Conformity

Question 1

What is conformity

Answer 1

Where the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of someone in a particular group are adopted in response to group pressure

Question 2

What are types of conformity

Answer 2

Compliance
Identification
Internalisation

Question 3

Compliance

Answer 3

When someone publicly conforms to the behaviour or views of others in a group in order to be accepted or to avoid disapproval, but keeps their own views private.

Question 4

Identification

Answer 4

Adjusting behaviour and opinions to those of a group because they identify with that group and want to be a part of it. Sees them as role models. Public acceptance and private rejection.

Question 5

Internalisation

Answer 5

Conversion of private views to match those of a group, this behaviour or belief becomes part of their own belief system. Public and private acceptance.

Question 6

Why do people conform

Answer 6

Normative social influence (NSI)
Information social influence (ISI)

Question 7

Normative social influence

Answer 7

When people conform because they want to be liked by the other members of the group and want to avoid hate.

Question 8

Informational social influence

Answer 8

Based on the desire to be right and occurs when we turn to others who we believe to be correct in attempt to gain information on how to think or act.

Question 9

Research into conformity: Asch’s experiment

Answer 9

To investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to a majority who gave obviously wrong answers.

Question 10

Asch’s experiment: Procedure

Answer 10

123 male US graduates

7-9 participants

Sat looking at lines matching one to the stimulus line.

Correct answer was obvious (unambiguous)

All except one were confederates

Question 11

Asch’s experiment: Findings

Answer 11

37% of the critical trials were conformed on

75% conformed to atleast one wrong answer

25% never gave a wrong answer

5% conformed to all wrong answers

Question 12

Asch’s experiment: conclusions

Answer 12

Participants said they conformed publicly in order to avoid rejection and disapproval.

Motivated by Normative social influence

Demonstrates a strong tendency to conform to group pressures even when the answer is clear.

Question 13

Variables affecting conformity

Answer 13

Task difficulty
Group size
Unanimity

Question 14

Task difficulty

Answer 14

Conformity increases when task difficulty increases, as the right answer becomes less obvious, confidence in our own judgement tends to drop.

Asch’s- made the stimulus line and other lines similar to eachother in lengths.

Question 15

Group size

Answer 15

Conformity rates increase as the rates increase as the size of a majority influence increased.

Asch’s-varying the number of confederates.

Question 16

Unanimity

Answer 16

The extent to which all members of a group agree. Rates have been found to decline when majority influence is not unanimous.

Asch’s- introduced a confederate who disagrees with the others sometimes correct or sometimes wrong answers.

Question 17

Evaluation of Asch’s research into conformity

Answer 17

Methodology
Child of its time
Cultural bias
Ethical issues

Question 18

Methodology

Answer 18

He conducted a controlled laboratory experiment. Means that he could control everything like changing the group size.

Question 19

Child of its time

Answer 19

The investigation took place in a time where conformity was high, so therefore it made sense for the participants to conform. The 1950s was a particularly conformist time in America - it made sense to conform to established norms.

Question 20

Cultural bias

Answer 20

One limitation is that it did not take cultural differences into account. The participants were all from the US. Which is an individualistic culture where people are more concerned with themselves than the social group.

Question 21

Ethical issues

Answer 21

There were also ethical issues as they were deceived as they missed out on important information about the experiment. As a result lack of informed consent was and issue.

Question 22

Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo SPE

Answer 22

To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles in a role-playing simulation of prison life.

Question 23

Zimbardo-SPE: Procedure

Answer 23

Stanford university

24 male students, volunteers

All were psychologically/physically screened

Randomly allocated prisoner or guard

Zimbardo played prison supervisor

Question 24

Zimbardo-SPE: Findings

Answer 24

Dehumanisation was apparent as the guards began to humiliate the prisoners and made them clean the toilets with their bare hands, being blindfolded and being given stocking caps to stimulate a bald head.

Deindividuation was also apparent as they were referring to eachother and themselves by their prison numbers.

Question 25

Zimbardo-SPE: Conclusions

Answer 25

Everyone conformed to their social roles and therefore became a psychological threat to the prisoners health- therefore stopping the experiment.