Majority Influence-Conformity Flashcards
definition of conformity
yielding to group pressure
What are the 3 types of conformity
Compliance, identification, internalisation
What is compliance
A person who conforms to other people’s behaviour or attitudes despite not believing they are correct
They comply publicly but their private opinion does not matter(temporary)
What is Identification
Individuals adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of the group as membership of the group is desirable
Both private and public as there is something we value in the group
often temporary
What is internalisation
The individual accepts the group view to be correct
so conforms to the other people’s beliefs publicly and privately in the genuine belief they are correct(permanent)
What are the two reasons we conform
Informational Social Influence and Normative Social Influence
What is Informational Social Influence
People have a need to be seen as in the right. So we look to others for information because we believe that they have more knowledge(Occurs in ambiguous scenarios)
What is Normative Social Influence
People need to fit in with the norms of the group. So will conform to gain social approval
What was the aim of Asch’s study
To see how group pressure affects group tasks with an obvious answer
How did Asch set up his experiment-method
8 male students were arranged round a table with only 1 being a real participant and the rest confederates. The task was to identify which of the 3 lines was the same length as the test line. They were to speak out loud with the participant being placed in a position where he was to answer after a few confederates have given a wrong answer to see if he would also give a wrong answer to fit in with social norms
What were the results of Asch’s study
75% of the participants conformed at least once
What was the conclusion of Asch’s study?
Even in an ambiguous situation, there is a strong group pressure to conform, especially if there is a unanimous majority
What were the strengths of Asch’s study
Real world applications, conducted in a lab
What were the weaknesses of Asch’s study
Does not take into account individual differences e.g. personality
Not generalisable to different groups of people as all members of the study were white, American males with similar backgrounds and ages.
Artificial environment
Which factors did Asch say would Increase/ decrease conformity
Group size, unanimity, Difficulty of task
Which Psychological factors decrease/increase conformity
Gender, Mood, culture
What did Asch find out happened after he changed his study to writing answers down instead of saying out loud
conformity fell to 12.5%
What did Perrin and Spencer find about conformity
Asch’s experiment was limited to its time as they repeated the experiment and only 1/396 conformed
What are nAffiliators
People who are greatly concerned with being liked by others
What is a dissenter
When someone does not agree with the whole group(reduced conformity to 5%)
When was the Stamford Prison Experiment
1971
What was Zimbardo’s aim of the study
To see whether guards behaved brutally due to personality factors or situational factors
Why did the guards wear uniform
To give them more authority and to make it more realistic to the participants so they conform to roles easier
Where did Zimbardo’s sample come from
He put an ad offering to pay 15$ a day for 1-2 weeks and 70 people applied but only 24 were included
What happened on the Second morning of the experiment in Stanford prison
The prisoners barricaded themselves inside the cells, stripped their uniforms and ripped off their numbers due to brutality of the guards
What were the strengths of Zimbardo’s experiment
High in mundane realism- validity of findings, Real world applications- Abu Ghraib
What were the weaknesses of Zimbardo’s study
Lots of ethical guidelines broken, Reliability as Zimbardo himself was part of the study, Generalisability as sample group was all similar
What ethical guidelines did Zimbardo break
Failure to protect Ps from harm- 416 and 819 had to be released due to psychosis and mental deterioration, prisoners were abused and deprived of sleep, food and were forced to do press ups until they no longer physically could
No right to withdraw- prisoners did not withdraw as they felt they could not e.g. 416 did not leave despite psychosis as he said when questioned that he was not able to
Deception- Participants were not aware of what they were signing up for as Zimbardo did not tell them
