Social Influence - Conformity (social&dispositional)

Question 1

What is a social factor?

Answer 1

Conforming because features of your surroundings make you feel pressure
Other people

Question 2

What is a dispositional factor?

Answer 2

Conforming because you have a more conformist personality or are less confident
About you

Question 3

Name three social factors

Answer 3

Anonymity
Task difficulty
Group size

Question 4

Name two dispositional factors

Answer 4

Personality

Expertise

Question 5

Evaluate personality (dispositional)

Answer 5

People with an internal locus if control feel they influence what happens to them so will be less affected by others
Decreases conformity
The influence we feel we have over things in our lives has less effect on conformity in situations that are familiar to us. How we behaved in the past is a better predictor of our behaviour.

Question 6

Evaluate expertise (dispositional)

Answer 6

Experts are more confident in their own opinions so conform less
Explanation only focuses on one factor to do with someone’s
personality and so ignores other social factors that could affect conformity.

Question 7

Evaluate anonymity (social)

Answer 7

Writing answers down anonymously = less group pressure as nobody knows your answer
Asch’s research involved a group of strangers but it has been found by Huang and Li that people conform more amongst people they know.

Question 8

Evaluate task difficulty (social)

Answer 8

People are less confident in own answer when task is harder so look to others for correct one (increase in conformity)
The challenging nature of the task will not always affect conformity as dispositional factors like expertise will also influence how we react to group pressure.

Question 9

Evaluate group size (social)

Answer 9

Less group pressure if less people
Bigger/smaller groups affect conformity in different ways
depending on type of task. Eg: research has found that more difficult
tasks = more conformity in larger groups.