Conformity

Question 1

Types of Conformity

Answer 1

Compliance
Internalization
Identification

Question 2

Define Compliance

Answer 2

Individuals agree with the group to gain their approval or avoid their disapproval. This does not result in any change in the persons underlying attitude, only the views and behaviours they express in public.

Question 3

Define Internalisation

Answer 3

Individuals May go along with the group because of an acceptance of their views. This can lead to acceptance of the groups points of view both publicly and privately

Question 4

Define identification

Answer 4

In some instances, an individual might accept influence because they want to be associated with another person or group by adopting the groups attitudes and behaviours, they feel more part of it

Question 5

Explanations for conformity

Answer 5

Normative Social Influence

Informational Social Influence

Question 6

Define Normative Social Influence

Answer 6

This is a to gain approval and acceptance and to avoid censure and disapproval and so is an example of compliance. People conform to the majority position in public but do not internalise it as it does not carry over into private settings nor endure over time.

Question 7

Define Informational Social Influence

Answer 7

This occurs when an individual accepts information from others as evidence about reality and is more likely if the situation is ambiguous or where others are experts. The individual does not just comply in behaviour alone but also changes their attitude in line with the group position. This is an example of internalisation.

Question 8

Difficulties in distinguishing between compliance and internalisation

Answer 8

The relationship between compliance and internalisation is complicated by how we define and measure public compliance and private acceptance.

For example, it is assumed that a person who publicly agrees with a majority yet disagrees with them in private is demonstrating compliance. It is possible that acceptance has occurred in public yet dissipates later in private.

Question 9

Research Support For Normative Influence

Answer 9

Linkenbach and Perkins (2003) found adolescents exposed to the message that the majority of their age peers did not smoke were subsequently less likely to take up smoking.

Schultz et Al(2008) found that hotel guests exposed to the normative message that 75% of guests reused their towels each day reduced their own towel use by 25%.

These studies support the claim that people shape their behaviour out of a desire to fit in with their reference group.

Question 10

Research Support for informational influence

Answer 10

Studies have demonstrated how exposure to other peoples beliefs has an important influence on social stereotypes.

For example, Wittenbrink and Henley(1996) found that participants exposed to negative information about African Americans (Which they were led to believe was the view of the majority) later reported more negative beliefs about a black individual.

Question 11

Asch (1956) Study Of Conformity - Aim

Answer 11

conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.

Question 12

Asch (1956) Study Of Conformity - Procedure

Answer 12

Participants were seated around a table and asked to look at three lines of different lengths. They took turns to call out which of the three lines they thought was the same length as a “standard” line with the real participants always answering second to last. On 12 of the 18 Trails confederates were instructed to give the same incorrect answer.

Question 13

Asch (1956) Study Of Conformity - Findings

Answer 13

Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participant never conformed. In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Question 14

Asch (1956) Study Of Conformity - Conclusion

Answer 14

When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought “peculiar”. A few of them said that they really did believe the group’s answers were correct.

Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).

Question 15

Asch Evaluate - Asch Research May Be A “Child of its Time”

Answer 15

Perrin and Spencer described Asch’s study as a ‘child of it’s time’ because they used the same procedure but with British students, and found that there was only 1 out of 386 trials that conformed. This casts the doubt on the validity of Asch’s study, suggesting that it may be historically/culturally biased. Asch’s findings and conclusions drawn about conformity could just be situation specific to a 1950s America, where independence was not encouraged.

Perrin and Spencer carried out a sub sequent study that found similar results to Asch when the costs of non conformity were high. Youths on probation were used as participants and probation officers were used as confederates. The study was in line with the context of Asch’s and provides valuable insights that when the costs of independence are high, people will publically conform.

Question 16

Asch Evaluate - Problems with Determining the effect of group size

Answer 16

A Limitation of research is conformity is that studies have used only a limited range of majority sizes. Bond(2005) Points out that m apart from Asch, no study has used a majority size greater than 9, and typically majority sizes have been much smaller. This means that very little is known about the effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels.

Question 17

Asch Evaluate - Independent behaviour rather than conformity

Answer 17

In two-thirds of the critical trails, participants did not conform, despite being face with an overwhelming majority expressing a different view. Asch believed that rather than showing human beings to be overly conformist, this demonstrated a tendency for participants to show independent behaviour.

