Conformity

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

Conformity is a type of social influence where a person changes their attitude or behaviour in response to group pressure

Question 2

What are the three types of conformity?

Answer 2

Compliance
Identification
Internalisation

Question 3

What is compliance?

Answer 3

Temporary- When someone outwardly goes along with the majority view but privately disagrees with it

Question 4

What is identification?

Answer 4

Moderate- when we take on majority view because we want to be associated with the group that holds those beliefs even though we may not agree with everything

Question 5

What is internalisation?

Answer 5

Deep- we take on the majority view because we actually believe in that attitude/ behaviour

Question 6

What are the two explanations for conformity?

Answer 6

Normative social influence- NSI
Information social influence- ISI

Question 7

What is normative social influence-NSI?

Answer 7

People conform because they want to be accepted

Question 8

What is informational social influence- ISI?

Answer 8

People conform because they want to be right

Question 9

What are two strengths of influence of explanations for conformity?

Answer 9

Research support for NSI- Linkenbach and Perkins (2003), found that adolescents espoused to the message that majority of their peers did not smoke were less likely to smoke. In Asch’a study, when ptpts wrote down their answers, conformity fell to 12.5%.

Research support for ISI- Lucas et al. (2006) there was greater conformity to incorrect difficult questions answered than easier ones. People conform in situations when they don’t know the answer.

Question 10

What are the three limitations of influence of explanations for conformity?

Answer 10

ISI and NSI don’t always work Independently- Deutsch and Gerrard- NSI and ISI are two separate processes and proposed that behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI. However, more often, both processes are involved. For example, conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant in the Asch experiment. This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because the dissenter provides social support) or may reduce the power of ISI (because there is an alternative source of information). This shows that it isn’t always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work and so casts serious doubt over the view of ISI and NSI as two processes operating independently in conforming behaviour.

NSI may not be detected- There is some support for the claim that individuals do not always recognise the behaviour of others as a causal factor in the change of their own behaviour. Nolan et al. (2008)- investigated whether people detected the influence of social norms on their energy conservation behaviour. When asked about what factors had influenced their own energy conservation, people believed that the behaviour of neighbours had the least impact on their own energy conservation, yet results showed that it had the strongest impact.
This shows that people tend to under-detect the impact of normative influence on their behaviour.

Individual differences in NSI- Some research shows that NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For example people who are less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care more about being liked. These people are known as nAffiliators= people who have a greater need for ‘affiliation’. This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others, and so they will be affected by NSI in differing ways. Studies need to take into account these individual differences.

Question 11

What is an nAffiliator?

Answer 11

They have a need to be affiliated with a group/ a need to be associated with a group

Question 12

What was the procedure of Asch’s line study (1951,1955)?

Answer 12

123 US undergraduate males were shown 3 lines and they had to say out loud which was the same as the ‘standard’ line. There was only one naive ptpt and the confederates all deliberately gave the wrong answer.

Question 13

What was the findings of Asch’s line study (1951,1955)

Answer 13

When confederates gave the same wrong answer the mean conformity was 36.8%.

Question 14

What is the effect of group size on conformity?

Answer 14

With three confederates conformity increases to 31.8% but more confederates had no effect on the level of conformity

Question 15

What is the effect of unanimity on conformity?

Answer 15

Conformity reduced by a quarter when there was a dissenting confederate giving the right answer

Question 16

What is the effect of task difficulty on conformity?

Answer 16

Conformity increased when the line judging task was more difficult

Question 17

What is conformity to social roles?

Answer 17

When am Individual adopts certain behaviours and beliefs due the the expectations from a role they play in society, but stop when they are out of the role

Question 18

What is the key study that investigates conformity to social roles?

Answer 18

Zimardo’s Stanford prison experiment (1973)

Question 19

Describe the sample used in Zimabrdo’s study

Answer 19

21 American, male undergraduate students

Question 20

Describe the procedure of Zimardo’s study

Answer 20

• volunteers psychologically and physically screened
• Randomly assigned role of prisoner and guard
• prisoners arrested at home and given uniform and assigned ID number
• guards given uniform and wooden clubs and gold they had complete power over prisoners

Question 21

Describe how the prison guards showed conformity to their roles

Answer 21

Frequent headcount in the middle of the night, cleaning toilets with bare hands, punishes for smallest misdemeanour

Question 22

How did the prisoners show conformity?

Answer 22

• accepted harsh treatment
• became passive and subdued (5 prisoners had to be withdrawn early)

Question 23

After how many days was the experiment stopped early?

Answer 23

After 6 instead of initial 14

Question 24

What is the overall conclusion from the findings of Zimardo’s study?

Answer 24

Demonstrates the power of social roles on peoples behaviour- both guards and prisoners conformed to roles even when they went against moral principles

Question 25

What are the two strengths of Zimbardo’s SPE?

Answer 25

High Internal validity- Only emotionally stable people were chosen for the experiment to rule out individual personality differences an explanation for the findings. and they were randomly assigned prisoner or guard.
Real-life application- Findings can be used to explain events in Abu Ghraib (2004) when US soldiers abused and tortured iraqi prisoners. Lack of training, boredom, no accountability to higher authority were present in ZSPE and Abu Ghraib. If we know of this we can prevent this from happening in the future.

Question 26

What are the two limitations of Zimbardo’s SPE?

Answer 26

Demand characteristics- Behaviour of the ptpts was because they acted how they thought the experimenter wanted them to rather than conformity of roles. when shown to a group of students they all correctly guessed the purpose of the study.
counter- zimbardo pointed out that the experiment was very real to the ptpts. 90% of prisoners convo was about prison life and prisoner 416 stated that it was a real prison just run by psychologists not the government.
Ethical issues- breached protection from harm as they endured emotional and physical distress. zimbardo played a dual role of experimenter and head of the prison. he had a conversation with a ptpt that wanted to leave as the superintendent talking about the running of the prison not as the psychologist with ethical responsibilities.
counter- Zimbardo carried out debriefing sessions for several years after and concluded there was no long lasting effects.