Conformity Flashcards
What are the types of conformity?
Compliance, identification and internalisation
What is compliance?
You publicly agree with the majority but privately disagree with them. For example - bullying a person because everyone else is doing it despite knowing that it’s wrong to do so
What is identification?
When a person conforms to the role that society expects them to play or they may accept the influence from a group as they want to be associated with that group. For example - following a religion because everyone else is doing so
What is internalisation?
You publicly agree with the majority and privately do too. For example - bullying someone because everyone else is doing so and believing that they deserve to be bullied
What is the difference between compliance, identification and internalisation?
Compliance and identification - you do not permanently change your opinion
Internalisation - your opinion changes permanently
What are the two explanations for conformity?
Normative social influence
Informational social influence
What is normative social influence?
People conform because they fear being isolated. This leads to compliance because they publicly agree with the majority because they don’t want to be rejected by them but privately still disagree with them.
What is informational social influence?
People want to be correct and behave in the right way but don’t know how to. Therefore, they look to someone/a group who they believe is acting correctly. This is likely to lead to internalisation as they both publicly and privately agree with this majority as their opinions are changed permanently by becoming part of this group.
What are the research to support normative social influence?
Linkenback and Perkins
How does linkenback and Perkins support normative social influence?
They found that adolescents exposed to the simple message that the majority of their age peers do not smoke were subsequently less likely to take up smoking. This suggests that behaviours occurred as a result of the desire to want to fit in with a group, demonstrating the power of normative social influence.
What researcher supports informational social influence?
Fein et al
How does Fein et al’s research support informational social influence?
they demonstrated how judgment of candidate performance in US presidential debates could be influenced by knowledge of others reactions. Participants saw what was supposedly the reactions of their fellow participants on screen during the debate. This produced large shifts in the participants judgement of the candidates performance. This change in behaviour is more than likely a result of the individuals looking to other people to help them make their mind up, this demonstrates the occurrence of informational social influence
Why is it difficult to differentiate between NSI and ISI?
You would have to rely on the participants truthful answer as you cannot assume why they are conforming. For example - if a girl was wearing the same clothes as the majority of girls it would be hard to distinguish whether she privately likes the clothes (informational social influence) or whether she privately dislikes the clothes (normative social influence) and is just wearing them because the majority are. Therefore the research is flawed due to the confounding variables - relying on the participants response, thus we can only make assumptions as to why people actually conform.
Why are the controlled lab settings a problem within explanations of why people conform?
A problem with lab settings is that is leads to the research not being able to be applied to real life as it has been carried out in a new environment and has been controlled. This means that the research is lacking in external validity. Also, the research is over reliant on self report methods, meaning the researcher will have to rely on the participants to tell the truth. For example, the researcher will have to rely on the participant to tell them how they personally feel about the situation to enable the researcher to determine an explanation for their conformity. Therefore he research is flawed as it lacks ecological validity and doesn’t take into account the flaws of self report methods such as demand characteristics.
