Social Influences

Question 1

What are the three types of conformity?

Answer 1

Internalisation
Compliance
Identification

Question 2

What is internalisation?

Answer 2

When a person genuinely accepts the group norms and internalises the beliefs / opinions / behaviours in public and in private. Likely to be permanent as the beliefs are internalised. (ISI)

Question 3

What is identification?

Answer 3

When a person takes on the majority view of a group because they value being a part of the group. Doesn’t necessarily agree with the values and therefore publically conform and may not privately.

Question 4

What is compliance?

Answer 4

When a person superficially goes along with a group in order to fit in, in public but not privately. These changes go away as soon as the group pressures desist. (NSI)

Question 5

What is informational social influence? (ISI)

Answer 5

When we agree with the majority view because we assume / believe it’s correct and we accept it because we also want to be correct. May lead to internalisation.

Question 6

What is normative social influence? (NSI)

Answer 6

When we accept the majority view because we want to fit in, be accepted by the group, gain social approval and be liked. May lead to compliance.

Question 7

What are the three evaluation points for the two process ISI-NSI model?

Answer 7

• Research support for ISI (Lucas et al. 2006)
• Individual differences in NSI (personality differences)
• ISI and NSI work together (Asch)

Question 8

What were the findings from Asch’s study into conformity?

Answer 8

Ppts gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time
Overall 25% of ppts didn’t conform
Therefore 75% of ppts conformed at least once
Ppts interviewed; most said that they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI)

Question 9

What were the three main variations of Asch’s research?

Answer 9

Group size - small increase had little effect
Unanimity - Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others
Task difficulty - Made the task more difficult - conformity rose due to effects of ISI

Question 10

What was Asch’s group size variation and what was its findings?

Answer 10

Increased the size of confederate group - conformity increased with the increasing group sizes but only to a certain point - levelling off when the majority was greater than 3