social influence Flashcards
Conformity types
Conformity - tendency to change what we do, think or say in response to real life or imagines pressure from others
compliance - conforms publicly but disagrees privately and stops when the group pressure ends. Due to internal embarrassment (fit in)
Identification - conforms publicly and privately, but it is temporary and may not agree with everything. Due to fear of rejection
Internalisation - conforms publicly and privately and continues in the absence of the group. Due to a genuine belief.
Conformity explanations
Normative social influence - conforming in order to be liked by the majority group, even though we may not agree with them (compliance/ identification)
Informational - conforming in order to be right based on the fact you believe others are more knowledgeable than you (internalisation)
Conformity types and explanations (AO3)
P: research support
E study into mathematical ability showed PPTs conformed more when the difficulty was increased
T: shows people conform when they do not know the answers (informational)
P: Contradictory research
E: some research shows that not everyone behaves in the same way and instead some people are less concerned with being liked (less affected by NSI)
T: cannot be applied to everyone
Zimbardo - AO3
P: high control
E: PPTs were randomly assigned to their roles to eliminate individual differences as an EV, meaning any indivudal differences were due to chance
T: increases study’s internal validity (cause and effect)
P: lack of realism
E: it has been argued that the PPTs were actually play-acting instead of actually conforming with one stating he based his role on a character from cool hand luke
T: decreases validity
P: dispositional influences
E: zimbardo has been accused of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour and minimising the role of personality (only 1/3 behaved in a brutal manner)
T: his conclusion may be overstated
