PAPER 1 - SOCIAL INFLUENCE - conformity

Question 1

what is social influence?

Answer 1

attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are modified by actual, implied or imagined influence of others

Question 2

what does 3 things does social influence involve?

Answer 2

conformity, obedience, and minority influence

Question 3

what is conformity (majority influence)?

Answer 3

changing behaviour/attitudes in response to influence of others

Question 4

what is compliance?

Answer 4

conforming publicly with the views of others but privately disagrees

Question 5

what is identification?

Answer 5

adopting views of a group publicly and privately because they identify with the group/ feel sense of membership - TEMPORARY

Question 6

what is internalisation?

Answer 6

the conversion/ true change of private views to match those of the group, new attitudes/ behaviours become part of individuals system - PERMANENT

Question 7

what is normative social influence?

Answer 7

desire to be liked, desire for the approval of others and to be accepted, usually in familiar situations - often results in compliance only (go along publicly, privately disagree)

Question 8

what is informational social influence?

Answer 8

desire to be right, looks to others to give information about how to behave, occurs in new/ ambiguous situations (often goes along privately and publicly)

Question 9

what is obedience?

Answer 9

when an individual complies with a direct order from a figure if perceived authority - individual responds in a way that they wouldn’t without the order

Question 10

what are the 3 types of conformity?

Answer 10

compliance, identification, internalisation

Question 11

what was the aim of Asch’s study?

Answer 11

to see if individuals would conform to a majority during an unambiguous task

Question 12

what does unambiguous mean?

Answer 12

clear right/ wrong answer

Question 13

what does ambiguous mean?

Answer 13

unclear right/ wrong answer

Question 14

what was the sample of Asch’s study?

Answer 14

123 male students

Question 15

what was the procedure of Asch’s study?

Answer 15

• 1 genuine participant
• 7-9 other actors
• shown a pair of cards with differing lines on
• had to match up correct line with both cards (correct answer was always obvious)
• actors were instructed to unanimously give the wrong answer on 12 of the 18 trials

Question 16

what were the findings of Asch’s study?

Answer 16

• 26% never conformed at all
• 74% conformed to incorrect answer at least once
• 5% (of 74%) conformed in every critical trial

Question 17

what did participants report during the debriefing interviews of Asch’s study?

Answer 17

• most participants knew they were giving the wrong answer but didn’t want to stand out
• some participants didn’t want to upset the experimenter
• some reported that they doubted themselves and that their perceptions were wrong

Question 18

what were the conclusions of Asch’s study?

Answer 18

• even when correct response is obvious, there may be strong group pressure to conform
• individuals conform for different reasons
• normative social influence - to avoid rejection
• informational social influence - doubt judgement

Question 19

what are some defences of Asch’s study?

Answer 19

• experiment wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t a lab study - would lack internal validity
• debriefing participants after experiment
• lab experiment - control over variables, can establish cause and effect, shows pure group pressure

Question 20

what are some limitations of Asch’s study?

Answer 20

• deliberately deceiving/ lying to participants
• loss of self esteem
• low temporal validity - unable to apply results due to societal changes (study conducted in 1950s - expected to conform) - 1970s and 80s repeated study, found less conformity
• all participants were male students (lack of population validity) - cannot be applied to real world
• unethical - participants unable to give consent

Question 21

what happened to conformity as the group increased in size?

Answer 21

• conformity increased from 1-3 confederates, after this group size made little difference
• large groups of 15 confederates led to lower levels of conformity due to increased suspicion

Question 22

what did Campbell & Fairey find about conformity and the type of task?

Answer 22

tasks involving personal preference increased conformity, tasks with a right or wrong answer showed less conformity

Question 23

when is conformity most likely to occur within asch’s study?

Answer 23

when the confederates are unanimous in their answers

Question 24

when one confederate was asked to disagree with the rest, what effect did this have on conformity?

Answer 24

decreased from 37% to 5.5%

Question 25

why did Asch think that the presence of a dissenter reduced conformity?

Answer 25

• dissenter provides useful information about correct response
• reduces the need for group social approval
• dissenter doesn’t need to have same answer as participant, just breaking unanimity reduced conformity

Question 26

for Asch, what was the most important factor of conformity?

Answer 26

unanimity

Question 27

what kind of individual differences show higher levels of conformity?

Answer 27

individuals that have:
- low self esteem
- especially concerned about relationship
- strong needs for social approval

Question 28

what research is there to support normative social influence?

Answer 28

• Asch research - conforming to same answers knowing they were wrong
• desired acceptance/ to be liked
• task was non-ambiguous

Question 29

what research is there to support informational social influence?

Answer 29

• Sherif research (autokinetic effect) - many participants looked to others for a guide as they didn’t know the answer
• task was ambiguous
• Asch research - doubted their judgement, thought others were right