Conformity

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

A change in belief or behaviour in response to real or imagined social pressure
AKA. Majority influence

Question 2

What are the three types of conformity?

Answer 2

Compliance
Internalisation
Identification

Question 3

What is compliance?

Answer 3

Public but not private agreement with the beliefs of the majority group
Temporary change in views

Question 4

What is identification?

Answer 4

Conforming to the demands of a social role

No change in internal personal view

Question 5

Which study saw compliance?

Answer 5

Asch

Question 6

Which study saw identification?

Answer 6

Zimbardo

Question 7

What is internalisation?

Answer 7

Strongest type of conformity
Also known as true compliance
Changing both internal and external beliefs to be in agreement with the majority group
The beliefs of the group become own

Question 8

Which study saw internalisation?

Answer 8

Jenness

Question 9

What is normative social influence?

Answer 9

Desire to be liked in order to fit in with the group

Leads to conformity

Question 10

What is informative social influence?

Answer 10

Desire to be right because we lack knowledge

Leads to internalisation

Question 11

What was the procedure of Jenness’ bean study?

Answer 11

They asked participants individually to give an estimate of how many beans were in a jar
Then they were asked to discuss as a group and then give a second estimate as a group

Question 12

What were the results of Jenness’ study? What do they show?

Answer 12

After estimating as a group, the participants would estimate roughly the same value as the group estimate
This shows majority and informative social influence

Question 13

What did Asch investigate?

Answer 13

Investigated conformity to majority influence when the answer is obvious

Question 14

What was the procedure of Asch’s study?

Answer 14

A group of participants were given three lines and a comparison line to say which line the comparison line was the same length as.
There was one real participant per group and the rest were confederates.
The confederates gave their answers first out loud and intentionally gave the wrong answer.
The participant gave their answer last out loud

Question 15

What were the findings of Asch’s study?

Answer 15

The confederates gave wrong answers on 12/18 of the trials
A control was used where the participants gave their answers in isolation
0.7% of the participants were wrong in the control, compared to 37% in the trials who were wrong

Question 16

What are the strengths of Asch’s study?

Answer 16

It was a lab experiment which meant there was a good control of variables, minimising the effect of extraneous variables.
- Deception was necessary - avoided them knowing the purpose and changing their behaviour accordingly which then would reduce the validity of the findings

Question 17

What are the weaknesses of Asch’s study?

Answer 17

• Artificial environment so it lacks ecological validity
• Sampling issues - only men in the sample so it cant be generalised to females so it lacks population validity
• Ethical issues - Deception leads to a lack of informed consent however they were debriefed at the end
• Ethnocentric - Americans used

Question 18

Which three situational factors, which affect conformity, did Asch investigate?

Answer 18

Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulties

Question 19

What did Asch find out about the group size and its effect on conformity?

Answer 19

The bigger the majority, the more influential it will be
With 2 confederates, there was a 14% conformity rate
With 3 confederates, there was a 32% conformity rate
Smaller majorities are easier to resist than larger ones

Question 20

What did Asch find out about unanimity and it’s effect on conformity?

Answer 20

Asch ran his experiment again but with a supporter so the confederates weren’t unanimous and the conformity fell to 5.5%

Question 21

What did Asch find out about task difficulty and its effect on conformity?

Answer 21

The more difficult the task, the higher the rate of conformity.
This is because the right answer becomes less obvious

Question 22

What did Wiesenthal et al (1976) find?

Answer 22

If people felt competent in a task, they were less likely to conform

Question 23

What did Perrin and Spencer (1980) find?

Answer 23

They replicated Asch’s study with engineering students and found that conformity rates were much lower

Question 24

Other than situational factors, what dispositional factors may play a role in conformity?

Answer 24

Confidence
Expertise
Gender

Question 25

What did Eagly and Carli (1981) find?

Answer 25

Did a meta-analysis of conformity research, where they re-analysed data from a number of studies and although they did find some same-sex differences in conformity, the differences were inconsistent

Question 26

What did Eagly (1987) argue?

Answer 26

Men and women’s different social roles explain the difference in conformity
Women are more concerned with group harmony so are more likely to agree with others
Some valued male attributes are assertiveness and independence so maintaining your own opinion under pressure fits with the perceived male social role