Conformity Flashcards
What is conformity?
Conformity is a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
True or False: Conformity can occur even in the absence of direct pressure from others.
True
What are the three types of conformity?
Internalisation, identification and compliance
Define normative social influence.
changing one’s behavior to fit in with the group to be accepted or liked.
Define informational social influence.
changing one’s behavior because they believe the group is more informed or accurate. you want to be right So follow behaviour of the group
What experiment is famously associated with studies on conformity?
The Asch conformity experiments.
What was the findings of the Asch conformity experiments?
The genuine participants agreed with a confederate incorrect answers 36.8% of the time
25% of the participants never conformed
Most said in an interview that they conformed to avoid rejection
What role does group size play in conformity?
Conformity increases with group size up to a certain point, typically around three to five members.
What is the difference between conformity and obedience?
Conformity is changing behavior to match group norms, while obedience is following direct commands from an authority figure.
True or False: Gender differences have been found in studies of conformity.
True
When is normative social influence most likely to occur?
In situations with strangers, stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support
When is informational social influence most likely to occur?
In situations that are new to a person or in an unclear situation when decisions need to be made quickly
What are the two reasons for conformity?
Informational social influence and normative social influence
What are the variables that affected conformity in Asch’s study?
Group size, unanimity and task difficulty.
How did unanimity affect Asch’s results?
By introducing another confederate who disagreed with the other Confederates (another wrong answer) the genuine participant conformed less.
How did task difficulty affect conformity?
By making the task harder (in Asch’s study - making lines more similar in length) conformity increased as it is more unclear to the participants so they look to others for guidance.
Who were the participants used in the procedure for Asch?
123 American male participants who were volunteer undergraduates
What was the aim of Asch’s study on conformity?
To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is certain. How social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
What is Internalisation?
When a person privately and publicly accepts the group norms so changes their opinion genuinely. This change persists even in the absence of other group members.
What is Identification?
Conforming to the group as there is something we value about it. We want to be a part of it so publicly change our opinions but we don’t privately agree with everything.
Compliance
Simply going along with others. Not changing personal opinions, only a superficial change which will stop when group pressure stops.
What is the difference between compliance and identification?
With compliance, people change their public behaviour but not their private beliefs; with identification people change their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only in the presence of the group.
Aim of Zimbardo’s study
Do prison guards behave brutally because they have that kind of personality or is it the situation creating such behaviour? Zimbardo said it could be the environment/authority figure that influences ordinary people to do bad things
Conclusions of Zimbardo’s study
All guards and prisoners conformed to their roles roles were easily taken on
The simulation revealed the power of the situation to influence peoples behaviour
What is a strength of ISI?
There is supporting research.
Lucas et al found participants conformed more to incorrect answers when faced with difficult maths problems. Situations became ambiguous (unclear) and participants did not want to be wrong so relied on answers given.
This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict .
What is a strength of NSI?
That there is supporting research. Asch found in a follow-up interview that participants said they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and fear of disapproval. This proves some conformity is due to a desire to not be rejected.
What is a limitation of NSI?
It may not be detected. Nolan et al investigated the influence of social norms on peoples energy conservation. People believed neighbours had the least impact yet results show it was the strongest. This suggests people rely on beliefs about what should motivate their behaviour (under detected influence of NSI) so difficult to measure as participant unlikely to tell the truth due to demand characteristics.
Low generalisability point about Asch’s study (participants)
Asch’s participants were only American men. Women may be more conformist because they’re concerned about social relationships and being accepted. The USA is in individualist culture. Studies conducted in collectivist cultures found higher conformity rates. So Asch’s study tell us little about conformity in women and people from some other cultures.
(Also low external population validity)
Low validity point in Asch’s research (artificial task and situation)
The task was artificial and the groups he created did not really resemble groups in everyday life so findings do not generalise to real world situations. Conformity often occurs with people we know not strangers
Strength about reliability of Asch’s study
Support from other studies for effects of task difficulty. Lucas et al asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems participants conformed more often and agreed with the wrong answers when the problems were harder showing the asch was correct and claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity.
Limitation of reliability in Asch’s research.
Complexity. Lucas et al study suggested it was more complex than what Asch suggested. Participants with higher confidence on their abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with less confidence. Individual factors can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables that Asch did not research.
Ethical weakness of Zimbardo’s study.
It broke many ethical guidelines. Despite following the guidelines of Stanford University arguments have been made that the study should have been stopped much earlier participants showed distress psychologically and were not protected from harm. This results in low validity.
Low generalisability point on Zimbardo’s research
Participants were all the same culture and gender and there was a volunteer sample so cultural changes are not recognised low population validity. They were all American males undergraduate.
Strength but weakness in reliability on Zimbardo’s research
It could be reliable because it has been replicated, but the findings do not agree so there is low reliability.
Reicher and Haslam findings stated one prisoner became like a leader. Prisoners had more power and uncomfortable and no authority unlike God who are uncomfortable. In Zimbardo’s research guards took up their roles with enthusiasm so much they became a threat to prisoners. One guard in particular took more power.
One strength in the validity of Zimbardo’s research
He had high control over the variables. Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned. This was one way in the research is ruled out individual differences as an explanation of the findings. This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity so we can be more confident in drawing conclusions from the study.
How does Asch’s study findings have low temporal validity?
The findings of Asch’s conformity research in 1951 may not be so relevant today as the outcomes may have been influenced by post-war social attitudes at the time.
