Explanations for conformity

Question 1

what two explanations are there for conformity?

Answer 1

Normative social influence and Informative social influence

Question 2

Outline what informative social influence suggests about people conforming?

Answer 2

• People will conform because they look to the group for information in order to be correct.
• this usually occurs in new/uncertain situations where we do not know what the correct thing to do is.
• this is closely linked to internalisation

Question 3

identify the the three factors that will make people conform to informative social influence

Answer 3

• The situation is ambiguous (the correct thing to do is unclear)
• In an emergency situation where we may not have time to think calmly therefore we look to the majority for the correct decision or information
• When the majority are perceived as being experts in a situation therefore people will conform as they will believe they are more likely going to be correct.

Question 4

Outline what normative social influence suggests about conformity

Answer 4

• People will conform in order to be accepted by the majority and avoid rejection.
• People will want to be liked and respected by the majority as a result of rejection being painful.
• people will do this by agreeing with the majority even though they might not privately therefore it is closely linked to compliance

Question 5

What are the three factors that will make people more likely conform to normative social influence?

Answer 5

• The majority group are important to us therefore we want to be accepted by them and conforming is an easy way of doing that
• When the majority is large there is more pressure to conform therefore conforming is more likely to occur
• when it may cost them not to conform to the majority therefore conformity to NSI is more likely to occur.

Question 6

AO3 for ISI

Answer 6

• Asch increasing task difficulty in his variation study
• Jennes
• Lucas et al Mathematical problems

Question 7

AO3 for NSI

Answer 7

• Asch increasing Group size
• Research evidence on bullying
• Asch original study interviewed

Question 8

Ouline what Lucas et al found in his research

Answer 8

• Lucas conducted an experiment where students were asked to give answers on mathematical problems on various questions which all had varying levels of difficulty.
• He found the more difficult the question was the more likely people were going to conform to incorrect answers and this was also more likely going to occur if the students rated their mathematical abilities as poor