Conformity

Question 1

Types of conformity

Answer 1

Compliance- adjust behaviour and opinions when with a group but not when away from them.

Identification- adjust behaviour and opinions when with a group and when away from them, but when they are no longer friends the person will revert back to how they used to feel.

Internalisation- genuinely believing some thing and staying this way forever no matter what

Question 2

Explanations of conformity

Answer 2

Informational social influence- behaving in a way with the desire to be right

Normative social influence- behaving in a way with the desire to be liked

Question 3

Jenness (1932)- informational social influence

Answer 3

• participants make prediction privately
• they meet and discuss as a group
• they make a group prediction
• participants make another private prediction

Found- participants changed their answer when they met as a group. Their second private guess was closer to the group guess.
Suggests they had desire to be right.

Question 4

Asch (1951)- normative social influence

Answer 4

-720 trials
-123 participants
-1 participant with 6 actors
-had to do a line length task but answered after all the actors who answered wrong.
Found- 32% conformity to the wrong answers the actors gave.

Question 5

Asch’s follow up studies

Answer 5

GUT
Group size- used 1 actor instead of 6.
-conformity dropped to 3%

Unanimity (social support)- 5 actors said wrong, 1 actor gave the right
-conformity dropped to 6%

Task difficulty- made lines closer so it was harder
- conformity increased as they had less confidence in their own decisions