Social Influence - Conformity

Question 1

AO3

Answer 1

• One weakness of Asch’s research is that it has limited application
• For example, in Asch’s research, there were 123 male participants who were all from America.
• This is a weakness as it reduces the generalisability of the research as we can’t generalise the results to other populations, e.g female students, we are unable to conclude whether or not female students would have conformed in a similar way to male students, therefore reducing it’s application in the real world
• However, it can be argued that this allows for control over participant variables, as all participants were similar, we can control and minimise the impact of differences between these groups affecting results
• Despite that, Asch’s research only uses Americans different people from other countries may be less or more likely to conform due to how and where they’ve been raised, therefore reducing the usefulness.
• Thus decreasing the external validity of Asch’s research
• A weakness of Asch’s research is the artificial setting
• For example, in his research, he used a classroom as his controlled environment which may not be a normal setting for the male adult participants
• This is a weakness as it can lead to demand characteristics from the participants as it is not a natural setting so they are more likely to either try and please the study or try to skew the results
• However, it can be argued that Asch’s research consists of lab studies where there is a greater control over the variables showing that his research has high scientific validity, therefore increasing it’s reliability
• Despite this, the behaviour displayed in the study will be different to behaviour in real life
• Thus reducing the external validity of Asch’s research
• Another weakness of Asch’s experiment is that it has ethical issues.
• These include deception as Asch lied to his participants about what the actual aim of the investigation was which does not line up with the BPS code of ethics
• This is a weakness as there was no fully informed content of what it was about which lead to the researcher (Asch) being less credited and less people will trusting the results of his experiment.
• However, it can be argued that this is sometimes necessary, if participants were told it was going to be about conformity, they may have illustrated demand characteristics and the results would not have been accurate.
• Despite this, the research is non-replicable so it can’t be trusted as only one experiment took place meaning there is no more evidence for his results
• Thus reducing the validity of Asch’s research

Question 2

AO1

Answer 2

• Conformity – ‘a change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from s person or group of people’ Aronson 2011
• Group size – Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the majority. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three
• Unanimity – the extent to which all the members of a group agree. In Asch’s studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederate selected the same comparison line. This produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naïve participants
• Task difficulty – Asch’s line-judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer. Conformity increased because naïve participants assume that the majority is likely to be right

Question 3

Conformity

Answer 3

Conformity refers to how an individual or small group change their behaviour and/or attitudes as a result of the influence of a larger group, where there is no direct request for them to do so.

Question 4

explanations of why people conform

Answer 4

ISI - Informative Social Influence - the desire to be right
NSI - Normative Social Influence - the desire to be liked

Question 5

ISI

Answer 5

Informative Social Influence
Some people will change their thoughts and actions because they are uncertain what to think or do in any given situation, so shall look to the majority for information on what to do. This is known as Informational social influence. This is more likely to occur in ambiguous situations, in other words, when the correct way to behave is unclear. It is also more likely to result in internalisation – this means that the person who is conforming takes the values behind the behaviour as their own, and therefore it is likely to result in a permanent change in behaviour.

Question 6

NSI

Answer 6

Normative Social Influence
Sometimes we change our behaviour because we want to be liked and accepted by those in the majority. This is known as normative social influence. It is most likely to result in compliance – this is where we change our public behaviour for the period of time we are with the group, but maintain our own private
beliefs and are therefore likely to revert back to our former behaviour as soon as we leave the situation. Therefore, compliance usually results in a very short term change

Question 7

Evaluations of explanations of conformity

Answer 7

Evaluation point 1
P Sherif’s study using the autokinetic effect gives support for the existence of informational social influence.
E Sherif found that when participants were asked to judge how far a spot of light had moved in a dark
room, when answering individually, estimates were relatively stable, but there was considerable variation
between participants (between 2 and 12 inches – 5cm and 30 cm). However, when they were put into
groups of three their judgements converged towards a group norm.
E Sherif suggests this is because the task is difficult and therefore the group members are more likely to
look to others to guide them to the right answer
L therefore supporting the view that informational influence leads to conformity

Evaluation point 2
Asch’s study gives support for the existence of normative social influence. He found that when participants
were asked to give an answer to an easy task, (judging which out of three lines was the same as the sample
line), but the confederates, who answered first, all gave the same wrong answer, there was a 32% general
conformity rate across critical trials. As the task was easy, this suggests that participants conformed in order
to fit in with the group. This is evidence to support normative social influence as an explanation for
conformity

Evaluation point 3
The research in this area has useful applications. For example, members of a jury may feel pressured to
conform through normative influence, which could lead to a miscarriage of justice if a minority feel
pressured to agree with a majority verdict. This knowledge can be used by the courts to make jurors aware
of the importance of being able to cast their vote privately, and not say it publicly, which should reduce the
pressure each jury member feels to conform. This should result in a fairer verdict, one which truly reflects
the opinions of the jury members, showing that psychological research can have real benefits in society.