Explanations for conformity: Normative Social Influence and Informational Social Influence

Question 1

What are the 2 explanations for conformity?

Answer 1

• Normative social influence (NSI)

- Informational social influence (ISI)

Question 2

What is Normative social influence?

Answer 2

Individual changing to a group position in order to be accepted and gain approval and not be perceived as defiant by the other members of the group.

Question 3

What is Normative social influence based on?

Answer 3

The desire to be liked

Question 4

Is NSI more similar to internalisation or compliance?

Answer 4

Compliance - may go along with the behaviour and the attitudes of others without truly believing or accepting it.
Temporary change and we do not privately accept.

Question 5

Evidence to support the NSI comes from Asch’s conformity research.

Answer 5

E: When a group of confederates unanimously gave the same incorrect answer on an unambiguous line judgement task, there was a mean conformity rate of 37%
E: they conformed to avoid standing out from the crowd
L: we do conform out of a desire to be liked as we will publicly conform to gain approval from the group even when we privately disagree.

Question 6

What happened to conformity rates when Asch asked his participants to write down their answers instead of saying them out loud?
How does this support NSI?

Answer 6

Fell from 37% to 12.5%.

there was less fear of social disapproval and rejection when the group did not have to hear their answers.

Question 7

Negative of NSI: struggles to explain individual differences

Answer 7

E: Although Asch found a mean conformity rate of 37% there were wide variations between participants.
E: 25% remained completely independent, going against the majority and giving the correct answer on all 12 critical trials despite considerable group pressure.
L: It doesn’t consider the personality differences between people that might make some people more susceptible to NSI than others.

Question 8

What is Informational Social Influence?

Answer 8

This is a result of being unsure what to do in a situation so they look to others with seemingly more information in order to identify correct behaviour therefore they go along with the majority through acceptance of new information.

Question 9

When is ISI most likely to happen?

Answer 9

When a situation is new or ambiguous.

Question 10

Who do we tend to seek guidance off?

Answer 10

Those we see as being better informed than ourselves

Question 11

What is ISI based on?

Answer 11

The desire to be right

Question 12

Is this usually private or public acceptance in ISI?

Answer 12

Private acceptance

Question 13

Is the change temporary or permanent in ISI?

Answer 13

Permanent

Question 14

Evidence to support the ISI explanation comes from one of Asch’s variations

Answer 14

E: When he made the line judgment task more difficult by making the standard and the comparison lines more similar, the conformity rate increased.
E: The participants having less confidence in their own judgement
L: suggests that we do conform in ambiguous situations because the group are seen to be better informed and we follow their lead out of a desire to be right.

Question 15

Some people have questioned the ____ validity as a ___ doesn’t reflect ____.

Answer 15

Ecological, lab, real life conformity.

Question 16

Support for ISI from different, more real-to-life conformity research set up comes from Lucas et al (2006)

Answer 16

E: they found that, when students were asked to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or difficult, there was a greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than the easier ones.
E: this was the most true for students who rated their mathematical ability as poor.
L: we do conform by looking to others with seemingly more information to help us identify correct behaviour.

Question 17

However, ISI and NSI may not always be clearly separate

Answer 17

E: The presence of another dissenting person reduces the mean conformity rate to 25%
E: they reduced the power of NSI (provide social support) or because they reduce the power of ISI (because there is an alternative source of information)
L: It isn’t possible to show whether NSI or ISI is at work.

Question 18

What are the differences between NSI and ISI.

Answer 18

NSI
- Desire to be liked 
- Associated with compliance
- Uses other to identify behaviours that leads to group acceptance. 
ISI 
- Desire to be right 
- Associated with internalisation 
- Uses others with seemingly more information to identify correct behaviour.