Question 18

Asch Evaluate - Unconvincing Confederates

Answer 18

It would have been difficult for the confederates in Asch’s study to act convincingly when giving the wrong answer, which would pose serious problems for the validity of the study.

However Mori and Arai(2010) overcame this problem b using special polarising filters and obtaining similar results to Asch. This suggests that the confederates in the original stud ad acted convincingly

Question 19

Asch Evaluate - Culture differences in conformity

Answer 19

Research suggests that there are important cultural differences in conformity.
Smith et al (2006) meta-analysis found the average conformity rate for individualist cultures was about 25% whereas for collectivist cultures it was much higher at 37%
Markus and Kitayama(1991) suggest that a higher level of conformity arises in collectivist cultures because it is viewed more favourably.

Question 20

Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment - Aim

Answer 20

To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

Question 21

Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment - Procedure

Answer 21

Zimbardo screened male student volunteers and the 24 most stable of these were randomly assigned to play “Social Roles” - Either a “prisoner” or “guard”.

The prisoners were given a prison uniform and assigned an ID number. Participants allocated the role of guard were given uniforms, clubs, whistles and wore reflective sunglasses. The study was planned to last two weeks

Question 22

Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment - Findings

Answer 22

Over the first few days of the study the guards grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners. Even when participants were unaware of being watched they still conformed to their role of prisoners or guard. Five prisoners had to be released because of their extreme reactions. The study was finally terminated after just six days following the intervention of Christina Maslach

Question 23

Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment - Conclusion

Answer 23

People will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards.

Therefore, the findings support the situational explanation of behavior rather than the dispositional one.

Zimbardo proposed that Deindividuation may explain the behavior of the participants; especially the guards. This is a state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you lose your sense of identity and personal responsibility. The guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what happened was down to them personally – it was a group norm.

Question 24

Zimbardo Evaluation - Conformity to roles is not automatic

Answer 24

Haslam and Reicher (2012) take issue with Zimbardos Conclusion that conformity to role-related scripts was the primary source of guard brutality in the SPE. Although Zimbardo gave his guards no direct orders he did gave the a general sensed of how he expected them to behave. This contradicts Zimbardo’s claim that “Behavioural scripts associated with the role of prisoners and guard were the sole source of guidance”

Question 25

Zimbardo Evaluation - The problem of demand characteristics

Answer 25

Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) argued that the behaviour of the guards and prisoners was a response to demand characteristics in the experimental situation. They presented details of the SPE procedure to a large sample of students who had never heard of the study. They correctly guessed the purpose of the study and predicted the guards would act in a hostile domineering way and prisoners in a passive way

Question 26

Zimbardo Evaluation - Were these studies Ethical?

Answer 26

Zimbardo Study followed the guidelines of the Stanford University Ethics Committee that approved it. However, he acknowledged that the study should have been stopped earlier as many of the participants were experiencing distress.

There was no Psychology ethic guidelines before this study and this study was one of the reason Psychology Experiments now have ethical guidelines to follow.

Question 27

Zimbardo Evaluation - The SPE and its Relevance to Abu Ghraib

Answer 27

The same conformity to social role effect evidenced in the SPE was also present in the Abu Ghraib Military Prison. Zimbardo believed the guards who committed the abuses were the victims of situational factors (lack of training, no accountability to higher authority) that made abuse more likely . The misuse of the power associated with the role of ‘Guard’ lead to the abuse of prisoners in both situations

Question 28

Zimbardo Evaluation -What did we learn from these studies

Answer 28

Zimbardo also strongly argues that the benefits gained about our understanding of human behavior and how we can improve society should out balance the distress caused by the study. However, it has been suggested that the US Navy was not so much interested in making prisons more human and were, in fact, more interested in using the study to train people in the armed services to cope with the stresses of captivity.

Question 29

Zimbardo Evaluation - Ethical Issues “ Informed Consent”

Answer 29

The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable). Also, the prisoners did not consent to being ‘arrested’ at home. The prisoners were not told partly because final approval from the police wasn’t given until minutes before the participants decided to participate, and partly because the researchers wanted the arrests to come as a surprise. However, this was a breach of the ethics of Zimbardo’s own contract that all of the participants had signed.