Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinion is a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
Who proposed the three types of conformity?
Kelman (1958)
What are the three types of conformity?
Compliance
Internalisation
Identification
Compliance
Going with other people’s ideas/to go along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval.
-You publically agree but privately disagree An individual’s change of view is temporary.
likely to occur as a result of NSI
Give an example of Compliance?
When friends pressure you into drinking alcohol when you don’t truly want to, and will not drink outside of such social situations.
Internalisation
Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group you own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of ISI). An individual’s change of view is permanent
Give an example of Internalisation
Being brought up in a religious household, and becoming religious yourself.
Identification
Short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level)
Give an example of identification?
Acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work.
What are the two explanations of conformity?
- Normative social influence
2. Influential social influence
Evidence for ISI
- Fein et al. asked p’s to vote for a US presidential candidate after they saw others voting for somebody else.
- Most changed their mind because they wanted to be ‘correct’, thus demonstrating the impact of informational social influence as a mechanism for conformity.
What is Normative social influence (NSI)
NSI - Conforming in order to be liked / to fit in → usually leads to compliance.
EX: When someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group; when a person’s need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance. It often occurs when a person wants to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority.
Give an example of NSI
A person starting to smoke because they are surrounded by other people who smoke
Real-world application NSI & Bullying AO3 (A-A*)
A real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity. Garandeau and Cillissen found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising another child
as the bully provides a common goal for the boy’s group of friends, the goal is to victimise the other child, so the boy would most likely also victimise the child to avoid disapproval from his friends
Evidence showing the role of social influence
Lucas et al. (2003) Maths questions
Asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult.
- Greater conformity to wrong answers when difficult rather than easier
- Most true for students who rated their maths ability as poor
Who were the participants in Asch’s study
- 123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6;
- consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates (actors/people in on the experiment)
What were the aims of Asch’s study?
To investigate conformity and majority influence
What was the procedure in Asch’s study?
- Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line
- They asked to state which of three lines was the same length as a stimulus line
- The real participant always answered last or second to last
- Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials
- Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
What were the findings of Asch’s study?
- 36.8% conformed
- 25% never conformed
- 75% conformed at least once
- In a controlled trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were incorrect (which eliminates eyesight/perception as an extraneous variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)
What were the factors affecting conformity in Asch’s study?
Size of majority/Group size
Unanimity of majority
Task Difficulty
What are the 2 differences between internalisation and compliance?
Public acceptance and private rejection.
Public and private acceptance.
Explain what is meant by normative and informational social influence.
Both explanations for conformity.
NSI - Conforming in order to be liked / to fit in → usually leads to compliance.
ISI - conforming in order to be right - conformity occurs when the situation is novel; the correct course of action is unclear; an expert is present → most likely to lead to internalisation.
What support for NSI was provided by Asch’s study (1951)?
Participants went along with a wrong answer because other people did.
When asked they said they feared disapproval by the others.
Supports: participants conformed in order to be accepted and gain social approval.
In relation to Asch’s research, explain what is meant by the terms unanimity and task difficulty.
Unanimity: The extent to which all members of a group agree.
Asch: The majority was unanimous when all confederates chose the same comparison line → produced the greatest levels of conformity.
Task difficulty: Asch’s study becomes more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer.
Asch: Conformity increases with task difficulty, as participants assume the majority is right.
Describe Asch’s study of conformity. Include details of what he did and what he found in your answer.
- Showed participant 2 white cards - one had three lines of different length and one had a standard line.
- Participants had to match the two lines of the same length.
- Each participant was tested with a group of confederates, who after the first few trials started given the wrong answer. All confederates gave the same wrong answer.
Overall, the participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time. Every participant conformed at least once, meaning that 75% conformed once.
When asked why they conformed, they said: “to avoid rejection”. → NSI
“Asch’s study is a child of its time” - Explain what is meant by this.
- When Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch’s study in 1980, only one student conformed out of 396.
- The 1950s (the time when Asch’s study was conducted) was a particularly conformist time in America - it made sense to conform to established norms.
- Meaning that people may have conformed because it was the norm to do so → We now live in a less conformist age, meaning the results would be different i.e. the study is a child of its time.
Asch’s study has been criticised for being an artificial task and situation. What does this mean and why is this a limitation?
Participants knew they were in a study and may have just gone along with the situation → Demand characteristics.
The task was fairly trivial - not conforming would have had no negative impact - and not resembling any everyday task.
Limitation because the tasks cannot be generalised to everyday situations.
Explain the ethical issues with Asch’s research. Do you believe the benefits of the study outweighed the cost? Explain your answer.
Deception - they thought the other people were part of the study.
Benefits outweigh the costs - gives us information about conformity in society and shows us the destructive possibilities of conformity and how these can be combated.
The ethical issues were fairly unproblematic (mild embarrassment) and was dealt with by a debrief form.
Explain why Asch’s findings have limited application in the real world.
Only men were tested by Asch - research suggests that women may be more conformist because they are more concerned with social relationships.
The men were all from the USA - an individualist culture. In individualist cultures, people are largely concerned with themselves.
In conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (people are more concerned with social groups), conformity rates were higher → such cultures are more concerned with group needs.
Conformity rates could in fact be much higher than Asch suggested.
His results may only apply to western men, as he did not take gender and cultural differences into account.
