Social Influence Flashcards
(51 cards)
Conformity
A change in a persons behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people
Types of conformity
- kelman 1958
- compliance
- identification
- internalisation
Compliance
- publicly conforming to the behaviour or views of others in a group but privately maintaining one’s own views
- superficial and temporary conformity
Identification
- Adopting the values, attitudes or behaviour of a group both publicly and privately because you value membership of, or association with that group
- This is a deeper conformity than compliance but not necessarily permanent
Internalisation
- new attitudes and behaviours become part of the individuals value system so they display those views/behaviours both in public and in private
- Deep and permanent type of conformity
Jenness beans in a jar
- individual estimates of how many beans in a glass bottle
- then got into groups and provided a group estimate
- after, participants were asked again to provide individual estimate
Explanations for conformity
- Normative social influence
- Informational social influence
Normative social influence
-Agreeing with the majority because we want to be liked
- Leads to compliance
Informational social influence
-Agreeing with the majority because we believe they know better or more likely to be right
- Leads to internalisation
Strengths of NSI and ISI
-There is research to support these explanations of conformity like Asch (1951) and Lucas et al (2006)
- shows that NSI and ISI are valid for explaining conformity
Weaknesses of NSI and ISI
-It is often unclear whether NSI or ISI is at work in research studies or real life. Both processes likely operate together in most real world conformity situations
- NSI does not predict conformity in every case. some people are concerned with being liked by others whereas some are not
Asch
- 1956
- extent to which social pressure from a majority could affect a person to conform
- 123 male volunteers judged line length in comparison to a standard line
- one naive participant per trial, others were confederates
- out of 18 trials, 12 were critical trials where confederates deliberately gave the same wrong verbal answer
Jenness findings + conclusion
- most participants changed original answer. Males changed by 256 beans and females by 382 beans
- answers changed because group estimate was believed to be more right
Asch findings + conclusions
- 5% confirmed on every critical trial
- 25% confirmed on none
- overall conformity was 33%
- later interviews revealed majority of participants privately trusted their own perceptions but gave wrong answers to be liked (compliance)
- Shows NSI because of unambiguous task
Weaknesses of asch’s research
- lacks mundane realism which reduces the real world application
- Participants may have experienced demand characteristics and changed their behaviour
- participants were American men, tells us little about women or people from other cultures
- a child of its time (outdated)
- ethical issues of deception
Strengths of asch’s research
- support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
- Lucas et al (2006), participants more likely to agree with other’s answers if problems were harder
- showed that conformity is more complex than asch suggested, individual level factor can influence conformity like high or low confidence
Variations of asch’s study
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Task difficulty
Group size
- increased the size of the group by adding more confederates therefore increasing the size of the majority
- conformity levels increased with group size but only up to a certain point
Unanimity
- when all the members of a group agree
- in the original study all the confederate selected the same comparison line
- with the dissenter (non-conforming person) participants could behave more independently
- when there was a correct ally conformity reduced to around 5%
- when there was an incorrect ally informed she dropped to 9%
Task difficulty
- line lengths became more similar so the task became more difficult
- conformity increased but the percentage was not recorded
- when the task is harder or more ambiguous we assume others are correct which shows informational social influence
Zimbardo/Haney et al
-Study into social roles
- healthy male students were recruited from adverts and selected on the basis of their physical and mental stability
- randomly assigned to guard or prisoner
- arrested at home by real policeman, fingerprinted and given uniform and ID numbers. meals and toilet trips supervised
- Guards had uniform shades and clubs
- Zimbardo played role of the warden
- experiment was set to run for two weeks
Zimbardo/Haney et al findings + conclusions
-Both prisoners and guards quickly identified to their social roles: some prisoners had extreme reactions like anxiety and hunger strikes, guards quickly became abusive
- role behaviour continued even when they didn’t know they were being watched
-concluded that people can quickly conform to social roles even when their role goes against their moral principles
- situational factors were responsible for the behaviour found
Strengths of Zimbardo’s study
- High internal validity
- lab study which means high control over variables
- personality tests rules out individual differences
- Real world relevance with human rights violations against Iraqi prisoners who were tortured, physically and sexually abused and humiliated by those in power
Weaknesses of Zimbardo’s study
-Lacks realism due to being a lab study, some participants claimed they based their behaviour on film characters
- Major ethical issues: participants weren’t reminded of their right to withdraw, there was no protection from harm and deception.
- bbc televised prison study showed guards authority broken down due to prisoners identifying as a group and guards failing to identify their role, conformity was not automatic
