conformity Flashcards
gDescribe the meaning of conformity
Yielding to group pressure
What is the meaning of compliance?
Publicly but not privately going along with the majority influence to gain approval or avoid ridicule
Is compliance temporary or permanent?
Weak/temporary and only shown in the presence of the group
What is the meaning of internalisation?
Public and privately accepting majority influence through adoption of the majority group’s belief system
Is internalisation temporary or permanent?
A stronger permanent form of conformity as its maintained outside of the group’s presence
What is the meaning of identification
Public and private acceptance of majority influence in order to gain group acceptance
Is identification temporary or permanent
A stronger form of conformity but still temporary, they don’t always agree with the group
Explain Informational social influence
- a cognitive process that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it to be correct
- we accept it because we too want to be right and so both our private and public views change to be consistent with the majority
Explain the normative social influence
- an emotional process that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we wish to be liked or accepted
- we want to gain social approval
- they may change their public views but will privately disagree
Who took part in Asch’s experiment?
- one participant (the testee) was asked the line length in comparison to the others
- confederates who were asked to say the wrong numbers
What did the participants in Asch’s experiment have to do?
they had to look at the line and match it to another line which had the same length
What did Asch find in his experiment?
That 37% of participants conformed to majority due to social influence and 75% of participants conformed at least once
What do Asch’s findings tell us
- That most people will go along with the majority of the group, due to social pressure
- No one wants to look different in the eyes of participants who changed their answers
Does Asch’s experiment show that people conform?
Yes, the experiment shows that there are people who will conform to avoid ridicule but actually don’t believe what they are saying
What is temporal validity
A type of external validity that refers to the ability to generalise the results of a study over time
Give one weakness of Asch’s experiments to do with validity
It lacks temporal validity (it is only been done once years and years ago)
Give another weakness of Asch’s experiment to do with temporal validity which was proved later
When Perrin and Spencer repeated the study, they repeated it with a group of engineering students and 1 in 396 students conformed. This infers that people are less likely to conform in recent years - it lacks temporal validity
Give another weakness of Asch’s experiment to do with the characteristics of the experiment
- Demand characteristics (behaving according to how they thought they should behave)
- trivial - not very difficult/realistic
- they cannot be generalised, as there were only male participants
Give another weakness of Asch’s experiment to do with gender
- In the 1970s, it was suggested that women would be more conformist because they’re more concerned with social relationships (wish to please)
- sex differences were inconsistent in a meta-analysis (reanalysis)
- clearest difference between men and women was group pressure from an audience
What did Fiske say about Asch’s experiment and when did he say it?
“Asch’s groups were not very groupy” meaning the groups didn’t really know each other.
he said it in 2014
What are the three reasons people conform in terms of Asch’s experiment
- Distortion of perception- came to see the lines in the same way as the majority
- Distortion of judgement- felt doubt about the accuracy of their judgement so sided with the majority
- Distortion of action- continued to trust their own judgement and perception but changed behaviour to avoid disapproval
Give some research support for ISI
- students were asked to give answers to maths questions that were easy or more difficult
- greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were more difficult - low self-efficacy
Give some research against NSI
- less concerned with being liked are less likely to be affected by NSI than those who care about being liked
- they’re described as being nAffilators
- research showed students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform
What is a social role
The parts that people play as members of various social groups for example parents or students. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role
