Social Influence- Conformity Flashcards
Social influence
A change in an individual’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes or behaviours as a result of interactions with another individual or group.
Conformity
Yielding to group pressure regardless whether it is real or imaginary.
Majority influence
When a person’s behaviour and/or beliefs are influenced by a larger group of people.
Types of conformity
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
What is compliance?
Most superficial type of conformity.
Going along with things even if you disagree with them. You change your behaviour in order to be liked by certain people/ groups.
You publicly conform to the behaviour and views of others, but privately you keep your own views. So, your behaviour/ opinion stops as soon as group pressure stops.
What is identification?
An intermediate level of conformity.
You do what is expected of you to fulfil a role (social). You publicly and privately talk on the norms of the group because membership of the group is desirable.
Stronger level of conformity than compliance because it involves private acceptance but weaker than internalisation because it is temporary and not maintained when individuals leave the group.
What is internalisation?
The deepest level of conformity.
This means accepting the majority views as your own. Internalisation results in a permanent change in belief.
This is when the norms of the group are internalised and take on these norms of the group both publicly and privately. The change in belief/ behaviour persists even in the absence of other group members.
The person’s private view permanently changes.
Can also be referred to as ‘conversion’.
Explanations for conformity
NSI- normative social influence
ISI- informational social influence
What is NSI?
Normative social influence.
We conform due to our desire to be liked.
By conforming to group norms, it brings acceptance and approval.
Example of NSI?
Compliance as a form of conformity
Asch’s line study (1951-1955)
What is ISI?
Informational social influence.
We conform due to our desire to be right.
We look to others who me believe to be correct, to give us information on how to behave.
Examples of ISI?
Internalisation as a form of conformity
Sherif’s autokinetic study (1935)
Method of Asch’s experiment
Laboratory experiment with an independent groups design.
Participants were asked to match the length of the lines. Each group contained only one real participant- the others were confederates. The real participant always went last or second to last so they could hear the confederates’ answers.
Each Participant completed 18 trials. On 12 of these trials (critical trials) the confederates all gave the same wrong answer.
There was also a control group, where the participants judged the line lengths in isolation.
Results of Asch’s experiment
In the central trials, participants gave the wrong answer 0.7% of the time.
In the critical trials, participants conformed to the majority (wrong answer) ** 37%** of the time. 75% conformed at least once.
Afterwards, some participants said they didn’t really believe their answers, but didn’t want to look different.
Conclusion of Asch’s experiment
The control condition showed that the task was easy to get right (the answer was unambiguous). However, 37% were wrong on the critical trials- they conformed to the majority due to NSI.
