Socal influence- upto and including conformity Flashcards
What is social influence?
How an individuals attitudes, beliefs or behaviour is modified by the presence or actions of others.
What are the three main forms of social influence?
Conformity (majority influence)
Obedience
Minority influence (a small group changes the norms of the majority by persuasion)
There are three main differences between conformity and obedience what are they?
Why do we conform or obey?
To fit in with others so that we do not stand out whereas we are obedient to avoid the negative consequences of obeying.
Who tells us to conform or obey?
No-one tells us to conform, it is an implicit/implied behaviour in society whereas we are told to be obedient by parent, teacher, police officers etc.
What are the consequences of not conforming or obeying?
There are no consequences to not conforming whereas if we are not obedient we are punished (e.g. illegal behaviour = prison).
Define conformity?
Yielding to majority pressure.
A change in belief/ behaviour in response to real or imagined group pressure.
What are the three types of conformity and explain them?
Compliance-
Publically conforming to behaviour and views of others in order to fit in, but privately maintaining one’s own views.
This is the shallowest type of conformity and is temporary.
When the group is not there the person will revert to their original behaviour.
E.g. Recycle when people can see e.g. street, but privately don’t bother and put it all in one bin.
Internalisation-
Conversion or true change of private views and public behaviour to match a group because the group norm is seen as correct.
This is the deepest type of conformity and is likely to be permanent.
When the group is away the person maintains the group behaviour.
E.g. Initially don’t recycle but you go to a talk on recycling and are convinced of the benefits.
When you return home you immediately start to recycle your waste= change.
Identification-
This is a deeper level of conformity than compliance. The individual is exposed to the views of others and changes their view both publically and privately to accept those views.
In order to do this a person identifies with the group because membership is desirable.
The person feels a sense of group membership.
However, the change in behaviour and belief may be temporary.
E.g. Going along to a talk about recycling because you agree with their cause (identify with that particular group).
Discuss the explanations of why people conform in reference to normative and informational social influence
Deutsch and Gerrard’s Dual Process Dependency Model (DPDM) argues that we conform because of normative or informational influence.
Normative influence (conformity) occurs when a person adopts the beliefs, behaviours or attitudes of others under the threat of rejection/ to fit in with the group or promise of reward from the group. In the normal course of events humans are motivated to avoid “standing out”.
Being seen as different or awkward can lead to an uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment or heightened self-awareness.
Unless there is considerable motivation not to conform people tend to go along with the group. This leads to compliance.
E.g. Pee pressure to smoke.
Asch
Informational influence (conformity) occurs when an individual finds themselves in a novel or ambiguous situation, not knowing hoe to act or respond they look to others for guidance: when people are unsure of themselves they look to others as a guide to how to behave because they feel that a majority group is most likely to be correct. This leads to internalisation.
E.g. Don’t know answer to question ask class mates.
Jenness and sheriff
Conformity to social roles is also another reason why people conform.
What are the evaluation points for why people conform with reference to informational and normative?
The existence of informational influence was demonstrated by Sherif.
He used the auto kinetic effect- this is where a small spot of light (projected onto a screen) in a dark room will appear to move, even though it is still (i.e. it is a visual illusion).
Estimating the movement of the spot of light is a very difficult task which would create uncertainty so it would be expected that participants might conform to group estimates when exposed to the group estimate as they seek information form the group.
This is indeed what happened, individual estimates varied greatly.
But the participants were then tested in groups of three and over numerous trials the group estimates converged to the common estimate, showing that information influence occurs when people are uncertain therefore supporting this explanation of conformity.
The existence of normative influence was supported by Asch. He used the easy line judgment task.
Asch put a naïve participant in a room with seven confederates. The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task.
The real participant did not know this and was led to believe that the other seven participants were also real participants like themselves. Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A,B, or C) was most like the target line.
The answer was always obvious.
The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave his or her answer last.
In some trials, the seven confederates gave the wrong answer. There were 18 trials in total and the confederates gave the wrong answer 12 trails.
