Indepenant behaviour Flashcards
What is locus of control?
It is an aspect of our personality. Some people believe the outcomes of their actions are because of them (internally located) while others believe events are outside of their own personal control e.g. luck/fate. They are externally located.
Personality characteristics; What is attribution style?
A personality attribute that indicates how people explain to themselves why they experience a particular event.
situational factors Asch
Size of the Group
• Conformity tends to increase as the size of the group increases.
•However, there is little change in conformity once the group size reaches 4-5. With one other person (i.e. confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13% and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3).
Social Support
•When one other person in the group gave a different answer from the others, and the group answer was not unanimous, conformity dropped.
•Asch (1951) found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity as much as 80%.
Difficulty of Task
•When the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased.
Answer in Private
•When participants were allowed to answer in private (so the rest of the group do not know their response)conformity decreases.
Status of Majority Group
•If someone is of high status (e.g. your boss) or has a lot of knowledge (e.g. your teacher), they might be more influential, and so people will conform to their opinions more (e.g. informational influence).
•The higher the status of the group the higher the level of conformity.
Why do people resist pressures to conform?
This can be cause by locus of control or through situational factors as shown in Asch’s later studies.
