Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity definition
When an individual changes their behaviour or opinions in response to the influence of others or social pressures being either real or imagined.
Majority influence definition
When an individual or small group is influenced by a larger or more dominant group
Who created the three types of conformity
Kelman (1958)
What are the three types of conformity
Compliance, internalisation, identification
What is compliance ?
Compliance is when someone changes their opinion publically so they are in line with the majority. However there is no change to their opinion privately so it is a temporary form of conformity.
What is internalisation?
When individuals change their opinions so that they are in line with the majority however they believe that what the majority is doing is correct so they change their opinion privately as well. This is a more permanent form of conformity.
What is Identification ?
This is a moderate type of conformity where an individual conforms to the opinions of the group because there is something about the group that they value. You may agree with the group publically but disagree privately.
An example of compliance
When a student is pretending to find other students’ conversations interesting on the first day of school, even though they actually think they are really dull.
An example of internalisation?
Becoming a vegetarian because the people around you find it bad to harm animals and you eventually agree with them.
An example of identification?
When you become a vegetarian because all you’re friends are however you still like meat.
Who developed a two-process theory / reasons why we conform?
Deutsch and Gerald (1955)
What are the two reasons for conformity?
Informational social influence (ISI)
Normative social influence (NSI)
What is ISI?
A person conforms because they are unsure of the correct answer so they look to others for information. In most cases, ISI is caused by the need to be right. ISI is more likely to occur when the situation is ambiguous and is likely to lead to internalisation.
What is NSI?
When an individual conforms in order to “fit in” and “be liked and accepted” by the group. NSI is more likely to occur when in a group of strangers or in stressful situations. NSI is likely to lead to compliance.
Strengths for explanations for conformity.
There is research support for both ISI and NSI. For ISI, Lucas et al (2006) asked students to give answers to maths problems that were easy or more difficult. Lucas found that there was more conformity to the difficult questions. This supports ISI as it is more likely to occur in ambiguous situations.
For NSI, Asch (1951) found that many participants went along with a clearly wrong answer because other people did. These people feared rejection so even though the answers were not ambiguous, people still conformed.
Weaknesses for explanations of conformity
-not every individual shows NSI, as people who are not concerned about being liked conform less. However, people who are nAffiliators conform more. McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform so NSI may lack population validity. Similarly, ISI does affect everyone is Asch found students were not as conformist (28%) compared to other types of participants (37%).
Sometimes ISI and NSI happen at the same time. In Asch’s experiments, conformity reduced when there was one other dissenting participant and so reduces the power of NSI because he is providing social support to the participant. It also may reduce the power of ISI because the participant now has an alternative source of information. This shows that situations are not always clearly showing ISI or NSI.
The studies carried out to support ISI and NSI were done in lab conditions and therefore lacked ecological vailidity as we cannot be sure if participants would mirror the same behaviour in the real world. Also participants knew they were in a study so would show demand characteristics.
Study showing ISI
Jenness (1932)
Aim of jenness’ study
To examine whether individuals will change their opinion in an ambiguous situation in response to group discussion.
Method of jenness’ study
Jenness filled a glass bottle with 811 white beans. His sample consisted of 26 students who individually estimated how many beans were in the bottle. Participants were then divided into groups of three and asked to provide a group estimate. Following the discussion, the participants were provided with another opportunity to individually estimate the number beans to see if they changed their original answer.
Results of Jenness’ study
Jenness found that nearly all students changed their original answers when provided with another opportunity to estimate the number of beans. On average, male participants changed their answer by 256 beans and female participants changed by 382 beans. Furthermore the range of the whole group went from 1875 to 474 beans after the discussion.
Conclusion of Jenness study
These results suggest that individuals changed their initial estimates due to ISI, as they believed the group’s estimates were more likely to be correct in comparison to their own.
Who conducted a NSI study ?
Solomon Asch (1951)
Aim of Asch’s study
To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform in an unambiguous situation.
Method for Asch’s study
-123 US male undergraduates participated. Using a line judgement task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with up to 8 confederates.
-each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line was most like the target line. The real participant was always sat at the end of the row and gave their answer last.
-there were 18 total trials and confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trials (called critical trials).
-there was also a control condition where the partcipiant was in the room by themselves.
Results of Asch’s study
-on average in the critical trials about 32-36% of the participants conformed to the clearly wrong majority.
-over the 12 trials, 75% of participants conformed at least once. In the control group, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer
Conclusion of Asch’s study
As h interviewed participants after to see why they conformed and they answered that they went along with the group in order to “fit in” and not be ridiculed, even though they knew their answer was wrong. Therefore, Asch’s study showed compliance in terms of agreeing publically but not privately. This also shows NSI as participants conformed to fit in rather than be right.
Variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch
Group size - Asch looked at the number of people in a group and see if this affected conformity rates. He found that there was little conformity with one or two confederates but when there was a majority of three confederates, conformity rates went up to 30%. However after this, conformity rates didn’t change so group size is only significant up to a point. Campbell and Fairey (1989) said group size will have an effect depending on the type of judgement being made. If the task is ambiguous, then conformity is like to happen in order to be right. If the task is unambiguous, then conformity occurs to “fit in”.
Unanimity of the majority- when everyone in the group agreed with the same answer, the participant would also agree even if it was wrong. However, if one confederate gave the right answer, conformity levels dropped from 33% to 5.5%. If one confederate gave the wrong answer, then conformity levels dropped to 9% suggesting that you only need one person to the break unanimity for conformity rates to drop.
Task difficulty -in one variation, Asch made the difficulty of the task much more difficult by making the line lengths more similar. In these circumstances, conformity rates increased. Lucas et al (206) also did a similar type of experiment with math problems and found when the question was more difficult, more people conformed. However, participants with higher self efficacy remained more independant than those of low self efficacy.
Evaluation of variables affecting conformity
-Asch’s study may be a child of its time. Perrin and spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s study on engineering students and found only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials, therefore showing that conformity does not always occur. It could be possible that the engineering had higher self efficacy than Asch’s study. Nevertheless, society has changed greatly since 1950 and people could be less conformist today. As Asch’s study is not consistent across time, it lacks temporal validity
Artificial situation and task- all participants knew they were in a study and therefore shows demand characteristics. Also the line task is not something that is done in day to day life. Furthermore, Fiske (2014) argues that Asch’s groups were not very groups since they do not resembles groups we are in everyday. Therefore we cannot generalise the findings to everyday situations so we can argue that Asch’s study lacked ecological validity.
Limited application to findings - the participants were all male so we do not know of findings apply to women. Neto (1995) suggest that women are more likely to conform as they are more concerned about social relationships. Also Bond and Smith (1996) pointed out that all participants were from the US, which is an individualistic culture. When the experiment was carried out in a more collectivist culture like China, conformity rates were higher. As Asch’s study can only be applied to US males, it lacks population validity.
Ethical issues- the main issue was deception as confederates were used and participants were unaware of this. As confederates gave the clear wrong answer in 12/18 trials, the deception could lead to psychological harm for the real participant as they would be confused why everyone was giving the wrong answer. However , Asch could be justified as he did debrief participants after the experiment.
What are social roles?
Social roles are the parts people play in society. These are accompanied by expectations associated with each role eg caring obedient etc.
Who carried out the Stanford prison experiment?
Zimbardo et al (1974)
Aim of SPE
To see whether people will conform to new social roles. In this circumstance to the role of guard and prisoner.
Procedure of SPE
-zimbardo converted basement of Stanford university psychology department into a mock prison
-advertised asking for volunteers to participate in a study of the psychological effects of prison life
-more than 70 applicants answered the ad and were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems
-24 male college students took part and were paid $5 a day to participate.
-participants were randomly assigned either the role of a prisoner or guard. There were 10 prisoners and 11 guards and two reserves.
-guards worked 8 hour shifts and prisoners stayed in rooms of three. There was also a solitary confinement for misbehaving prisoners.
-prisoners were arrested in their own homes without warning and taken to the police station.
-then they were blindfolded and driven to the mock prison where they were stripped naked, deloused and had personal possessions removed and locked away.
-they were given prison clothes and bedding and were only referred to by a number
-their clothes were a smock with their number on it but no undergarments and they had a tight nylon cap to cover their hair and a locked chain around one ankle.
-guards were dressed in khaki uniforms and given reflective sunglasses to avoid eye contact with prisoners. They wore a whistle and carried a billy club.
-no physical violence was permitted
-zimbardo plaued a dual role as a researcher and a superintendent
Results of SPE
-zimbardo found that both prisoners and guards quickly identified with their social roles.
-within days, prisoners rebelled but this was quickly crushed by the guards who grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners.
-the guards dehumanised the prisoners waking them in the night and making them clean toilets with their bare hands.
-five prisoners were released early due to their adverse reactions
-though it was set to run for 2 weeks, it was called off on day 6.
Strengths of SPE
One strength of the SPE study is that zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over the variables eg, zimbardo chose the most emotionally stable males. Furthermore each participant was randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard meaning there was no experimenter bias. This increases the internal validity of the study as the variables were controlled.
Good application- from 2003-2004 USA military police committed serious human rights violations against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Zimbardo argues that the same conformity to social role effect that was evident in his Trudy was also present in Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo believed that the guards were victims of the situational factors and this is what caused them to abuse the prisoners alongside the ability to misuse the power as guard.
