Social Influence Flashcards
Define Conformity
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
Types of conformity: Define Internalisation- Kelman
A deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to a far-reaching and permanent change in behaviour, even when the group is absent.
Types of conformity: Define Identification- Kelman
A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way with the group because we value it and want to be part of it. But we don’t necessarily agree with everything, the majority believes.
Types of conformity: Define Compliance- Kelman
A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with the majority view but privately disagree with it. The change in our behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring us.
Define Normative Social Influence (NSI)
An explanation of conformity what says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked. This may lead to compliance.
Define Informational Social Influence (ISI)
An explanation of conformity that says we agree
Explanations for conformity: Deutsch and Gerard developed a two-way process, arguing that there are 2 main reasons people conform. The need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI).
ISI- is about who has the better info-you or the rest of the group. Often, we are uncertain about what behaviours or beliefs are right or wrong. For example, you may not know the answer to a question in class. But if most of your class gives one answer, you accept it because you feel they are likely to be right. We follow the behaviour of the group (the majority) because we want to be right. ISI is a cognitive process because it is to do with what you think. It leads to a permanent change in opinion/behaviour (internalisation).
ISI is most likely to happen in situations that are new to a person (so you don’t know what is right) or where there is some ambiguity \9so it isn’t clear what is right). It also occurs in crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly, and we assume that the group is more likely to be right.
Explanations for conformity: Deutsch and Gerard developed a two-way process, arguing that there are 2 main reasons people conform. The need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI).
NSI is about norms, i.e. what is ‘normal’. Norms regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals, so it is not surprising that we pay attention to them. People do not like to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval rather than be rejected. So NSI is an emotional rather than a cognitive process. It leads to a temporary change in opinions/behaviour (compliance).
NSI is likely to occur in situations with strangers where you may feel concerned about rejection. It may also occur with people you know because we are most concerned about the social approval of our friends. It may be more pronounced in stressful situations (than non-stressful situations) where people have a greater need for social support.
Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Research support for NSI)
One strength of NSI is that evidence supports is as an explanation of conformity. For example, 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%. This is because giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure.
This shows that at least some conformity is due to desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them.
Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Research support for ISI)
Another strength is that there is research evidence to support ISI from the study by Lucas et al. (2006).
Lucas et al. found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult. This is because when the problems were easy, the participants ‘knew their own minds’ but when problems were hard, the situation became ambiguous (unclear). The participants did not want to be wrong, so they relied on the answers they were given.
This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict.
Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Counterpoint for support for ISI)
However, it is often unclear whether is it NSI or ISI at work in research studies (or in real life). For example, Asch (1955) found that conformity is reduced when there i one other dissenting participant. 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). Both interpretations are possible.
Therefore, it is hard to separate ISI and NSI and both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations.
Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Individual differences in NSI)
One limitation is that NSI does not predict conformity in every case. Some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others. Such people are called nAffiliators-they have a strong need for ‘affiliation’ (i.e. they want to relate to other people). McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students who were nAffiliators were more likely to conform.
This shows that NSI underlies conformity for some people more than it does for others. There are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Group size
Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased with the group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Unanimity
The extent to which all the members of a group agree. In Asch’s studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line. This produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naive participants.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Task Difficulty
Asch’s line - judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer. Conformity increased because naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Standard and comparison lines)
123 American men were tested, each one in a group with other apparent participants. Each participant saw 2 large white cards on each trial. The line X on the left-hand card is the standard line. The lines A, B and C are the three comparison lines. One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length as X, the other 2 are substantially different (i.e. clearly wrong). On each trial the participants had to say (out loud) which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line X.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Physical arrangement of the participants in the study)
The participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8. Only one was a genuine (naive) participant, always seated either last or next to last in the group. The others were all confederates of Asch. They all gave the same (incorrect) scripted answers each time. The genuine participant did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Baseline findings)
On average, the genuine participants agreed with confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time (i.e. they conformed about a third of the time). There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (i.e. never conformed).
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (introduction)
Asch (1951) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain (i.e. unambiguous). It’s called the ‘baseline’ study because it is the one against which all the later studies are compared.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Group size)
Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group. To test this, he varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15. Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point. With three confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. But the presence of more confederates made little difference- the conformity rate soon levelled off.
This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Unanimity)
Asch wondered if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the naive participant’s conformity. He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates. In one variation of the study this person gave the correct answer, and, in another variation, he gave a (different) wrong one. The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter. The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous. The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently. This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the genuine participant.
This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous. And that non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority’s unanimous view.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Task difficulty)
Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity. He increased the difficulty of the line- judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length. This meant it became harder for the genuine participants to see the differences between the lines.
Asch found that conformity increased. It may be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder- it is unclear to the participants what the right answer is. In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right, and you are wrong (called Informational Social Influence).
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Evaluation: Artificial situation and task)
One limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial. Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics). The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform. Also, according to Fiske (2014, Asch’s groups were not very groupy’, i.e. they did not really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life. This means the findings do not generalise to real -world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important.
Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Evaluation: Limited Application)
Another limitation is that Asch’s participants were American men. Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted (Neto 1995). Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture (i.e. where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social groups). Similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (such as China where the social group is more important than the individual) have found that conformity rates are higher (Bond and Smith 1996).
This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures.