CONFORMITY

Question 1

What is a social group?

Answer 1

It is a group of two or more people, who interact together, that share things in common, and share a common identity.

Question 2

What is a social role?

Answer 2

behaviour, and beliefs, expected of a person with a particular position in a social group.

Question 3

what are social norms?

Answer 3

Social norms are all the unwritten rules for how all members of a social group, should behave.

Question 4

What is a private attitude?

Answer 4

Whatever a person, trully believes.

Question 5

What is a public attitude?

Answer 5

whatever a person tells other people.

Question 6

What is conformity?

Answer 6

When a persons private, or public attitudes are influenced my the majority.

Question 7

What are the three types of conformity?

Answer 7

1. Compliance
2. Identification
3. Internalisation.

Question 8

What is compliance?

Answer 8

Compliance is when a person conforms publicly, but not privately, in order to be acceptred by a social group, and avoid social rejection.
It is a weak form of conformity,and it is short-lasting.

Question 9

What is Identification?

Answer 9

Identificaion is when a person conforms to be like a role model, or social role that they admire. Their private, and public attitudes match. Hoever, it is not long lasting, as they only comply when they admire their role model or social role. We say it is a medium type of conformity.

ex: I admire Ronaldo, I dress like he does, have the same diet as him, a

Question 10

What is internalisation?

Answer 10

Internalisation is when someone conforms to an attitude, and genuinely believe it is correct, regardless if other people hate it. Both public and private attitudes match, and it is a long term type of conformity. We say it is a strong type of conformity.

Question 11

Who conducted the prisoner and guard experiment?

Answer 11

Zimbardo (1971).

Question 12

What was the aim of zimbardos experiment?

Answer 12

To invesigate if prison brutality happens because of the personality of guards and prisoners, or because they are conforming to social roles.

Question 13

describe Zimbardos experiment.

Answer 13

1. He turned the basement of Stanford into a prison.
2. 21 males were recruited to participate in the expermient.
3. They were then assigned to their roles by a coin flip, either prisoner, either guard.
4. The prisoners were arrested, fingerprinted, stripped of their clothes, and were made to dress like prisoners.
5. The guards were dressed in unifromsm an sunglasses, and were given handcuffs, and bats.
6. At first, the prisoners tried to rebel, they barricated themselfes in their cells, by puttin beds against their doors.
7. The guards then used fire extinguishers on prisoners, in response to the bad behaviour.
8. They then stripped the prisoners off their clothes , and the gaurds became more brutal overall, they started mocking the prisoners, and made them do meaningless things.
9. Prisoners who protested, were severy punished, and prisoners who sided with the guards, were given special privilliges.
10. The prisoners became more and more submissive, and eventually started to go crazy ( one prisoner was even released before, and one decided to go on a hunger strike).
11. After 6 days, Zimbardo ended the experiment. ( The experminet was supposed to last 14 days).

Question 14

What were the conclusions of zimbardos experiment?

Answer 14

1. Prison violence is caused by peopleconforming to social roles of prisoner and guards, because violence is seen when normal people are put in prisons ( The particicipants were tested psychologically, before being allowed to participate in the experiment).
2. When normal men were given new social roles that gave them more power and encourage violent behaviour, they became more brutal.

Therefore, prison brutality is caused by situation, and not personality.

Question 15

Why was Zimbardos experiment unethical? And what was Zimbardos response?

Answer 15

Because participants were psychologically harmed , and secondly, the participants did nit know what they are conconsenting to, since they could not give informed consent

Zimbardo response: H e said he had Lack of awareness, he said he recruited psychologically healthy people, and he didnt know the study would turn out so violent. He also ended the experiment earlier than expected, before it could get any worse.

Question 16

Why does Zimbardos experiment lack generalisability? And what was his response?

Answer 16

Because he mainly recruited only white, middle class man.We dont know if people would have confomed in different genders, races, culture, or ages..
Zimbardo response: However, there is prison brutality everywhere in the world, therefore his findings do generalise to the real world .

Question 17

Why does Zimbardox experminet lack ecological validity? And what was zimbardos response?

Answer 17

The study wasnt realistic, which maybe could have caused the participants to feel as if the experiment was not real, and so would have not behaved like they would have in the real world.
Zimbardo response: However, the prisoners had real emotions, such as crying, and 90% of the conversations between them, were about life in prison, which implies that they were taking it seriously.

Question 18

Why does Zimbardos experiment have Investigator effects?

Answer 18

Because Zimbardo played the role of prison warden in the expermient, therefore, he might have biased the experiment subconscioudly according to his personal beliefs. H e might have influenced the behvaiour of the participants.
Zimbardo had NO response to this.

Question 19

Explain how group size affects conformity.

