 3 types of conformity?
- internalisation
- identification
- compliance
what are the two explanations of conformity?
- normative social influence
- informational social influence
define normative social influence
- desire to be liked
- individuals conform because they think others will approve and accept them
- related to emotion, humans have a desire to be accepted and fear rejection
define informational social influence
- desire to be right
- individuals look to others to whom they believe to be correct, to give them information on how to behave
- cognitive process to do with thinking
what does conformity to social roles involve?
- involves identification which is stronger than compliance but is not as strong as internalisation
what was the aim of zimbardo’s prison experiment?
to examine whether people would conform to the social roles of prison guard or prisoner when placed in a mock prison environment
what did Asch’s sample consist of?
Asch’s sample consisted of 123 male undergraduate students from Swarthmore College in USA, who believed they were taking part in a vision test
what was Asch’s procedures?
- line judgement task
-placed one naive participant in a room of 6-8 confederates - in turn, each person had to say out loud which of the three lines was most like the target line in length –> the correct answer was always obvious
- each participant completed 18 trials, the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials (critical trials)
what were Asch’s conclusions?
- asch interviewed his participants after
- most said they knew their answers were wrong but went along with group to fit in or cause they thought they might be ridiculed
- this confirms that participants complied due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in publicly without changing their private viewpoint.
what are the 3 variables affecting conformity?
1) group size
2) unanimity
3) task difficulty
why does Asch’s research have low levels of external validity?
- line judgement task is an artificial task that does not reflect conforming in everyday life
why is Asch’s research ethically questionable?
- he purposefully deceived participants into thinking they were taking a vision test
- not protected from psychological harm as many participants reported feeling stressed
why does Asch’s research lack population validity?
- biased sample of 123 american students
- unable to conclude whether females would respond the same way
-not generalisable - only males = beta bias
define conformity
- yielding to group pressure
- occurs when beliefs/behaviour are influenced by a larger group of people
describe internalisation as a type of conformity
- attitudes of group has become part of their value system
- public and private acceptance –> not dependent on group presence
- permanent eg: religion
describe identification as a type of conformity
- alters behaviours/beliefs because membership of that group is desirable
- public and private acceptance in order to gain group approval
- temporary as not maintained once they leave the group
describe compliance as a type of conformity
- alters beliefs/behaviour to gain acceptance
- desire to fit in
- involves public but not private acceptance
- weak form of conformity
what was the method of Zimbardos SPE
- 21 volenteer male uni students randomly selected as guard or prisoner
- prisoners were arrested, stripped and given numbers whilst guards were given reflective sunglasses and handcuffs
- they were instructed not to use physical violence
what were the findings of Zimbardos SPE
- both prisoners and guards quickly conformed to their roles
- prisoners rebelled which was crushed by guards who grew increasingly abusive
- 5 prisoners left early due to adverse reactions to physical tourment
- experiment stopped after 6 days
what were the conclusions of Zimbardos SPE
- ppl quickly conform to social roles even when it goes against morals
- situational factors were largely responsible as none of the participants had shown these behaviours previously
what are some overall A03 points of Zimbardos SPE
- high ecological validity
- ethical issues
- biased sample
