Social Influence Flashcards
What is Conformity?
Conformity is a change in a person’s behaviour/opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people.
What are the 3 types of Conformity?
- Compliance (shallow)
- Identification (Intermediate)
- Internalisation (deep)
What is Compliance?
- Compliance is a type of conformity
- This is where an individual externally agrees with a group/person’s beliefs but internally keeps their own beliefs.
What is Identification?
- Identification is a type of conformity
- This is where an individual admires a person/group so takes on their beliefs even though they don’t fully agree.
What is Internalisation?
- Internalisation is a type of conformity
- It is the deepest type of Conformity as the individual’s beliefs/behaviours genuinely change permanently.
What are the 2 explanations for Conformity?
- Informational Social Influence (ISI)
- Normative Social Influence (NSI)
What is Informational Social Influence (ISI) ?
- ISI is one of the two explanations for conformity.
- In situations where the correct behaviour is uncertain, we look to the majority for guidance on how to behave because we want to be correct.
What is Normative Social Influence (NSI) ?
- NSI is one of the two explanations for conformity.
- It occurs in situations where the individual wants to be a part of the majority to seem normal, and to not be rejected.
What is the supporting evidence for NSI (Asch) ?
- Participants would choose the wrong answer in an UNAMBIGUOUS line test if confederates picked the wrong answer.
- When interviewed after the experiment, participants said that the reason they conformed was in order to avoid rejection from others (NSI).
What is the supporting evidence for ISI (Jenness) ?
- Participants asked to first guess ALONE how many Jellybeans in a jar (AMBIGUOUS TASK)
- Then participants discussed with a group of confederates their answers (confederates guessed much higher/lower numbers than participant)
- Participant then asked to guess again, this time gave an answer much closer to what the confederates were saying.
What is meant by 12 ‘Critical trials’ In Asch’s Conformity Experiment?
The 12 Critical trials refers to the 12 times the confederates gave the wrong answer purposely.
What were the results in Asch’s Conformity experiment?
- Conformity was 32%
- 75% Conformed at least once
- 5% Conformed all 12 times
What were the 3 Variations of Asch’s Conformity experiment?
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Task difficulty
What were the results in the ‘Group Size’ variation of Asch’s experiment?
- 3% Conformed if there was only 1 confederate
- 13% Conformed if there were 2 confederates
- 33% Conformed if there were 3 Confederates
- (After 3 confederates the % of those that conformed didn’t go much higher)
What were the results in the ‘Unanimity’ variation of Asch’s experiment?
- If a confederate disagreed with the majority just before the participants answer, Conformity dropped to 5.5%
- This is because the participant received some social support to disagree too.
What were the results in the ‘Task Difficulty’ variation of Asch’s experiment?
- When Asch made the difference between the lines much smaller, Conformity increased as the task became more Ambiguous.
- This is more due to ISI than NSI.
Bulletpoint the setup of Zimbardo’s experiment on Conformity to Social Roles.
- Fake prison set up in the basement of Stanford University.
- 21 Males selected from 75 volunteers.
- 21 Males split up in to 10 Prisoners & 11 Guards.
- 10 Prisoners were realistically arrested by local police (stripped,deloused,fingerprinted) and were given uniforms with numbers to dehumanise them.
- Guards given Clubs, Handcuffs & Mirrored sunglasses.
What were the findings of Zimbardo’s study?
- Guards and Prisoners Conformed to their social roles quickly
- Guards abused their power & Prisoners expressed hate towards the Guards.
How long was it until Zimbardo’s experiment was cancelled, and why?
- In 6 days the experiment was cancelled.
- This was due to the fears for the Prisoners mental health as a result of the poor treatment from Guards.