Conformity Flashcards
What is conformity?
It is a form social influence. It is the tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of the majority position.
What is compliance?
An attitude or behaviour is adopted not because of its content, but because of the rewards or approval associated with its adoption.
What is internalisation?
Internalisation is when a individual accepts influence because of the content of the attitude or behaviour proposed is consistent with their own value system.
describe Asch’s study (1956).
Asch (1956) –A laboratory experiment using male, student volunteers who were told the aim was to test perception. They were seated around a table with 7-8 confederates and asked to state which of 3 lines on a card matched a single line on another. The answer was always obvious but all the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 of 18 trials.
• On critical trials, participants followed confederates and gave 36.8% incorrect answers
• 25% of participants never conformed.
Asch interviewed some of his participants. They gave 3 reasons for conforming:
1. Distortion of perception – a small number came to see the lines in the same way as the majority.
2. Distortion of judgement – they doubted their own accuracy so yielded to the majority.
3. Distortion of action – most participants were aware of the correct answer but publicly gave wrong answers to avoid disapproval.
what are the advantages of Asch’s study?
• Asch conducted experiments, high control of variables means the findings related to the effect of the presence of the majority on individual conformity would be reliable.
• He manipulated variables and contributed to the understanding of how the situation affects conformity i.e.:
1. The difficulty of the task: the differences in the lines were reduced and conformity increased.
2. Size of the majority: A majority of 3 others is required for conformity, 12 or 13 confederates broke the effect of the majority.
3. Unanimity of the majority: conformity rates dropped to only 5.5% when a confederate gave the right answer throughout. Even when another gave a different wrong answer, conformity levels greatly reduced – the consensus was broken – supporting the participant to give the right answer.
what are the disadvantages of Asch’s study?
- Validity: Judging lines is a fairly insignificant task, if it was more complex such as opinions on social issues conformity may drop. There is the possibility that participants responded to demand characteristics in the experiment. When members of a sports club were tested conformity was higher, the role of relationships maybe an essential aspect of conformity.
- Ethical issues: participants were deceived about the aim of the experiment, therefore they could not give informed consent.
- The role of culture: the original study took place in 1950’s USA
- Participants did not conform in the majority of trials, it is more appropriate to think of Asch’s study as a demonstration of independent behaviour.
what year was Asch’s study?
1956
what were the applications from Asch’s study?
Insight from Asch’s work has alerted us to potential problems in group situations such as jury decision making – research shows that the first vote of the jury determines the outcome in 95% of cases. Asch’s non experimental findings and their application to ISI and NSI as an explanation to why people conform, appear to be valid. Normative social influence can apply to experiences such as bullying. Compliance to the victimisation of another means avoiding being the victim. Informational social influence has been shown in studies where Participants were exposed to the reactions of others to candidates in an on screen debate. This produced large shifts in judgements of the candidates performance.
why do people conform?
They conform because of informational social influence (ISI) It is the result of wanting to be right- looking to others for the right answer,normative social influence (NSI); It is the result of wanting to be liked and be a part of the group by following social norms.
evaluate normative social influence and informational social influence.
Both ISI and NSI are derived from Asch’s study after the experiment and taken from the interview of the participants. any answers from the interview may have been caused by demand characteristics which in its self is a form of conformity.
Perin and Spenser (1980) describe the study.
Perrin and Spencer (1980) carried out an exact replication of the original Asch experiment using British engineering, mathematics and chemistry students as participants. The results were clear cut: on only one out of 396 trials did a participant conform with the incorrect majority. This shows the Asch experiment has poor reliability.
