Conformity Flashcards
What is conformity?
Form of majority influence
Attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of a group are adopted in response to group pressure
What is compliance?
Publicly conforming to a group to be accepted / avoid disapproval but not conforming privately
Temporary change and shallow level
What is identification?
Conforming to become part of a group / changing their views to be like their role models
Private and public conformity
Temporary change / stop conforming when no longer group pressure
Always mentions role models
What is internalisation?
Conversion of private views to fit a group
Group views become part of their belief system
Most permanent and deepest level of conformity
Who developed the dual process model? (NSI and ISI)
Deutsch and Gerard
What is normative social influence?
Desire to be liked for emotional reasons
Often when situation is unambiguous / clear
Associated with compliance
What is informational social influence?
Desire to be right / attempt to gain information for cognitive reasons
Often in ambiguous situations / when uncertain of correct answer
Leads to internalisation
Give evidence to support Normative Social Influence (e)
In Asch’s (1951) line experiment there was an obvious answer but individuals judgements were still affected by the majority, even when the majority was obviously wrong.
37% conformity rate critical trials
75% participants conformed at least once
Participants were afraid of disapproval and wanted acceptance
Give evidence to support Informational Social Influence (e)
Lucas et al (2006) gave students easy and hard maths questions
He found greater conformity to incorrect answers with harder questions (especially if students maths ability was poor)
Supports the idea that people conform when they don’t know the answer and assume others know better
This demonstrates the desire to be right
How are individual differences ignored in the explanations for conformity? (e)
A limitation of NSI and ISI is they don’t affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way for example confidnece impacts conformity
Eg when Perrin and Spencer replicated Asch’s study with engineering students they were more confident in judging the lengths of lines and only 1 out of 396 students conformed
Therefore, more knowledgeable people are less influenced by the majority
Why is it not always possible to distinguish between ISI and NSI? (e)
A limitation of Deutsch and Gerard’s 2 process approach is it says behaviour is due to either ISI or NSI however often both are involved.
Eg conformity is reduced when there is another dissenting participant
This may be because power of NSI is reduced as confederate gives social support
Or this may be because power of ISI is reduced as confederate provides an alternative source of information
What was the aim of Asch’s line experiment?
To investigate the degree individuals would conform to an obviously wrong majority
Outline the procedure of Asch’s line experiment
123 male undergraduates (USA) were participants
They were told it was a visual perception study (deception)
7-9 people said out loud which line was the same length as the stimulus line (A, B or C)
The correct answer was always unambiguous
All people, but 1, were confederates and gave the same incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trials
What were the findings of Asch’s original line experiment?
37% of critical trials were conformed on
75% of participants conformed at least once
5% of participants conformed to all wrong answers
What conclusions were made form Asch’s original study?
In interviews, participants said they conformed publicly but not privately suggesting they were motivated by Normative Social Influence
There is a strong tendency to conform to group pressures
How did the variable of task difficulty effect Asch’s line experiment?
Variation: conformity increases as task difficulty increases as the right answer is less obvious
Procedure: Asch made the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar lengths to increase the task difficulty
Findings: conformity rates increased from 37%
Participants were more likely to conform to wrong answers
Why did this influence conformity?
Informational Social Influence plays a greater role as the situation is more ambiguous so we look to others for guidance and assume they are correct
How did the variable of group size effect Asch’s lime experiment?
Variation: conformity rates increased as the size of the majority influence increased, but only to a certain point
Procedure: he varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15
Findings:
1 confederate = 3% conformity
2 confederates = 13% conformity
3 confederates = 32% conformity
Adding extra confederates beyond 3 had no further effect on conformity
Why did this influence conformity?
This is due to normative social influence as the task is unambiguous
The only reason to conform is to avoid disapproval
Increasing confederates beyond 3 has little effect as people might suspect collusion (suggested by Brown and Byrne)
How did the variable unanimity affect Asch’s line study?
Variation: Conformity rates decline when the majority is not unanimous (when the majority does not all agree)
Procedure: Asch introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others, sometimes giving the correct answer and sometimes giving the other wrong answer
Findings: when confederate gave correct answers, conformity dropped from 37% to 5.5%
When confederate gave wrong answers, conformity dropped from 37% to 9%
Why did this influence conformity?
It breaks the groups unanimity
The presence of a dissenter enables participant to be more independent and it gives them emotional support
Evaluate the methodology of Asch’s research into conformity
Strength: controlled lab experiment so can manipulate variables eg group size and where the naive participant sits
Conformity is the result of the manipulation of variables, demonstrating cause and effect, increasing the internal validity (if the research measures what it sets out to measure)
Weakness: lacks mundane realism as judging line lengths is a trivial/ unimportant task. It doesn’t tell us about everyday situations eg when the consequences are more important like being a jury in court.
