SOCIAL AND DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS CONFORMITY Flashcards
dispositional factors?
something about you
social factor?
other people
group size(SOCIAL FACTOR)
- more people in group the greater pressure
-tried proceedure with varying size groups, two confederates, conformity 13.6%, three 31.8%, adding more made little difference
evaluation: different effects depending on type of task - no obvious answer - gropu size does matter - don’t conform with 1 or 2 others but with 8-10 others they do
Anomynity(SOCIAL FACTOR)
- didnt want other to think they were silly
- did not want to be rejected by group - anomyity - less group pressure
- write responses anomynously - far fewer correct answers
evaluation: group of strangers - effect of anomyity changes if friends who are expressing opinions amoumynously - conform more - increase conformity
Task difficulty(SOCIAL FACTOR)
- difficulty of task
- harder - making lines look similar in length - conformity increased
- less confident about there answer
Evaluation: may not be true for everyone - greater expertise less affected by task difficulty
Personality(DISPOSITIONAL FACTOR)
locus of control - external - do not influence things that happen to them - internal locus of control - feels they are in charge of what happens - investigated whether locus of control impacted conformity - - cartoon - funiness - confederate sat there - giving his ratings of the cartoons - external -more likely to agree
evaluation;
locus of control does not effect conformity in familar situations - julian rotter - new situations - how behave - locus of control important - - familiar situation - less affected
expertise(DISPOSITIONAL FACTOR)
- greater expertise - less conformist
evaluation: single factor to explain conformity is simplistic - not only influence - being an expert may not be sufficient