Asch was interested to see if the real participants would conform to the majority view even though it was obviously wrong.
On average, about one third (32%) of the time participants conformed with the clearly incorrect majority.
74% conformed at least once.
This shows normative influence because the participants knew the answer to the simple question so the only reason they conformed to the wrong answers given by the group was to fit in or not look different.
Thus this supports the role of normative influence as an explanation of conformity.
Di Vesta (1959) provided further evidence to support informational influence in the Dual Process Model.
He showed that there was more conformity when the critical trials were preceded by many neutral trials in which the confederates give the correct answer.
What this is doing is making the participants feel that the other group members are more competent and therefore a more reliable source of information. Also, increasing the task difficulty makes participants more susceptible to informational influence, because it makes people more uncertain of the correct answer.
What is the economic and social impact of the conformity theories?
It could be argued that we can use conformity theory to explain how drug and alcohol abuse begins with all the costs to society that this causes.
Teenagers may start smoking tobacco or cannabis or start drinking strong alcohol because of normative influence. They may not enjoy this behaviour but have to do it to fit in with their peers.
This could then lead to dependency. School children could be educated about the dangers of conforming just to fit-in to prevent this.
The DPDM also is not comprehensive in that it does not account for conformity to social norms.
Norms are expected patterns of behaviour that are associated with particular situations and positions in society.
We learn these roles and conform to them when in that position. This alternative theory was validated by Zimbardo’s prison stimulation where students rapidly adopted the novel roles of prisoner and guard to such an extent that the stimulation had to be stopped after only six days of the scheduled 14.
What are the variables/factors affecting conformity in reference to group size?
Group size
AO1
The size of the majority can have an effect on conformity rates, but there are limits.
Above a certain point.
As the majority increases the social power of the majority increases because they have greater ability to reject and admonish the individual.
AO3
There is supporting evidence for the role of group size in affecting conformity rates. Asch varied the group size in his classic line experiment. He had confederate group sizes of 1,2,3,4,8,10 and 15.
Asch found that the size of the majority which opposed them had an effect on the subjects. With a single opponent the subject erred only 3.6% of the time: with two opponents he erred 13.6%: three, 31.8%: four, 35.1%: six, 35………..2%: seven, 37.1%: nine, 35.1%: 15, 31.2%.
Asch found that the highest conformity rate was with seven majority (37%).
Larger majorities actually seemed to cause rates to drop. It may make the participant suspicious with so many confederates. (15 majority: 30% conformity rate).
This shows that group size affected conformity rates.
What are the variables/factors affecting conformity in reference to unanimity?
AO1
If the unanimity of the majority is reduced by the presence of a non-conformist confederate conformity rates may drop. This may happen because an ally gives the participant greater social power and confidence against the majority.
The majority has less power to reject because the participant has their own group.
The majority also no longer has a united front.
AO3
There is supporting evidence for the role of unanimity in affecting conformity rates.
Asch tried two conditions. In one trial the non-conformist confederate consistently gave the correct answer in all the trials and in the other condition they consistently gave the alternative wrong answer when the majority gave their wrong answers.
Both conditions had an equal effect on conformity rates. 25% compared to 32% when there was no confederate. This therefore supports the idea that unanimity affects rates.
What are the variables/factors affecting conformity in reference to task difficulty?
AO1
Asch manipulated the difficulty of his line experiment by making the lines much closer in length than in the original study.
This made it harder for the participants to judge the correct answer. The conformity rate increased as people felt more uncertain about the answer.
Perhaps informational influence increases as uncertainty increases.
AO3
Rosander (2012) found evidence to support the role of task difficulty in affecting conformity rates.
Rosander used 1000 members of various internet communities. Half the group were given false answers to general knowledge and logic questions via a confederate.
Rosander manipulated the difficulty of the questions and found conformity to the incorrect answers increased in line with the question difficulty.
This therefore supports the role of task difficulty in affecting conformity rates.
