social influence - 1.1 Flashcards
Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
what does social psychology examine human behaviour in terms of?
relationships with other people, how we interact
how culture and society affects our behaviour
conformity, why people conform, variations in conformity
obedience, why people obey authority, variations
what do social psychologists believe in?
the effects of interaction between individuals
the effects of being in groups within society
the power of the social situation
conformity
when a person changes their attitude or behaviour due to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ group pressure
according to Kelman (1958) what are the 3 levels of psychology?
compliance
identification
internalisation
compliance
the lowest level of conformity
a person changes their public behaviour but not their private beliefs
usually a short term change
identification
the middle level of conformity
changes their public behaviour and private beliefs, only in presence of group
usually a short term change
internalisation
deepest level of conformity
changes both their public behaviour and their private beliefs
usually a long term change
what was Asch’s aim? (1951)
to see if participants conform to a majority influence in an unambiguous situation
what was Asch’s procedure? (1951)
Asch’s used 50 male college students in his first study
in the experiment room, seven male student participants looked at two cards: the test card showed one vertical line while the other card showed three vertical lines of different length
the participants called out in turn which of the three lines was the same length as the test line
all the participants were confederates except the one who sat second from last who was a real participant
accomplices gave unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials
these 12 trials were called the critical trials
what were Asch’s results? (1951)
participants conformed to the unanimous incorrect answer 32% of critical trials
74% conformed at least once
26% never confirmed
in post experiment interviews, some participants stated they actually believed the confederates were correct whereas others stated they changed their answer because they could not bear being in the minority and risk being ridiculed or excluded by the group.
what were Asch’s conclusions? (1951)
even when the situation is unambiguous, people still conform to strong group pressure
also, there appear to be different reasons for conforming - they wanted to fit in and be correct
what was a strength of Asch’s research?
the results of this experiment have been replicated numerous times therefore this would increase the validity and reliability of the findings
normative social influence
when someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted by the group
they may publicly change their behaviour but privately disagree
this type of social influence leads to compliance
informational social influence
when someone conforms because but they want to be correct
they follow the majority because they assume that the majority know the right thing to do
leads to internalisation
most likely to happen when there is a crisis, the situation is ambiguous or where others are believed to be experts
strengths of explanations of conformity
the idea of normative social influence is supported through Asch’s experiment as he found through follow-up interviews that participants conformed to avoid the discomfort of disagreeing
the idea of informational social influence is supported through Asch’s experiment as he found through follow up interviews that participants confirmed because they genuinely believed the confederates were correct
limitation of explanations for conformity
sometimes both ISI and NSI work together as part of a dual process as people conform to be right because they want to be liked
there may be alternative reasons why people are more likely to conform than others which may impact likelihood of social influence, may come down to individual differences such as the person’s education, gender etc.
much of the research to support these ideas is conducted in artificial settings with artificial tasks therefore we can question validity in application to the real world as the research lacks validity in the real world
individual differences may play a role in social influence as some people are less impacted by normative social influence due to their nature of non-conformity. these are known as non-affiliates (nAffiliators) who do not conform in situation of wanting to be liked
other explanations such as social identity theory may have a stronger argument in particular circumstances as sometimes people change their behaviour because they identify themselves as part of the group and therefore perform group behaviours
what is meant by deindividuation
process that occurs when one loses one’s sense of individual identity so that social, moral and societal constraints on behaviour are loosened
3 variables affecting conformity
size of the group
unanimity
difficulty of the task
describe how the size of the group affects conformity
using same experimental method, Asch completed a number of variations where the size of the group playing an influence changed in size
2 people=13%
3 or 4 people =33%
4 or 5 people=32%
when we report this, we say that group size affects conformity rates as the group gets larger, the conformity rates increase until we reach 5 people in the group. at this point, conformity rates plateu at 32%
describe how unanimity affects conformity
if someone else in the group agrees with you or disagrees with the group, you are less likely to conform.
this was also tested in Asch’s line experiment with a variation on unanimity
how did asch show how unanimity affects conformity?
Asch found that conformity reduced to 5.5% when one of the confederates gave a different answer to the rest of the group that was correct
Asch also found that conformity reduced to 9% when a confederate went against the majority but gave the other incorrect answer
describe how the difficulty of the task affects conformity
if the task is easy, we are less likely to look to others for guidance. if you are more confident, you are less likely to conform
if the task is more difficult, we are more likely to conform.
how did asch show how difficulty of task affects conformity?
this is shown is Asch’s line experiment where Asch made the lines similar in length so the answer was less obvious. due to this being more difficult, conformity rates rose
strengths of the variables affecting conformity
these concepts are all supported by research conducted by Asch in variations of the line experiment
