Social Influence- Conformity

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

When the behaviour of an individual or small group is influenced by a larger or more dominant group

Question 2

What are the 3 types of conformity?

Answer 2

Internalisation, compliance, identification

Question 3

What is internalisation?

Answer 3

Accepting and internalising the majority beliefs so that they are your own

Question 4

When may internalisation happen?

Answer 4

In an unfamiliar situation so you look to others for information about how to behave

Question 5

What is informational social influence?

Answer 5

The need to be right

Question 6

What is compliance?

Answer 6

Going along with the majority even if you don’t share their views

Question 7

When may compliance happen?

Answer 7

To avoid rejection or exclusion from the group

Question 8

What is normative social influence?

Answer 8

The need to be liked

Question 9

What is identification?

Answer 9

Conforming to what’s expected of you to fulfil a social role which means changing behaviour to fit a specific role in society or trying to imitate the behaviour of a role model

Question 10

What was Asch’s experiment?

Answer 10

• Laboratory experiment
• Independent groups design
• Participants judged line lengths by saying out loud which comparison line matched the standard line
• Group only contained one real participant and others were confederates
• Real participant always went second to last or last so that they heard others’ answers
• 18 trials
• 12 trials, confederates all gave same wrong answer

Question 11

What were the results in Asch’s experiment?

Answer 11

• Participants conformed to majority view 37% of time
• 75% conformed at least once
• Some participants said they didn’t really believe their answers but didn’t want to look different

Question 12

What was the conclusion from Asch’s experiment?

Answer 12

Normative social influence was why participants conformed to majority

Question 13

What were the situational factors investigated by Asch?

Answer 13

Group size, unanimity, task difficulty

Question 14

What happened in the group size variation of Asch’s study?

Answer 14

• Real participant only conformed 14% of the time with 2 confederates
• Conformity rose to 32% with 3 confederates
• There was little change to conformity after 3 confederates

Question 15

What happened in the unanimity variation of Asch’s study?

Answer 15

• One confederate disagreed with other confederates

- Having social support made it easier to resist pressure to conform and conformity fell to 5.5%

Question 16

What happened in the task difficulty variation of Asch’s study?

Answer 16

• Task was made more difficult by making lines more similar
• Conformity levels increased
• People are more likely to conform if they’re less confident that they’re correct

Question 17

How might confidence affect conformity?

Answer 17

If someone feels confidence in their judgements then they are more able to resist group pressure