Conformity: types & explanations

Question 1

Define conformity

Answer 1

a change in a person’s behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people

Question 2

define internalisation

Answer 2

• making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own
• permanent

Question 3

define identification

Answer 3

temporary change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group

Question 4

define compliance

Answer 4

• to folow people’s ideas/ go along with the rest of the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval
• publically agree but privately disagree
• temporary

Question 5

what is informational social influence (ISI)?

Answer 5

when someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying them

Question 6

what is normative social influence (NSI)?

Answer 6

• when someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group
• often to avoid an embarrassing situation or disagreeing with the majority

Question 7

what did Jeness (1932) ask partcipants to do?

Answer 7

• asked ppts to individually estimate how many jelly beans the bottle contained
• then, asked them to provide a group estimate through discussion
• individually interviewed ppts again and asked if they wanted to change their individual estimates

Question 8

what were the results of Jeness’ study?

Answer 8

almost ALL changed their individual estimates to be closer to group estimate

Question 9

what is a strength of the explanation of conformity? (PEE)
-research support for ISI

Answer 9

A strength of the explanation of conformity is that there is research support for informational social influence (ISI)
eg. Lucas = gave students problems of differing difficulties to solve, found students conformed more when faced with harder questions
TMB it shows people are more likely to conform when they are unsure of the right thing to do, as they fear being wrong (ISI)

Question 10

what is a strength of the explanation of conformity? (PEE)
-research support for NSI

Answer 10

there is research support for normative social influence (NSI)
**eg. Linkenback and Perkins ** found that adolescents exposed to the message that most of their peers do not smoke, were less likely to start smoking
TMB it shows people are more likely to conform if they feel pressure from a majority group as they want to avoid rejection (NSI)

Question 11

what is a limitation of the explanation of conformity? (PEE)
- individual differences affect NSI

Answer 11

eg. McGhee and Teevan found that some peopke have a greater need to be liked than others = called nAffiliators and theyre more lilkely to conform. NSI will affect nAffiliators more than others who care less about others opinions.
TMB it means that NSI cannot be generalised

Question 12

what is a strength of explanations of conformity? (PEE)
-research support for NSI

Answer 12

eg. Nolan et al investigated whther people detected the influence if social norms on their energy conservation behaviour - found that people believed neighbours behaviour had the least impact but in reality it actually had the strongest impact. this shows that people subconsiously modify their behaviour due to NSI
TMB provides evidence that conformity is a key factor which influences behaviour in the real world