Social Influence - Conformity Flashcards
Research into types of conformity
types of conformity: Herbert Kerman (1985)
Internalisation - occurs when a person genuinely accepts group norms. This results in a change in both the persons private and public opinions/behaviour. Change is usually permanent because attitudes have been internalised (become part of the way they think). The change in opinions and behaviour persists even in the absence of other group members.
Identification - sometimes we conform to the opinions of a group because there is something about the group that we value. We identify with the group, so we want to be part of it. This means we may publicly change our opinions/behaviour to be accepted by the group even if we don’t privately agree with everything the group stands for.
Compliance - this type of conformity involves simply ‘going along with others’ in public, but privately not changing personal opinions and/or behaviour. Compliance results in only a superficial change. It also means that a particular behaviour or opinion stops as soon as group pressure stops.
Research into explanations for conformity
Explanations for conformity: Deutsch and Gerard (1955)
Two process theory - two main reasons that people conform
Informational social influence (ISI) = is about who has the better information
We follow the behaviour of the group/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 or behaviour (internalisation).
Normative social influence (NSI) = is about what is “normal” or typical behaviour for a social group
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). This process is likely to occur in situations with strangers where you may feel concerned about rejection. Could also occur with people you know because we are most concerned about the social approval of our friends - more pronounced in stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support .
Asch’s research and findings
Baseline procedure:
123 American male participants
Each participant saw two large white cards on each trial - line X which is the standard line on one card, and the lines A,B,C on the other card - three comparison lines.
One of the lines is clearly the same length as X, the other two are different
On each trial the participants say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line X
Findings:
Genuine participants agreed with confederate incorrect answer 36.8% of the time
There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (never conformed)
Variables investigated by Asch
- Group Size = Asch wanted to know whether the size of group would vbve more important than the agreement of the group. To test this she varied the number of confederacies from 1 to 15. He found that conformity increased with group size but only up to a point (7). This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
- Unanimity = Asch wondered if the presence of a non - conforming person would affect the naive participants conformity. He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates. One variation of the study is that this person gave the correct answer and in another he have the wrong answer. This led to the genuine participant to conform less frequently in the presence of a dissenter as it seemed to free the naive participants to behave more independently. This was true even when they disagreed. This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous, and that non - conforming is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority’s unanimous view
- 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 by making the lines more similar to each other in length. This meant that it became harder for the genuine participants to see the differences between the lines. He found that conformity increased, which may be due to the situation becoming more ambiguous when the task becomes harder - not clear to the participants which the correct 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 (ISI)
What are the evaluation points for Asch’s line study
Evaluation:
- artificial situation and task
Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics)
This means that Asch’s findings do not generalise to real - world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important
- limited application
All participants were American men - individualist culture
In collectivist cultures they found that conformity rates are higher
This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures
+ research support
Support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
This shows that Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity
- ethical issues
Naive participants were deceived because they thought that the other people involved with the procedure were also participants, not confederates
However, is it worth bearing in mind that this ethical cost should be weighed up against the benefits gained from the study
What are the evaluation points for the research into types of conformity and explanations for conformity?
Research support from NSI
Research into Zimbardo’s (1973) prison experiment
Research:
He studied the idea that people will conform to social roles if they are assigned a distinct social identity
- wanted to investigate how readily people would conform to the assigned social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life
- converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison
The study proceeded as follows:
- 24 male students were recruited via volunteer/self-selected sampling
- The participants were tested for psychiatric vulnerabilities and were deemed ‘emotionally stable’
- The participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard
- The ‘prisoners’ were ‘arrested’ in the early hours of the morning at their homes and taken off to the ‘prison’ (they were unaware that this was going to happen)
- Prisoners and guards were encouraged to conform to their social roles which was reinforced by the uniforms which were as follows:
- the guards wore a standard khaki uniform with mdirrored shades and each of them carried a nightstick, keys and handcuffs
- the prisoners wore a shapeless smock with a sock cap covering their heads and no shoes
The guards were instructed to set prison rules, hand out punishments (although physical punishments were not allowed) and control the prisoners (e.g. deciding who could go to the toilet, when they could exercise etc.)
The prisoners were referred to by their assigned number rather than their name
The uniforms were designed to erode personal identity and to emphasise each participant’s social role (a process known as deindividuation)
Findings of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford prison experiment
Findings:
- Both guards and prisoners settled into their new roles very quickly
- The guards adopted their social role quickly, easily and with enthusiasm
- Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners and treat them harshly
- Two days into the experiment the prisoners rebelled by ripping their uniforms and shouting and swearing at guards
- The guards employed an array of tactics to bring the prisoners into line:
they used fire extinguishers to bring the prisoners to order
they used psychological warfare, harnessing the ‘divide-and-rule’ principle by playing prisoners off against each other
they instigated headcounts, sometimes at night, by blowing a whistle loudly at the prisoners
punishments were meted out for the slightest transgression
The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour, e.g.:
they became quiet, depressed, obedient and subdued
some of them became informants, ‘snitching’ to the guards about other prisoners
they referred to themselves by number rather than by name
one prisoner had a mental breakdown to the extent that Zimbardo had to remind the participants that the prison was not a real prison
As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and abusive
A colleague of Zimbardo’s visited the study and was horrified at the abuse and exploitation she saw
Zimbardo ended the experiment after six days instead of the 14 originally planned
Zimbardo came to various conclusions as a result of running the study:
- Social roles exert a strong influence on individual identity
- Power corrupts those who wield it, particularly if environmental factors legitimise this corruption of power
- Harsh institutions brutalise people and result in deindividuation (for both guards and prisoners)
- A prison exerts psychological damage upon both those who work there and those who are incarcerated there
Evaluation of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford prison experiment
Evaluation:
Strengths
+ A good degree of control was exerted over the procedure:
The ‘vetting’ of participants to factor out prior psychiatric conditions
The random allocation to role
both of the above measures ensured that individual differences did not confound the results e.g. it was pure chance who ended up as prisoner or guard
+ The study may have genuine mundane realism (which is rare for an experiment)
90% of the prisoners’ private conversations revolved around prison life
The guards talked about ‘problem prisoners,’ or other prison topics on their breaks; they never discussed home life or other topics
Limitations
- The study is (rightly) known for its atrocious ethics
Informed consent did not cover all aspects of what the participants could expect about the procedure (e.g. the arrests at night)
The right to withdraw was given but the routines and mechanisms of the prison world set up by Zimbardo made this difficult for all involved
Protection from harm was almost absent:
Zimbardo actively encouraged the guards to be cruel and oppressive prior to the start of the study
the prisoners suffered in their role, both physically and psychologically
the guards had to live with the knowledge of their potential for brutality after the study was over and the prisoners may have suffered PTSD as a result of their experience - Some, or possibly all, of the participants, may have been acting according to demand characteristics
The participants may have been able to guess the aim and behaved accordingly e.g. ‘I am a guard therefore I must behave brutally’
If the participants were playing out expected roles then this lowers the validity of the findings (e.g. the prisoner who appeared to be having a mental breakdown immediately snapped out of it when Zimbardo reminded him that the prison wasn’t real)
