social influence Flashcards
what is conformity
change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
what are the 3 types of conformity
internalisation, identification, compliance
what is internalisation
individual will conform publically and privately because they have internalised and accepted the views of the majority group
- deepest form of conformity
- permanent
what is identification
act same as majority group because we share their beliefs and want to fit in
- temporary
- agree publically but not privately
- value the group stance
- moderate level
what is compliance
going along with others
- shallowest form of conformity
- follow people in public but privately do not agree
- don not change their personal opinions
- superficial change
- opinion will stop as soon as the group pressure stops
normative social influence (NSI)
need to be liked
- gaining approval
- may not agree but do it anyway
- occurs in non ambiguous situations
informational social influence ISI
need to be right
- believe majority group have more info than you do
- look for guidance, want to be correct so you follow them
- look to majority
- ambiguous situations
sherif 1935
SUPPORTS ISI
aim- to investigate whether people are influenced by others
- ambiguous task
- autokinetic effect used where still point of light in the dark appears to move
- participants shown still point of light in the dark and estimate how far it moved, first on their own then in groups
- lab experiment
- repeated measures
findings of sherif (1935)
- when alone, participants developed their own stable estimates (personal norms)
- in the groups, judgements gradually became closer and closer until a group norm developed
- participants were influenced by the estimates of other people.
- estimates converged because participants used info from others to help them
lucas et al 2006
support for ISI
- asked students to give answers to math problems that were easy or more difficult
- greater conformity to incorrect answers that were more difficult
- most true for students who rated their mathematical skills as poor
- people conform in situations where they dont know the answer
criticisms of informational social influence (ISI)
criticisms of NSI and ISI
asch’s study
- unambiguous- obvious answers
- showed participants 2 cards at the same time, one had a standard line and the other had 3 comparison lines
- on of the 3 lines was always the same length snd the others competely different (wrong)
- 123 male american undergraduates
- 1 real particpant in a group with 6 confederates
- 18 trials
- first 6 trials confederates gave correct answer so participant wouldnt guess the saim of the experiment
- next 12 trials they gave teh wrong answers
- was a control group who always gave correct answrs
NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE
asch 1951 findings
- particiapant gave teh wrong answer 37% of the time
- 25% of participants did not conform on any trials meaning 75% did at least once
- asch effect- extent to which participants conform even when the situation is non ambiguous
- participants interviewed- majority said they conformed to avoid rejection
- control group, 1% innacurate response
why did they conform
- to fit in with the majority group
- fear of standing out
- suffer from eye strain or bad eyesight
- distortion of action- didnt want to stand out so conformed to group publically but not privately
- distoertion of judgement - doubted their accuracy
who was aschs experimented carried out on
science and engineering students- 25 years later
- 1 out of 396 conformed
- higher intelligence levels
- time temporal validity
youths on probation
- simlar results to asch
- afraid of getting into trouble
what is temporal validity
when results of study generalise across times
evaluation of aschs study
- temporal validity
- artificial and situational task
- limited application of findings
how would group size influence conformity
- 3 confederated conformity to wrong answer rose to 31.8%
- addition of further confederates had little difference
how would unanimity influence conformity
- introduced confederate who disagreed with others- sometimes gave correct answer sometimes gave a different wrong answer
how would task difficulty influence conformity
asch made lines more simlar in length
- conformity increased when teh lines were more similar
- ISI occurs- need to be right
- fear of being wrong so look to other people for guidance
what is a social role
behaviours expected of an individual based on society who occupies a given social position of status
e.g. a fireman, police officer etc
what is conformity to a social role
extent to which people behave in the expected
zimbardo stanford prison experiment - 1971
aim was to know how good people would act in a bad situation
procedure:
- mock prison set up (basement of stanford uni)
- 70 volunteers selected, 24 put through screening
- onlu emotionally stable
- randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards
- arrested in their own homes, blindfolded, strip searched, given number and uniform
- meant to last 2 weeks, ended on day 6
- guards had own uniform and full control over prisoner, we=ore reflective glasses
- zimbardo was prison superintendent —> investigator effect
