social influence

Question 1

what is conformity?

Answer 1

a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people

Question 2

what was Asch’s aims of his baseline procedure?

Answer 2

1951- measure the extent that people Conform to the opinions of other even in a situation where the others answers were wrong

Question 3

what were Asch’s findings of his baseline study?

Answer 3

naive participants conform 36.8 of the time
 25% of the participants never conformed (individual differences)
75% conformed at least once

Question 4

what three variables did Asch investigate?

Answer 4

Group size
unanimity
task difficulty

Question 5

How did Asch investigate group size?

Answer 5

varied the number of confederates in each group (1–15)

Question 6

what did Asch find about the effect of group size on conformity?

Answer 6

relationship between group size and conformity was curvilinear
two Confederates – conformity 13. 6%
three Confederates – conformity 31.8%
shows people are sensitive to the opinions of others

Question 7

how did Asch investigate unanimity?

Answer 7

introduced a dissenting confederate – sometimes gave the wrong answer/correct answer
(always disagreed with majority)

Question 8

what did Asch find about the effect of unanimity on conformity?

Answer 8

presence of a dissenter caused conformity to reduce to less than a quarter
shows having a descent to enable the naive participant to behave more independently

Question 9

how did Asch investigate the effective task difficulty?

Answer 9

Made the line judging task hard by making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length

Question 10

what did Asch find about the effect of task difficulty on conformity?

Answer 10

conformity increased
situation is more ambiguous so people were more likely to look for guidance from others
example of informational social influence

Question 11

evaluation
conformity
limitation: artificial situation and task

Answer 11

participants knew they were in a research study (demand characteristics)
task was trivial (no reason not to conform)
Fiske (2014) – Asch’s groups were not like real life groups
Findings do not generalised to every day life

Question 12

evaluation
conformity
limitation: little application

Answer 12

only tested American men
Neto (1995) – women might be more conformist
Bond and Smith (1996)-USA is an individualist culture – studies in collectivist cultures e.g. China found higher conformity rates

Question 13

evaluation
conformity
strength: evidence to support Asch’s findings 

Answer 13

Lucas at al (2006) – participants solved easy and hard maths problems
given (false) answers from three Confederates
participants conformed more when the problems were harder
shows Asch was correct that task difficulty is a variable that affects conformity

Question 14

Evaluation
conformity
limitation: conformity is more complex

Answer 14

Lucas et al showed conformity was related to confidence
higher the confidence less the conformity
shows individual factors interact with situation ones
Ash only investigated individual factors

Question 15

What is internalisation?

Answer 15

Type of conformity where private and public opinion/behaviour change
Usually permanent and continues in the absence of group

Question 16

What is identification?

Answer 16

Type of conformity where a person identifies with a group that they value
Public opinions and behaviours change
don’t always change in private 

Question 17

what is compliance?

Answer 17

a type of conformity where an individual goes along with a group in public but does not change opinions/behaviours in private
results in superficial change ( behaviour stops when group is absent)

Question 18

what is informational social influence (ISI)?

Answer 18

when an individual agrees with the opinion of the majority because they believe it is correct
leads to internalisation

Question 19

What is normative social influence (NSI)?

Answer 19

when an individual agrees with the opinion of the majority because they want to gain social approval and be liked
Leads to compliance

Question 20

evaluation

conformity: types and explanations strength: research support for NSI

Answer 20

Asch (1951) – participants conformed rather than giving the correct answer because they were afraid of disapproval
when answers written down conformity fell to 12.5% (no normative pressure)
shows some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected

Question 21

Evaluation

conformity: types and explanations strength: research support for ISI

Answer 21

Lucas at al (2006) – participants conformed more to incorrect answers when math problems were difficult
relied on others answers when the problems were hard

Question 22

evaluation

conformity: types and explanations limitation: unclear whether NSI or ISI is operating

Answer 22

unclear if NSI or ISI operate in studies in real life
a dissenter reduce the power of NSI or reduce the power of ISI
ISI and NSI are hard to separate and operate together in most real-world situations

Question 23

evaluation

conformity: types and explanations limitation: individual differences in NSI

Answer 23

Some people are concerned about being liked by others
nAffiliators- strong need to relate to other people
McGheea nd Teevan (1967) – students who are naffiliators were more likely to conform
shows NSI underlines conformity for some people more than others