Social influence Flashcards
Define social influence
The process by which individuals and groups change each other’s attitudes and behaviours
What is conformity?
When a person changes their behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from another person or group of people
Describe the aim, procedure, findings and conclusion of Asch’s original (baseline) study
Aim: test of conformity
Procedure: 123 American males tested on what they are told is a visual perception task. They are sat in a room with between 6 and 8 confederates and are asked to say which of three comparison lines matches the length of the stimulus line. All of the confederates give the same wrong answer
Findings: they do this for 18 trials where on 12 of them the confederates give the same wrong answer. The participants tend to conform.
Conclusion: It’s thought this is because they wanted to avoid rejection from the group/gain their approval (called normative social influence).
Tests NSI and compliance
Asch’s research took place during McCarthyism. Why is this a problem and what evidence do we have to support that it is a problem? What does this mean for his conclusion about conformity?
It is possible that Asch’s findings are unique because the research took place in a period of US history called McCarthyism where conformity was high. This was a strong anti-Communist period where people were scared to go against the majority and so more likely to conform. Supporting this, Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s study in the UK using science and engineering students. In their initial study, they found only one conforming response out of a total of 396 trials where a majority unanimously gave the same wrong answer. It may be that these students were more confident measuring lines than the original sample, but it’s more likely that society has changed since the 1950s and people are potentially less conformist today.
Research may lack external (temporal and population) validity as the results are not consistent across people or time. Therefore from the study, we cannot conclude that conformity is a universal feature of human behaviour.
Asch’s study is said to lack mundane realism. How? Why is this a problem for his conclusion about conformity?
It would be unusual to be in a situation where you would disagree so much with others as to what was the ‘correct’ answer in a situation. The task was trivial and so there was no reason not to conform. The ‘group’ also didn’t resemble groups in everyday life as it was all strangers who the naive participants might have wanted to impress meaning that conformity was higher than usual. Additionally, the confederates weren’t trained actors so participants may have realised that their answers weren’t real. Participants may therefore have guessed the aims and changed their behaviour accordingly (demand characteristics).
This suggests that the findings may not be valid and so may tell us little about real-life conformity as the results may not generalise to everyday situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity are more important.
Asch’s study involved participants answering out loud in a group of strangers. Why is this a problem? What does this tell us about his conclusion about conformity?
Ignore
The fact that participants had to answer out loud and were with a group of strangers who they wanted to impress might mean that conformity was higher than usual. However, research has found that conformity was actually higher when the majority of the group were friends rather than strangers. This suggests that conformity changes from situation to situation.
This suggests that the findings may lack external validity and so may not generalise to more everyday situations where conformity occurs.
Asch only tested American males. Why is this a problem? What does this tell us about his conclusion about conformity?
Asch only tested males. Research has found that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted than men are. The participants were also American (from an individualist culture) where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social group. Similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures (e.g. China), where the social groups are more important than the individual, have found conformity rates are higher. This may be because such cultures are more oriented to group needs.
This suggests that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found. His findings may only therefore apply to US men as he didn’t take gender and cultural differences into account and so only gives us a limited view about the impact of conformity.
Explain how Asch’s study involved:
a. Deception
b. Lacking protection from harm
Asch’s study was unethical as it involved deceit about the aim of the study and the confederates. Participants were told that the study was about visual perception when it was really about conformity, and they were led to believe that the confederates were other participants. It also involved psychological harm, with participants put under stress through disagreeing with others. This may have caused significant embarrassment.
However, it is worth considering that these ethical costs should be weighed against the benefits gained from the study. The relatively short-term costs to the participants could be argued to be outweighed by the importance of the results in terms of what we have learned about conformity.
Counterargument: however, given the issues with the validity of the conclusions regarding conformity, it could be argued that the benefits don’t outweigh these costs.
Would a cost-benefit analysis suggest the study should have been conducted? Why?
Ignore
Yes because the harm to the participants was only short lived and the study told us useful info about conformity/ can also be argued the other way due to validity issues
What do we mean by an ethical evaluation point?
Any evaluation point that is linked to ethical issues.
What do we mean by a methodological evaluation point?
Any evaluation point that is not about ethical issues e.g. extraneous variables, validity etc.
Describe the procedure and findings of Asch’s group size variation (include which type and explanation of conformity were on display)
Procedure and findings:
- 1 confederate - very little conformity
- 2 confederate - 13%
- 3 confederates - 31.8%
- Up to 15 confederates - didn’t increase from 31.8% substantially
Conclusion: A small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted, but that the size of the majority is only important up to a point. The more people present in the majority, the greater the potential for rejection so participants are more likely to conform to avoid this rejection.
Tests NSI and compliance
Describe the procedure and findings of Asch’s unanimity variation (include which type and explanation of conformity were on display)
Procedure: He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others – sometimes the new confederate gave the correct answer and sometimes he gave a different wrong one.
Findings and conclusion: Asch found that that the presence of the dissenting confederate giving the correct answer meant that conformity was reduced to 5%, and 9% when the dissenting confederate gave a different wrong answer. The dissenter enabled the participant to act more independently. This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous.
Tests NSI and compliance
Describe the procedure and findings of Asch’s difficulty of the task variation (include which type and explanation of conformity were on display)
Procedure: Asch made the difference between the line lengths much smaller so that the correct answer was less obvious and the task much more difficult.
Findings and conclusions: The level of conformity increased. This suggests that when the task gets harder, informational social influence plays a greater role. This is because the task is more ambiguous and so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and we are wrong.
Tests ISI and internalisation
For each of Asch’s variations, explain why the conformity rate changed using the explanations of conformity
Group size - NSI
Unanimity - NSI
Task difficulty - ISI
Define compliance
Public but not private
The behaviour or opinion stops when they are not with the group
It is only a temporary change in views so weak
The reason for conformity is to gain approval/avoid rejection
Define identification
Public and sometimes private
Views are maintained whilst a part of the group but not maintained when they leave the group
Permancent change whilst in the group but only whilst you’re in the group
Reason for conformity is becuase you want to be a part of the group
Define internalisation
Public and private acceptance
The behaviour or opinions are maintained even when the group is not present
Permanent change in views so strong
Reason for conformity becuase they genuinely accept the group norms
Define normative social influence
An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority becuase we want to gain social approval and be liked. This may lead to compliance
Define informative social influence
An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority becuase we beleive it is correct. We accept it becuase we want to be correct as well. This may lead to internalisation.
What are the types of conformity?
Compliance, identification, internalisation
What are the explanations of conformity?
NSI and ISI
Some psychologists have argued that conformity involves both NSI and ISI rather than one or the other. Give an example of how this could be the case. Why is this a problem for the explanations of conformity?
Ignore
Asch’s variation found that conformity is reduced when there is a dissenting confederate (someone who doesn’t conform). This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because the dissenter provides social support) or they may reduce the power of ISI (because there is an alternative source of information).
This suggests that it isn’t always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work, in lab studies and particularly in real-life conformity situations. This casts doubt over the view that NSI and ISI operate independently in conforming behaviour.
Describe evidence to support NSI, including the procedure, results and how exactly it supports NSI
Asch interview and write down answers
Asch found that many of his participants went along with a clearly wrong answer just because other people did. So he asked them why they did this. Some of the participants said that they felt self- conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When Asch repeated his study but asked participants to write down their answers instead of saying them aloud, conformity rates fell to 12.5%.
This suggests that people conform in situations with strangers because they fear rejection and want to avoid disapproval, as predicted by normative social influence. We look to other people and conform in order to be liked. When the fear of rejection is removed by writing answers down, conformity reduces, also as predicted by normative social influence.