PAPER 1 - SOCIAL INFLUENCE - conformity Flashcards
what is social influence?
attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are modified by actual, implied or imagined influence of others
what does 3 things does social influence involve?
conformity, obedience, and minority influence
what is conformity (majority influence)?
changing behaviour/attitudes in response to influence of others
what is compliance?
conforming publicly with the views of others but privately disagrees
what is identification?
adopting views of a group publicly and privately because they identify with the group/ feel sense of membership - TEMPORARY
what is internalisation?
the conversion/ true change of private views to match those of the group, new attitudes/ behaviours become part of individuals system - PERMANENT
what is normative social influence?
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)
what is informational social influence?
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)
what is obedience?
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
what are the 3 types of conformity?
compliance, identification, internalisation
what was the aim of Asch’s study?
to see if individuals would conform to a majority during an unambiguous task
what does unambiguous mean?
clear right/ wrong answer
what does ambiguous mean?
unclear right/ wrong answer
what was the sample of Asch’s study?
123 male students
what was the procedure of Asch’s study?
- 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
what were the findings of Asch’s study?
- 26% never conformed at all
- 74% conformed to incorrect answer at least once
- 5% (of 74%) conformed in every critical trial
what did participants report during the debriefing interviews of Asch’s study?
- 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
what were the conclusions of Asch’s study?
- 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
what are some defences of Asch’s study?
- 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
what are some limitations of Asch’s study?
- 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
what happened to conformity as the group increased in size?
- 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
what did Campbell & Fairey find about conformity and the type of task?
tasks involving personal preference increased conformity, tasks with a right or wrong answer showed less conformity
when is conformity most likely to occur within asch’s study?
when the confederates are unanimous in their answers
when one confederate was asked to disagree with the rest, what effect did this have on conformity?
decreased from 37% to 5.5%