Social influence - Need to make all cards

Question 1

What is the definition of conformity?

Answer 1

When we change our behaviour and/or attitudes in response to real or imagined group/majority pressure

Question 2

What are the 3 types of conformity?

Answer 2

• Compliance
• Identification
• Internalisation

Question 3

What is compliance as a type of conformity?

Answer 3

• Shallowest level of conformity
• The desire to avoid group pressure as we don’t want to stand out
• Public agreement but private disagreement
• Agreement stops as soon as the majority influence removed
• Change in behaviour is short term and whilst with the group to avoid rejection

Question 4

What is identification as a type of conformity?

Answer 4

• Public agreenent and some private agreement because you value group opinions
• Moderate level of conformity
• Desire to be accepted as a member of the group

Question 5

What is internalisation as a type of conformity?

Answer 5

• Always leads to permenant change
• Deep level of conformity
• Private and public agreement
• Desire to adopt a new belief system

Question 6

What was the aim of Asch’s study?

Answer 6

Wanted to inestigate whether a majority can influence a minority in a situation which is unambigious and the correct answer is obvious

Question 7

What was the method of Asch’s study?

Answer 7

• 123 male students took part in the experiment
• 7 people all sat looking at a display, in turn they said which one of the three lines (A,B,C) they thought was the same lengh as the stimulus X
• all but 1 of the 7 were confederates and the one genuine participant was always last or second last to answer
• Confederates asked to give same but wrong answer

Question 8

What were the results of Asch’s line study?

Answer 8

• Genuine particpants conformed on 32% of trials overall, 75% of participants conformed on at least one occasion
• Many of the participants who gave the wrong responses admitted that they went with the majority because they didnt want to stand out

Question 9

What type of conformity did Asch’s study cause?

Answer 9

Compliance - publically agreed but privately they did not

Question 10

What is the main conclusion of Aschs study?

Answer 10

A majority group can influence a minority to give an incorrect answer, even in an unambigious situation with a obvious answer

Question 11

What are the two pieces of conformity research?

Answer 11

Sherif and Asch

Question 12

What are the 3 situational variables that Asch changed in their variations of their research?

Answer 12

• Difficulty of task
• Unanimity
• Group size

Question 13

What effect did diffiulty of task have on Aschs study?

Answer 13

When the task is harder (ambigious) conformity rates increase due to not knowing the answer

Question 14

What effect did unaminity have on Aschs study?

Answer 14

In original study all confederates gave the wrong answer and conformity was 32%, with one confederate giving wrong answers that percentage became 5%

Question 15

What effect did group size have on Aschs study?

Answer 15

The more confederates the more people conform
Asch changed the group size between 1 and 15
- two confederates was 12.8% and one confederate was 3%

Question 16

What was the aim of Sherif’s study?

Answer 16

To see whether people conform to group norms when they are put in a ambigious situation