social influence Flashcards
what is conformity?
a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
what was Asch’s aims of his baseline procedure?
1951- measure the extent that people Conform to the opinions of other even in a situation where the others answers were wrong
what were Asch’s findings of his baseline study?
naive participants conform 36.8 of the time
 25% of the participants never conformed (individual differences)
75% conformed at least once
what three variables did Asch investigate?
Group size
unanimity
task difficulty
How did Asch investigate group size?
varied the number of confederates in each group (1–15)
what did Asch find about the effect of group size on conformity?
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
how did Asch investigate unanimity?
introduced a dissenting confederate – sometimes gave the wrong answer/correct answer
(always disagreed with majority)
what did Asch find about the effect of unanimity on conformity?
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
how did Asch investigate the effective task difficulty?
Made the line judging task hard by making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length
what did Asch find about the effect of task difficulty on conformity?
conformity increased
situation is more ambiguous so people were more likely to look for guidance from others
example of informational social influence
evaluation
conformity
limitation: artificial situation and task
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
evaluation
conformity
limitation: little application
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
evaluation
conformity
strength: evidence to support Asch’s findings 
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
Evaluation
conformity
limitation: conformity is more complex
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
What is internalisation?
Type of conformity where private and public opinion/behaviour change
Usually permanent and continues in the absence of group
What is identification?
Type of conformity where a person identifies with a group that they value
Public opinions and behaviours change
don’t always change in private 
what is compliance?
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)
what is informational social influence (ISI)?
when an individual agrees with the opinion of the majority because they believe it is correct
leads to internalisation
What is normative social influence (NSI)?
when an individual agrees with the opinion of the majority because they want to gain social approval and be liked
Leads to compliance
evaluation
conformity: types and explanations strength: research support for NSI
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
Evaluation
conformity: types and explanations strength: research support for ISI
Lucas at al (2006) – participants conformed more to incorrect answers when math problems were difficult
relied on others answers when the problems were hard
evaluation
conformity: types and explanations limitation: unclear whether NSI or ISI is operating
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
evaluation
conformity: types and explanations limitation: individual differences in NSI
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