Answer 19

If the group size is smaller, then there is a lower chance of conforming, because there is less social pressure, whereas if the group size is bigger, then there is a higher chance of conformity, simply because of higher social pressure, however, there is a limit to this.

Look at examples in notebook to understand better.

Question 20

Explain how unanimity affects conformity.

Answer 20

When everyone in a group agrees on something, we say their attitude is unanimous. As the unanimity of the group increases, conformity increases as well. As unanimity decrease, confomrity decreases too.

Look at examples in notebook to understand better.

Question 21

Explain how task difficulty affects conformity.

Answer 21

when a task is more difficult, or the solution to a question is less obvious, likehood of conformity tends to increase. When a task is less diffciult, or more obvious, then likehood of conformity decreases.

Look at examples in notebook to understand better.

Question 22

What is a siuational variable?

Answer 22

features of the environment.

Question 23

What is an individual variable?

Answer 23

personal characteristics.

Question 24

What is normative social influence(NSI)

Answer 24

When we confirm, beause we want to be liked, and accepted by the group. We dont necesarally agree with what someone else has to say, and we conform publicly, but not privateyl. Involves compliance.

Question 25

What is informational social influence (ISI)

Answer 25

we conform when we are not sure what to think, or what to do. So we look at the majority, because we think they are likely to be correct. The public, and private attitudes match.

Question 26

Evaluate NSI

Answer 26

It involves compliance, and it is likely to occur when there is high social pressure.

Look at examples in notebook to understand better.

Question 27

Evaluate ISI

Answer 27

It usually involves internalisation, but sometimes may involve identification.NEVER involves compliance. Usually occurs when task difficulty is high.

Question 28

What was Aschs experiment aim?

Answer 28

To see if people would conform to someone saying something obviously wrong.

Question 29

Describe Aschs experiment.

Answer 29

1. Asch first presented the participants with one main line, and 3 other lines.
2. The participants then had to say which one of the other three lines, matched with the main line.
3. The participants were in groups of 8.
4. The groups were asked to judge the length of the line, 18 times, in 18 different trials.
5. 7 out of the 8, were actually confederates (paid actors)., and were told to say the wrong answer, Only one person out of those 8, was a genuine participant.
6. Asch told the confederates to say the wrong answer, on 12 out of the 18 trials.
7. The task difficulty was very low.

Question 30

What were the findings of Aschs eperiment?

Answer 30

75% of genuine participants, conformed on at least one trial.

across the 12 trials on which the confederates gave the wrong answer, the real participants conforme to the wrong answer, 36.8% of the time. SO THE CONFORMITY RATE WAS 36.8%.

5% of the participants, conformed on every trial.

Thes ebehaviours could be explained by Normative social influence (NSI), and was direct compliance.

Question 31

Why was Asch experiment, suffering of demand characteristics? And what was aschs response?

Answer 31

particopants might have realised that the confederated were lying. Participants might have pretended to conform, because thats what they thought they should do.
Aschs response: When the participnts were asked about why they conformed, most of them said that it was because they wanted to avoid social rejection, other people said they thought they cant see really well, or that they were questioning their own judgement. This simply prooves that people werent just “pretending” to conform.

Question 32

Why did Aschs experiment, lack ecological validity? And what was his response?

Answer 32

Because the experiment took place in a laboratory, using an artificial situation. His study might have been unrealistic, and therefore lacked ecological validity, meaning that it was hard to generalise his findings to the real world. However, because the experiment was in a lab, asch could have better control over extraneous variables, , and therefore it is easier for him to establish a cause and effect relationship.

Question 33

Why does Aschs experiment, ignore individual variables?

Answer 33

Not all participants conformed, overall, the conformity rate was only 36.8%. This shows that some individuals are more likely to conform, based on individual variables, such as personality.
However, 75% of participants did conform only once , suggesting that the urge to fit in, is still present.

Question 34

When Asch conducted the experiment again, what were the 3 variables he was investigating?

Answer 34

UNANIMITY, GROUP SIZE, TASK DIFFICULTY

Question 35

describe aschs experiment when investigating task difficulty.

Answer 35

Asch decided to make the three lines, more similar to each other. He increased the task difficulty. The participants were now more likely to conform.

Question 36

describe aschs experiment when investigating unanimity.

Answer 36

He made one confederate say the right answer. The conformity rate of the experiment, dropped down from 36.8%, to a shocking 5.5%.

Question 37

describe aschs experiment when investigating group size.

Answer 37

He started with one confederate, and then kept on increasing the number of confederates, until he had 15 confederates.

When there were 2 confederates, rate of conformity dropped to 13%.

When there were 3 confederates, rate of conformity dropped to 32%

However, from over 3 confederates, the rate of conformity stayed 32%.

This prooves that effect of group size is limited.