Social Influence

Question 1

Define conformity

Answer 1

A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Question 2

Outline Asch’s research

Answer 2

Asch (1951) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even when the answer is unambiguous. This was through standard and comparison lines, in which two participants were given one line called x, then other lines called A, B, and C. X was always clearly the same length as another letter. The participants then had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was similar to x.

Question 3

What was Asch’s baseline findings?

Answer 3

On average, the genuine participants agreed the condeferes’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time. However 25% of the participants never gave the wrong answer so never conformed.

Question 4

What variables were measured by Asch?

Answer 4

• Group Size
• Unanimity
• Task Difficulty

Question 5

Outline group size as a variable in Asch’s study?

Answer 5

Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group. He did this through varing the number of confederates from 1 to 15. He found that there was a curvilinear relationship as conformity increased with group size but only to a point. This suggests most people are sensitive to the views of others because a small number of confederates was enough to saw opinion.

Question 6

Outline unanimity as a variable in Asch’s study?

Answer 6

Asch wondered if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the niave participant’s conformity. Asch introduced a confederate who disagreed with other confederates. The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of dissenter and this was true even when the dissenters disagreed with the genuine participant. This suggests the influence of the majority depends on unanimity.

Question 7

Outline task difficulty as a variable in Asch’s study?

Answer 7

Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity. He did this through increasing the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line and comparison lines similar in length meaning the task would be harder to distinguish. Asch found that conformity increase as it became unclear to the participants what the correct answer was. Linked to informational social influence.

Question 8

Evaluate Asch’s research

Answer 8

• Artifical Situation and Task
• Limited Application
• Research Support and counterpoint
• Ethical issues

Question 9

One limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial.

Answer 9

Participants knew they were in a research study and may have gone along with what was expected (demand characterisitics). Therefore the findings may not generalise to real-world situations.

Question 10

A limitation of Asch’s research is the limited application.

Answer 10

For example, Asch’s research were American men. Other research suggests that women may conform more. Furthermore, the USA is individualist culture, where research in collectivist cultures have found higher rates of conformity (Bond and Smith). This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from different cultures.

Question 11

A strength of Asch’s research is support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty.

Counterpoint

Answer 11

Lucas et al asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems. The participants conformed more often when the problems were harder which shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable thar affects conformity.
However, Lucas et al’s study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested. Participants with high confidence conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence. This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity and Asch did not research the roles of individual factors.

Question 12

What were the ethical issues in Asch’s research?

Answer 12

The participants were deceived because they thought that the other people involved in the procedure (confederates) were also participants.

Question 13

Name Kelman’s types of conformity.

Answer 13

• Internalisation
• Identification
• Compliance

Question 14

Internalisation

Answer 14

Internalisation is a deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to permanent change in behaviour, even when the group is absent. Attitudes have been internalised.

Question 15

Identification

Answer 15

A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way as the group because we value it and want to be a part of it. But you may not necessarily agree with everything the majority believes. You identify with the group so want to be part of it.

Question 16

Compliance

Answer 16

A superficial and temporary type of conformity that says we outwardly go along with the majority view, but privately disagree with it. The change in behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring them.

Question 17

What is Deutsch and Gerald’s two-process theory as an explanation for conformity?

Answer 17

Based on two central human needs: the need to be right (informational social influence), and the need to be liked (normative social influence).

Question 18

ISI

Answer 18

An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it correct. We accept it because we want to be correct as well. This leads to internalisation. ISI is most likely to happen in situations that are new to a person or where there is some ambiguity. It also happens in crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly and we assume that the group is more likely to be right.

Question 19

NSI

Answer 19

An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked. This may lead to compliance. NSI is likely to occur in situations with strangers where you may feel concerned about rejection. It may also occur with people you know because you are most concerned about the social approval of your friends. It may be more noticeable in stressful situations where people have greater need for social support.

Question 20

Evaluate types and explanations of conformity.

Answer 20

• Research Support for NSI
• Research Support for ISI and Counterpoint
• Individual differences in NSI

Question 21

One strength of NSI is that evidence supports it as an explanation of conformity.

Answer 21

For example, when Asch interviewed his participants, some said they conformed because they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote down their answers, conformity fell go 12.5%. This is because giving answers privately meant that there was no normative group pressure. This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire to not be rejected by the group disagreeing with them.

Question 22

A strength of ISI is that there is research evidence to support ISI from Lucas et al’s study.

Answer 22

Lucas et al found that participants conformed often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult. This is because when the problems were easy the participants ‘knew their own minds’ but when the problems were hard, the situation became ambiguous. The participants didn’t want to be wrong, so they relied on the answers they were given. This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict.
However, it is hard to tell whether it is NSI or ISI at work in research studies. For example, Asch found that conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant. The dissenter may reduce the power of ISI (because they provide an alternative source of social information) or NSI (because they provide social support). Therefore it is hard to seperate ISI and NSI and both processes probably operate together in most real-woeld conformity situations.

Question 23

One limitation of the explanations of conformity is that NSI does not predict conformity in every case.

Answer 23

Some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others. Such people are called nAffiliators - they have a strong need for ‘affiliation’. McGhee and Teevan found that students who were nAffiliators were more likey to conform. This shows that NSI underlies for some people more than it does for others. There are individual differences on conformity that be fully explained by over general theory of situational pressures.

Question 24

Define social roles

Answer 24

The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups. Everyday examples include parent, child, student etc. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role.