Conformity Flashcards

(24 cards)

1
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people.

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2
Q

What are the 3 TYPES of conformity?

A

Internalisation
Identification
Compliance

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3
Q

What is internalisation?

A
  • Genuinely accept group norms.
  • Change of behaviour/opinion is likely to be permanent.
  • Private and public change of opinion/behaviour.
  • The change of behaviour/opinion persists even in the absence of other group members.
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4
Q

What is identification?

A
  • We conform because there is something about the group that we value.
  • We identify as we want to be part of the group.
  • Publicly change opinion/behaviour even if we don’t privately agree with everything the group stands for.
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5
Q

What is compliance?

A
  • Superficial and temporary type of conformity.
  • Publicly and outwardly go along with the majority view, but privately disagree.
  • The change in behaviour only occurs in the presence of the group.
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6
Q

What are the 2 EXPLANATIONS for conformity?

A

Informational social influence (ISI)

Normative social influence (NSI)

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7
Q

What is ISI?

A
  • We agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it is correct.
  • We accept it because we want to be correct.
  • We believe they know better or have more information than us.
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8
Q

What is NSI?

A
  • We agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked.
  • Don’t want to be rejected.
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9
Q

State 2 positives of the explanations for conformity.

A

Research support for ISI:
- Lucas et al.
- Asked students mathematical questions, found greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult.
- Most true for students who rated their mathematical ability as poor.
Research support for NSI:
- Asch, asked why participants went along with the clearly incorrect answer.
- Participants said they felt self conscious about giving the correct answer and afraid of disapproval.
- When participants wrote down answers instead, conformity decreased to 12.5%.

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10
Q

State 2 negatives of the explanations for conformity.

A

Individual differences in NSI:
- nAffiliators - greater need for being in a relationship with others.
- People who are less concerned with being liked are less effected by NSI.
ISI and NSI work together:
- Asch, conformity decreased with a dissenting participant.
- Dissenter reduced power of NSI as they provided social support.
- Dissenter reduced power of ISI as they offered an alternative source of information.

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11
Q

Who conducted research into conformity?

A

Asch (1951)

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12
Q

What was the procedure of Asch’s study?

A
  • 2 white cards (standard line vs 3 comparison lines).
  • Participants had to pick which of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard line.
  • 123 white, American, male undergraduates.
  • Each naive participant was tested individually with 6-8 confederates.
  • Confederates all gave the wrong answers on 12 out of the 18 trials per participant.
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13
Q

What were the findings of Asch’s study?

A
  • Naive participant gave wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
  • 75% of participants conformed at least once.
  • When interviewed afterwards, participants said they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI).
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14
Q

What 3 variations of his study did Asch do?

A
  1. Group size
  2. Unanimity
  3. Task difficulty
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15
Q

What were the findings in Asch’s group size variation study?

A
  • Asch found that with 3 confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%.
  • The addition of further confederates made little difference.
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16
Q

What were the findings in Asch’s unanimity variation study?

A
  • Presence of another, non conforming, person would affect the naive participants conformity.
  • Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others.
  • The presence of a dissenting confederate meant that conformity was reduced by a quarter from the level it was when the majority was unanimous.
17
Q

What were the findings in Asch’s task difficulty variation study?

A
  • Made stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length.
  • Conformity increased, so ISI is greater when task becomes harder.
18
Q

State 4 criticisms of Asch’s study.

A

Child of its time:
- Perrin and Spencer (UK engineering students, 1/396 trials).
- Asch effect is not consistent across situations and time, so it not a fundamental feature of human behaviour.
Artificial situation and task:
- Participants knew they were in a research study - demand characteristics.
- Can’t generalise to everyday situations.
Limited application of findings:
- All participants male, white, american students (individualist culture).
- Conformity increases in collectivist cultures.
- Gender and cultural differences not taken into account.
Ethical issues:
- Participants deceived - confederates.

19
Q

Who conducted research into conformity to social roles?

20
Q

What was the procedure of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A
  • Mock prison set up in basement of psychology department at Stanford university.
  • Advertised for students willing to volunteer and then selected ‘emotionally stable’ participants after extensive psychological testing.
  • Randomly assigned roles of guard or prisoner.
  • Heightened realism - arrested, deloused, strip searched, assigned uniform and number.
  • Prisoner’s names never used, only numbers.
  • Guards issued uniform (wooden club, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades).
  • Guards told they had complete power over prisoners.
21
Q

What were the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A
  • Study stopped after 6 days instead of the intended 14.
  • Within 2 days prisoners rebelled against their harsh treatment by the guards.
  • Prisoners harassed by guards - frequent headcounts etc.
  • 1 prisoner released on the 1st day as he showed signs of psychological disturbance.
  • 2 more released on the 4th day.
  • 1 prisoner went on hunger strike - force fed and put in ‘the hole’.
22
Q

What conclusions can we draw from the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A
  • Guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their roles within the mock prison.
  • Study demonstrated the power of the situation to influence behaviour.
23
Q

State a positive of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

A

Control:

  • Selection of participants - emotionally stable and then randomly assigned to eliminate individual personality differences as an explanation for findings.
  • Increases internal validity.
24
Q

State 3 criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

A

Lack of realism:
- Banuazizi and Mohavedi - merely play acting.
- Cool Hand Luke
- Quantitative data - 90% of the prisoners conversations were about prison life - situation was real to them.
Role of dispositional factors:
- Only 1/3 of guards acted in a brutal manner.
- 1/3 wanted to enforce the rules fairly.
- The rest actively tried to help prisoners and sympathised with them.
- Guards were able to exercise right and wrong choices, despite the situation pressures to conform to a role.
Ethical issues.