Social Influence Flashcards
What is meant by conformity?
a change in an individuals behaviour or opinions following real or imagined pressure from another person or group of people
what is compliance?
superficial type of conformity as it is when we simply go along with others in public but not in private so behaviour and opinions don’t change at all. As soon as group pressure stops, that particular behaviour will also stop and only persists when being watched
What is internalisation?
when someone genuinely accepts the norms of the group and deep type of conformity and changes their behaviour publicly and privately so attitudes are internalised so change is likely to be permanent even when group members are not around
what is identification?
moderate type of conformity as you want to identify with the group so may conform publicly all the time but privately our behaviour and opinions have not changed
What is informational social influence and why is it an explanation for conformity?
Deutsch and Gerard 1955 - ISI is when e believe others in the group are right and we also want to be right which leads to internalisation. ISI is a cognitive process as its to do with what you think and is most likely to happen in ambiguous or crisis situations
What is normative social influence?
NSI is about norms for a social group in which we conform for approval and to fit in and gain social approval rather than be rejected so NSI is an emotional rather than cognitive process and leads to a temporary change in behaviour(compliance). Likely to occur in situations with strangers or friends and stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support.
What is a strength for NSI?
P- There is research support and evidence for NSI as an explanation of conformity.
E- eg when Asch 1951 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 their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5% as giving answers privately meant no normative group pressure.
L- This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them.
What is a strength for ISI?
P- There is research evidence to support ISI from the study by Todd Lucas (2006).
E- He found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult because when the problems were easy to the participants ‘knew their own minds’ but when the problems were hard the situation became ambiguous and participants didn’t want to be wrong so relied on answers they were given.
L- This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity as results are what ISI would predict.
What is a counterpoint to the strength of ISI?
P- It’s often unclear when it is NSI or ISI at work in research studies or in real life.
E- Asch 1955 found that conformity is reduced when their is one dissenting participant as the dissenter may reduce the power of NSI because they provide social support or they may reduce the power of ISI because they provide an alternative source of social information and both interpretations are possible.
L- Therefore it is hard to separate ISI and NSI and both processes probably operate together in most real world conformity situations.
What is a limitation of NSI?
P- NSI does not predict conformity in every case.
E- Some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others and these are called nAffiliators and have a strong need for affiliation(they want to relate to others). Paul mcghee and Richard Teevan 1967 found that students who were nAffilators were more likely to conform.
L- This shows that NSI underlies conformity for some people more than it does for others and there are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.
What was the procedure for Asch’s conformity research?
- 123 american men were tested, each one in a group with other participants and one person being the subject.
- Each one saw 2 large white cards on each trial and the line x on the left hand was the standard and there were 3 comparison lines with an obvious answer.
-The participants had to say which was the same length as the standard line but confederates were told to say wrong answer.
- Tested in groups of 6-8 always genuine participant was seated either last or second to last and didn’t know other participants were confederates.
What did Asch find in his conformity research?
On average , genuine participants agreed with confederates incorrect answer 36.8% (1/3 of the time) but 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer.
When asked why they conformed they said to avoid rejection.
What were the variations of Asch’s conformity research?
Group size :
- tests with 1-15 confederates
- with 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8% , anymore after 3 had little effect
- clear curvilinear relationship was found
Unanimity:
- introduced a confederate who disagreed with others ( dissenter)
- conformity dropped 25% as more independence
- social support reduces influence of other fake participants
Task difficulty:
- made the line judging task more difficult and conformity rose as doubt rises and ISI took over and assumed others were right as didn’t trust their own judgement
What was a limitation of Asch’s research?
P- One limitation of Asch’s research was that the task and situation were artificial.
E- Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected / responded to demand characteristics. The task of identifying lines was trivial and therefore there was no reason not to conform. Also according to Susan Fiske Asch’s groups were not very ‘groupy’ ie they didn’t really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.
L- This means the findings don’t generalise to real world situations especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important.
What is another limitation of Asch’s research?
P- Asch’s participants were american men only.
E- Other research suggests that women may be more conformist possibly because they’re concerned about social relationships and being accepted. Furthermore, US is an individualist culture where people are more concerned about themselves rather than a social group. Similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures eg china have found that conformity rates are higher(Bond and Smith 1996)
L- This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures.
What is a strength of Asch’s research?
P- Asch’s research has support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty.
E- eg Todd Lucas 2006 asked their participants to solve easy and hard maths problems. Participants were given answers from 3 other students and the participants conformed more often and agreed with the wrong answers when the problems were harder.
L- This shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity.
What is the counterpoint to the strength of Asch’s research?
P- However, Lucas’s study found that conformity is more complex than Asch had suggested.
E- Participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence.
L- This shows that an individual level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables eg task difficulty. But Asch did not research the roles of individual factors.
Zimbardo’s conformity research procedure
-mock prison in stanford university basement
- selected 24 men but 3 went home(student volunteers) who tested as emotionally stable
- randomly assigned role of prisoner or guard and were arrested at home, stripped and given a smock with a number they had to identify with
- guards = mirrored shades, handcuffs,wooden club,uniform
- to leave prisoners had to apply for parole
How did the guards appearance help them conform?
The mirrored shades helped them hide and distance themselves from their brutal behaviour so they did not accept responsibility for it and this led to loss of personal identity ( de individualisation) and they were constantly reminded they had power over the prisoners and were encouraged to conform to social roles
What did Zimbardo find in his conformity to social roles research?
Day 2 - prisoners rebelled, ripped uniforms and swore at guards
- guards employed a divide+rule and played prisoner off against each other
- harassed prisoners , enforced 16 rules and punished them
- prisoners became depressed and one was released on day 1 and 2 more on day 4
- guards identified with their role and became brutal and aggressive so study stopped on day 6 instead of 14
- a prisoner went on hunger strike and guard tried to force feed and put in the hole ( solitary confinement) guards seemed to enjoy power over prisoners
What was the conclusions on zimbardos study?
- power if the situation and situational variables influences behaviour
- guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their role in the mock prison
- supports the situational hypothesis that the power of situation or role determines behaviour
What is one strength of the SPE(stanford prison experiment)?
P- Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables.
E- The most obvious example of this was the selection of participants. Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to roles of prisoners and guards and this was one way researchers ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings and would go against the hypothesis that behaviour must be due to to the social role itself.
L- This degree of control over variables increased internal validity of the study so we can be more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles of conformity.
What is a limitation of Zimbardos research experiment?
P- The SPE did not have the realism of a true prison and lacked realism.
E- Ali Banuazizi and Siamuk Movahedi (1975) argued that participants were merely playing acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Participants’ performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards behave eg one of the guards claimed he had based his role of the brutal character from the film Cool Hand Luke which explains why the prisoners rioted.
L- This suggests findings tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
What is the counterpoint to the limitation that the mock prison lacked realism in zimbardos research experiment?
P- Mark McDermott (2019) argues that participants did behave as if the prison was real to them.
E- eg 90% of prisoners’ conversations were about prison life and how it was impossible to leave before their ‘sentences’ were over. ‘Prisoner 416’ later explained he believed the prison was real but run by psychologists instead of the government.
L- This suggests that the SPE did accurately replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison therefore giving the study a high degree of internal validity.
