Evaluation for ISI + NSI

Question 1

Research support for ISI pt.1

Answer 1

• Lucas et al asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult. There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were the easier ones. This was most true for students who rated their mathematical ability as poor.

Question 2

Research support for ISI pt.2

Answer 2

• The study shows that people conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer, which is exactly the outcome predicted by the ISI explanation. We look to other people and assume they know better than us and must be right.

Question 3

Individual differences in NSI

Answer 3

• Some research shows that NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For example, people who are less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care more about being liked.
• Such people are described as ‘nAffiliators’ . These are people who have a greater need for ‘affiliation’- a need for being in a relationship with others.
  e.g. McGhee and Teevan found that students in need of high affiliation were more likely to conform.
• This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others. Therefore there are individual differences in the way people respond.

Question 4

ISI and NSI work together

Answer 4

• The idea of Deutsch and Gerrard’s two-process approach is that behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI. But the truth is, more often than not both processes are involved.
• For example conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant in the Asch experiment. This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because the dissenter provides social support) or may reduce the power of ISI (because there is an alternative source of information).
• This shows that it isn’t always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work. This is the case in lab studies, but this is even truer in real-life conformity situations outside the lab. This casts serious doubts over the view of ISI and NSI as two processes operating independently in conforming behaviour.

Question 5

Individual differences in ISI

Answer 5

• As with NSI, ISI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For example, Asch found that students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%). Perrin and Spencer conducted a study involving science and engineering students and found very little conformity.

Question 6

Research support for NSI

Answer 6

• Asch found that many of his participants went along with a clearly wrong answer just because other people did. So he asked them why they did this.
• Some of the participants said they felt self conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When Asch repeated his study but asked participants to write down their answers instead of saying them out loud, conformity rates fell to 12.5%.