Social Influence Flashcards
(66 cards)
What is Conformity?
A form of social influence whereby a person follows the majority
What is Compliance?
Publicly, but not privately going along with the majority to gain approval
(e.g. a person might laugh at the joke that others are laughing at while privately not finding it very funny)
What is Identification?
Publicly and privately accepting the majority in order to gain group acceptance
(e.g. a person might support a new football team every time they move to a new town)
What is Internalization?
Public and private acceptance of majority influence, through adoption of the majority belief system because it’s a view consistent with their own
(e.g. a person may become a Christian after sharing a flat with a group of Christian’s, as they feel share similar values)
What are the 2 explanations of Conformity?
Normative Social Influence and Informational Social Influence
What is Normative Social Influence?
When we conform to the majority to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval, in other words we do something in order to be liked. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we agree with everyone else
What is a Strength of Conformity?
There is research to support the role played by normative social influence in affecting people’s behaviour.
1. Linkenback and Perkins found that teenagers who were told that the majority of their peer group didn’t smoke were subsequently less likely to take up smoking themselves.
This suggests there is a real life application for the research as teaching people to be aware of this bias can often influence decision-making
2. Wittenbrink and Henley found that p’s exposed to negative information about African Americans (which they were led to believe that was the majority) later reported more negative attitudes towards them.
This suggests that the theory of ISI is accurate and therefore a valid explanation for why people conform
What is a Weakness of Conformity?
It is difficult to distinguish between compliance and identification.
This is because we cannot be sure if the person actually believes others are right or whether that may change when they are in private.
This is a problem because they could have forgotten information given by the group or because they have received new information that has changed their minds. Therefore, it is difficult to determine what is and what is not compliance.
What is the Aim of Asch’s study?
To investigate the degree to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
What is the Method of Asch’s study?
123 American (M) student volunteers took part in a “visual perception task” and therefore was deceived about the true aim of the study.
It is carried out in a lab using independent group designs where each group was made up of 7-9 confederates and 1 participant.
Each person in the group was asked to decided which comparison lines matched the standards line. the lines were made obviously different from one another to be sure that the participant was conforming and not just unsure of the answer.
12/18 trials the confederates gave the wrong answer (standardised). The participant was always last or 2nd last to give their answer, so they were able to hear the confederate’s views first and therefore measure the influence of majority.
There was also a control group whereby they were asked to complete the task alone.
What are the Results of Asch’s study?
P’s gave the wrong answer 33% of the time, with 75% conforming to at least one wrong answer. One quarter of the participants never conformed on any of the trials.
In comparison a control group had an error rate of 0.04% (used to check the ambiguity of the task)
Post-event interviews with the p’s highlighted 3 reasons for conformity:
1. Distortion of action, where the majority of p’s who conformed did so publicly but not privately
2. Distortion of perception, where some p’s believe their perception might be wrong
3. Distortion of judgement, where some p’s had doubts concerning their accuracy of judgement
What is the Conclusion of Asch’s study?
People conform for 2 main reasons:
1. Because they want to fit in with the group (Normative Social Influence)
2. Because they believe the group is better informed than they are (Informative Social Influence)
What is a Strength of Asch’s study?
The variables were highly controlled, as the confederates had to give the answer several times (where it was obviously wrong), and it may be difficult to do so convincingly. This matters because it means that the study can be replicated again to find the same results.
What is a Weakness of Asch’s study?
There have been shown to be cultural differences in levels of conformity (individualists conformed 25%, and collectivists conformed 37% of the time). This means that although Asch’s research might explain individualist cultures, but generalisations cannot be made to collectivist cultures
What are Situational Factors?
Anything in the environment that affects someone’s behaviour.
What are the 3 factors that Asch changed that would affect conformity levels?
Group size, Unanimity of the Majority, and Difficult of the Task
What happened in Asch’s Group Size study?
Asch found that the minimum needed to elicit conformity was 3, about 32% of people conformed when there were 3 confederates.
He found that further increases did not have a major influence on conformity levels. Therefore he concluded, the larger the group size, the more likely conformity will occur.
What happened in Asch’s Unanimity of the Majority study?
In Asch’s OG study, all confederates gave the wrong answer, they were unanimous in their decision. When the participant was given the support of another participant or confederate, conformity dropped from 33% to 5%.
Therefore he concluded that when a group disagrees with each other, others are less likely to conform to the majority
What happened to Asch’s Difficult of Task study?
In the OG study, the differences between each line was large, and therefore the answers were obvious. In his variation, he made the lines less distinguishable from each other, so the task was harder to complete. Under these circumstances ‘conformity increased. Therefore Asch can conclude, the harder the task is, the more likely people are to conform as the answer is more ambiguous
What is a Weakness of Asch’s Variations?
Conformity is a difficult task that can also be mediated by other factors like self efficacy. For example, those who were more confident in their abilities were less likely to conform. This means thar cause and effect cannot be easily established in conform as there are potentially several mediating variables. This also reduces the validity of the theory
What is the Aim of Zimbardo’s study?
To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison
What is the Procedure of Zimbardo’s study?
24 out of 27 university students were rated most physically and mental stable were chosen from a group of volunteers for a prison study paying $15 a day.
Prisoners were arrested from their homes without their knowledge by the county police, when they arrived they were stripped and deloused, and were also given to wear an ID number, smock, a ball and chain, whilst guards wore khaki uniforms, reflective sunglasses and a baton.
(roles were randomly assigned)
What Are the Results of Zimbardo’s study?
Men assigned as guards began behaving sadistically, inflicting humiliation and suffering on the prisoners. Prisoners became blindly obedient and allowed themselves to be dehumanized.
After 48 hrs, one prisoner had to be released as he showed signs of mental breakdown, and after 6 days the experiment was stopped.
Qualitative data showed that 90% of the conversations in the prison were about prison life, this shows prisoners were fully immersed in their role
What is the Conclusion of Zimbardo’s study?
The study showed that participants conformed to their social roles of guards and prisoners, and started to be deindividuated (i.e. lost their personal identity and took on the identity of the group)
