Outline and evaluate research into conformity Flashcards
outline jenness
Jenness 1932 was a lab experiment with repeated measures and opportunity sampling which asked 101 male and female psychology students to make private estimations of the number of white beans in a jar.
It was an ambiguous task as the correct answer was unclear meaning participants felt uncertain about their own previous responses and invested greater trust in the group estimation.
Participants discussed their answers in a large group, before agreeing on a group estimation.
Participants then made a second private estimation and the difference between the first and second private estimation was recorded.
Jenness found that individual’s second private estimation moved closer towards the group estimation (for the male participants, the mean of their first private estimation was 790 beans, whilst the mean of their second estimation was 695 beans) and female participants were more likely to conform than men.
This suggests participants changed their estimation (e.g., males changed by a mean of 95 beans) because they privately and publicly agreed with the majority group, giving evidence for internalisation.
This can be explained by informational social influence because they wanted to be right, and they believed that others held the correct answer.
outline asch
Asch (1951) also used 123 American male student volunteers and informed them they were taking part in a study concerning visual perception.
They were put into groups of 7-9 in which only one person was a genuine participant whilst the others were confederates.
Participants faced a screen and were asked to judge which of 3 lines was the same length as a standard line.
All participants were asked to make judgements verbally and in order with the genuine participant always being either last or in penultimate position.
The task was unambiguous (had a clear answer), but confederates were told to give the same obviously wrong answer on 12/18 trials (critical trials) and conformity rate was recorded by counting the number of times the genuine participant gave the same wrong answer.
Participants conformed in 36.8% of trials with 5% conforming in every trial and 75% conforming in at least one trial.
Interviews after showed participants knew they were giving the wrong answer but chose to do so to fit in with the majority group.
This provided evidence for compliance (short-term public change in behaviour) and normative social influence (conforming due to fear of rejection or social exclusion).
limit jenness 1
A limitation of Jenness’ study is that it has low ecological validity, which is when the findings of a study cannot be generalised to a variety of real-life settings, decreasing external validity of research.
This is because the procedure used a highly controlled laboratory setting and asked participants to make a judgement that it is not similar to an everyday situation.
Therefore, the findings may tell us very little about conformity in real life.
limit jen 2
Another limitation of the study is that it has low population validity, which is when the findings cannot be generalised to wider populations, decreasing external validity of research.
This is because the study only used 101 psychology students meaning, it is difficult to apply the findings beyond this small group to other populations.
limit jen 3
A final limitation of Jenness’ study is that participants experienced deception, which is when participants are misled by the procedure of the study.
This is because Jenness could not inform participants of his anticipated findings before the investigation without causing a negative impact on findings of research.
However, modern BPS ethics committees are likely to accept this deception as the implications are limited; participants were likely to have left in a state of mind that was ‘at least as sound as when they arrived’ Aronson 1988.
limit asch
A limitation of Asch’s study is that the results may be due to demand characteristics, which is when participants are likely to perceive the demands of the study, decreasing the internal validity of research because they are more likely to show unnatural behaviour.
This is because the task was trivial and artificial meaning there was no reason for not conforming and the participants were asked to behave individually without direct interactions of groups in everyday life.
Therefore, the findings may tell us very little about conformity in situations where the consequences of conformity are important and where we interact with groups more directly.
