conformity Flashcards
What is compliance?
Lowest level of conformity
Change in public but not private
What is identification?
The middle level of conformity
Change in both private and public behaviour but only for short term
What is internalisation?
The deepest level of conformity
Change in both private and public for a long term
What is normative social influence?
Conformity to be accepted and belong to a group
Socially rewarding
Avoid punishment
What is informational social influence?
Conforming to gain knowledge and to be right
Asch 1951
.
What was the aim of Asch’s study?
To investigate conformity and majority influence
what was the sample?
123 male undergraduates.
what was the procedure?
- deception used - told it was a vision test
- 1 participant, 5 confederates placed last
- 4 lines - 3 comparison, 1 standard
- which line was the same answers out loud
- 12 critical trials, 18 trials
- looked at how many participants would go along with the confederates lie
conclusions?
people conformed because they wanted to fit in, not because they didnt know the answers - therefore it is normative social influence
what were the findings?
- overall conformity rate was 33%
- 25% never conformed
- 75% conformed once
- control 1%
what are the factors affecting conformity
- size of the majority - more people have more influence- minimum of 2
- unanimity of majority - if they weren’t unanimous then it would to 5.5%
*task difficulty - if it was more difficult then more would conform
what the strength of Asch’s study
- lab experiment - high internal validity - strict control over extraneous variables
- Asch expected other results so shoes he was unbiased
what was the weakness of Asch’s study
- lacks ecological validity
- lacks population validity
- ethical issues - deception = no informed consent, slight pschological harm
*child of its time - during anti communist time, you must fit in