How does cultural bias affect Asch’s research into conformity? (e)
Participant were all from the USA (an individualistic culture) so are less likely to conform
Similar studies were conducted in collectivist cultures like China and conformity rates were higher
This is a limitation as it means we cannot generalise Asch’s findings to outside the US
How is Asch’s research a child of its time? (E)
It represents a period of US history when conformity was high
People are less likely to conform later eg Perrin and Spencer replicated Aschs study in the 1980s
They found only 1 student conformed on 396 trials however as they were engineering students they may also be more confident.
This is a limitation as it questions the temporal validity of Asch’s research
Temporal validity is if this research can be generalised for different time periods
How did ethical issues affect Asch’s research into conformity? (E)
The real participant were deceived as they were told it was a visual perception task and they thought that the confederates were genuine participants.
Therfore they are unable to give fully informed consent
However this deception is necessary to avoid demand characteristics (cues that indicate the aim of the study to the participants, causing them to change their behaviour
The benefits to society of hi-lighting our susceptibility to group conformity could outweigh the ethical costs
What is a social role?
The “parts” people play as members of a social group eg parent, child, student
Parts are accompanied by expectations of appropriate behaviour for each role
What was the aim of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment?
To investigate the extent people would conform to their roles I a role playing prison simulation
To investigate whether conformity was due to the person (dispositional factors) or the prison context /environment (situational factors)
Outline the procedure of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment?
Set up in a mock prison in basement of Stanford university USA
A controlled observation
24 male students from a volunteer sample
Zimbardo was researcher and prison superintendent
Volunteers were psychologically and physically screened
Participants were randomly allocated the role of prisoner or guard
Study planned to last 14 days
Outline the procedure of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment
Refer to dehumanisation and deindividuation
Prisoners were dehumanised by being blindfolded and wearing stocking caps to look bald
Prisoners were deindividuated by wearing smock dresses and having prison ID numbers
Guards were de individuated by wearing uniforms and reflective sunglasses which made them feel anonymous
What is dehumanisation?
When people are degraded by lessening their human qualities
What is deindividuation?
Individuals lose a sense of personal identity
Outline the findings of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment?
Dehumanisation took place as guards humiliated prisoners eg by making them clean toiles with bare hands
Deindividuation took place as prisoners referred too each other by their prison numbers not their names
Guards and prisoners all conformed to their social roles and behaved as if they were in a real prison
Their behaviour was a threat to prisoners psychological and physical health so study stopped after 6 days
What did Zimbardo conclude after the Stanford prison experiment?
Revealed power of the situation /situational factors
The social roles which participants played influenced their behaviour, even when the roles override an individuals moral beliefs
How is the real life example a strength of Zimbardos findings for the SPE? (E)
The same conformity to social roles was evident in Abu Ghraib (military prison in Iraq where prisoners were tortured by US guards)
Zimbardo believed guards were victims of situational factors such as lack of training, boredom and no accountability, which made abuse more likely in both situations
This increased our understanding of the power of the situation and Zimbardos research lead to beneficial reforms in real prisons
How are ethical issues a limitation of Zimbardos procedure in the SPE?
Ethical issues arose due to Zimbardos dual role which caused participants to not be protected from psychological harm
Eg when a participant asked to leave the study, Zimbardo responded as a prison superintendent rather than a researcher responsible for his participants
Therefore he made the right to withdraw difficult despite participants distress
However he did stop study after 6 days
How was demand characteristics a limitation of Zimbardos procedure?
Prisoners and guards behaviour could be due to demand characteristics as they guessed what the researchers wanted them to have like
Eg Banuazizi and Movahedi gave details of experiment to students and vast majority guessed purpose of experiment (to show ordinary people would act like real prisoners (passive) and guards (hostile)
This lowers the internal validity
However, Zimbardo said the situation was real to participants as 90% of conversations were about prison life
Evaluate how dispositional factors were ignored in the findings of Zimbardos SPE?
Zimbardo exaggerated the role of the environment
Fromm (1973) accused him of minimising the dispositional influences
Eg only a 1/3 of guards were brutal, 1/3 were fair and 1/3 were nice and supported prisoners by offering cigarettes etc
Therefore guards can make right and wrong choices despite situational pressures
Both situational and dispositional factors should be considered
