Social influence Flashcards
(8 cards)
What is informational social influence as an explanation of conformity?
Conforming to be right. Is a permanent influence as an individual is uncertain and feels others are more knowledgeable.
What is Normative social influence as an explanation for conformity?
Conforming to be liked. Is a temporary influence as an individual wants to be accepted and not rejected. They want to feel acceptance through agreeing with a group.
What is Compliance as a type of conformity?
Individuals go along with a group to gain approval. This does not result in a change in underlying attitude, only in views expressed in public.
What is Identification as a type of conformity?
Has elements of both compliance and internalisation as the individual accepts the attitudes and behaviours as true, but the purpose is to be accepted.
What is internalisation as a type of conformity?
Individuals go along with a group because of an acceptance of their views. This can lead to acceptance of a groups point of view both public and private.
What was Asch’s study into conformity?
Asch used 123 males. Task involved asking participants which of three comparison lines was the same length as the target line. However only 1 participant was real and the rest were confederates (groups of 7-9). The real participant was positioned last or second to last to answer. The study began with two trials, where the confederates answered correctly (a neutral trial). On the next trial the confederates gave an incorrect answer (a critical trial) in total 18 trials (12 critical and 6 neutral).
What were the findings of Asch’s study into conformity?
33% of participants conformed. One third of participants conformed. Individual differences were discovered, Asch reported one quarter did not conform on any 12 trials. Half conformed on 6 or more trials and one in 20 conformed in all 12 trials. Asch confirmed the task was unambiguous by conducting a control condition with no fake participants, the results were that participants made mistakes on about 1% of trials. When he interviewed the participants, the ones who conformed continued to privately trust their own perceptions and judgement but changed their views in public. The results suggest that because the answers were obvious, Asch’s study shows the impact of the majority. However, the majority does not always have the same impact on every individual.
Give 3 negative evaluation points of Asch’s study?
Two thirds of the trials participants stuck to their own original judgements despite the fact the majority expressed a different opinion… Does this show more evidence of independence rather than conformity.
All participants were men, therefore this study cannot tell us about conformity in women.
Asch’s experiments have been criticised for their artificial nature. Participants knew they were in a study - demand characteristics.
