Conformity and Obedience Flashcards
Describe how gender influences conformity and include a study
Women are more likely to conform than men mori and Ari- confirmed by around 30% of women conformed -similar to ash’s findings but men didn’t conform
Identify The factors that affect conformity and how they can be categorised 
- Individual factors: age, gender, self esteem
- Situation factors: group size, task difficulty, unanimity of majority
- Cultural factors: individualist vs collectivist
- Influence - normative vs informational
Define internalisation and give an example
Taking on majority view and accepting it into personal value system term (long term)
e.g. becoming vegetarian after your friends were but keeping at it for life
Define identification and give an example
Someone/people you admire has a belief you take it on publicly and privately but only as long as you stay in the group/like them/admirer them
E.g. subscribing to donate to charity with a friend group but once you leave the friend group you unsubscribe
wanting to be like your dad so repeating things he has said
Define compliance and give an example
Agree with majority group views in public but privately keeping your own beliefs
E.g. laughing at jokes that you don’t find funny or tidying your room when your parents say
(Just doing it as it’s easier than sticking to own beliefs)
What are the 3 types of conformity
Compliance, identification, internalisation
Describep how self esteem influences conformity and include a study
Those with higher self esteem will be less likely to conform. Burger showed that people with a high desire to be in control conform a lot less than others, in study on the funniness of cartoons
Describe how group size influences conformity and include a study
As group size increases conformity also increases to a certain extent. In Asch’s variations he used different numbers of participants and found that when group size increases from 3 to 4 conformity increases form 12.8% to 30% but further increases in participants have no impact
Describe how task difficulty influences conformity and include a study
As the task difficulty increases conformity also increases. In Asch’s study when he makes the line difference harder to differentiate between, conformity significantly increased. This could be due to internalisation - they think confederates are right rather than compliance. This is likely due to the influence being informational and not normative
Describe how unanimity of group influences conformity and include a study
A unanimous group results in higher conformity. In Asch’s study when just 1 confederate gave the correct answer instead of wrong, conformity decreased from 32% to 5.5%
Describe how culture influences conformity and include a study
Individualist cultures such as USA are less likely to conform than collectivist cultures such as Japan. Smith and Bond found this while reviewing many studies
Describe informational social influence and normative social influence
Informational social influence - you don’t know what is correct so you follow majority views because you believe they are right as they know more than you (lack information)
Normative social influence - you want to be liked and accepted by people (be normal)
What are the factors that affect obedience
- Perceived legitimate authority
- Autonomous and Agentic state
- Authoritarian parenting
- Socialisation
- Situational factors - location, proximity, wearing a uniform
Describe perceived legitimate authority and give a study
Someone seen to have more power than you (can reward/punish, more knowledge, look up to, official job title)
Bickman - uniforms , litter
Milgram - not Yale, casual clothes 52%
Describe autonomous and Agentic state and give a study
Autonomous- act according to own beliefs
Agentic - acting as agents on behalf of someone else - not responsible for actions
Milgram = Agentic