Social Influence: Conformity - Types Of Conformity, Asch's Experiment, NSI, ISI, Zimbardo

Question 1

What Is Conformity?

Answer 1

• A change in person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
• Yielding to group pressure - also known as majority influence.

Question 2

What Is Compliance?

Answer 2

• Compliance is when you just go along with what others are doing.
• Behaviour is simply to fit in with a group and be accepted.
• Once away from the group behaviour and opinions will be back to ‘normal.’
• Public acceptance.

Question 3

What Is Identification?

Answer 3

• A person conforms to the the behaviours of a group because there is something they value about the group.
• Identify with a group and change our behaviours publicly to be part of the group.
• Public acceptance and (temporary) private acceptance.

Question 4

What Is Internalisation?

Answer 4

• This is when a person genuinely believes and accepts a group norm.
• The behaviour and beliefs are present when not with the group.
• The change is permanent.
• Public acceptance and private acceptance.

Question 5

Asch’s Original Study.

Answer 5

Aim: To assess how much people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is certain.

Procedure: Showed participants two large white cards one ‘standard’ line and the other ‘compared’ lines. One of the 3 lines were the same the other 2 clearly wrong. Participants was asked which line matched the standard line. Each naive participants were tested individually with a group of 6 confederates. On the first few trial confederates gave the right answers however they started to answer incorrectly (all choosing the same incorrect answer). Participants took part of 18 trials and 12 ‘critical trials’ where the confederates gave the wrong answer.

Findings: The naive participants gave the wrong answer 38.6% of the time. 75% of the participants conformed at least once. Many participants conformed to avoid rejection (found out after interviewing).

Conclusions: Many people conformed even though they were right in order to not feel rejected this shows how easily influenced individuals are in order to fit into society.

Question 6

Asch’s Variations: Group Size.

Answer 6

• Group size: The number of members within a social group.
• He wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group so he changed the size of the group.
• Asch found that adding 3 confederates conform to the wrong answer rose to 31.8% but adding more made little difference.

Question 7

Asch’s Variation: Unanimity.

Answer 7

• The degree to which the group members are in agreement with each other.
• Wanted to know whether if a confederate not conforming would affect the participants conformity.
• Introduced a confederate who disagreed with others sometimes giving correct answers and sometimes giving wrong answers.
• Reduced conformity: 25% conformity (participants behaved more independently.
• The influence of majority depends to some extent.

Question 8

Ach’s Variation: Task Difficulty.

Answer 8

• How obvious the correct answer is.
• Made the task more difficult by making the line more similars.
• Conformity increased. When task becomes harder so did conformity as the situation is more ambiguous so they are more likely for guidance.

Question 9

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Ethical Issues (DW).

Answer 9

• There were ethical issues with Asch’s research.
• The participants were deceived as they believed the confederates were also participants who were taking part in a ‘visual line judgement task.’
• This means that the participants could not have given their true informed consent to take part in the study.
• This reduces the ethical credibility of Asch’s research.

Question 10

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Ethical Issues (CW).

Answer 10

• There were ethical issues with Asch’s research.
• The participants were deceived as they believed the confederates were also participants who were taking part in a ‘visual line judgement task.’
• However, the participants needed to be deceived to test their conformity to an obvious answer,
• Had the participants known that there were confederates that were frequently giving the wrong answer they may have given different answers, meaning that the findings from the experiment were not valid.

Question 11

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Reliability (DW).

Answer 11

• Subsequent replications of Asch’s conformity study have not found the same results.
• Perrian and Spencer (1980) recreated Asch’s study and found that only one student conformed in total of 396 trials.
• This is very different to the 36.8% conformity rate in Asch’s original study.
• This reduces the reliability of Asch’s findings as conformity does not appear to be consistent across situations or times periods.

Question 12

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Reliability (CW).

Answer 12

• Replications of Asch’s conformity study have not found the same results.
• Perrian and Spencer (1980) recreated Asch’s study and found that only one student conformed in total of 396 trials.
• This is very different to the 36.8% conformity rate in Asch’s original study.
• However, these results could be explained by societal changes in conformity levels. 1950’s America when Asch’s original study occurred was much more conformist than in 1980 when Perrin and Spencer completed theirs.

Question 13

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Validity (DW).

Answer 13

• Asch’s experiment was artificial.
• The task of identifying which of three lines matched the target line is trivial.
• This meant that the task lacked mundane realism as it was not similar to tasks that would be completed in everyday situations.
• The validity of the research is reduced as it does not represent how people conform in normal life.

Question 14

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Validity (CW).

Answer 14

• Asch’s experiment was artificial.
• The task of identifying which of three lines matched the target line is trivial.
• This meant that the task lacked mundane realism as it was not similar to tasks that would be completed in everyday situations.
• However, this experiment did show that people conformed to an obviously incorrect answers simply to fit into a group. This is an important fact to know about human behaviour.

Question 15

Asch’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Generalisability.

Answer 15

• The findings from Asch’s research are not representative of all genders.
• 123 males were used in the experiment with no female participants.
• This means that the findings from the experiment cannot be applied to everyone as the conformity rates of men and women may not be the same.
• This is an example of beta bias where it is thought that there is little difference between male and female behaviour suggesting the male behaviour is the ‘norm’ but Eagly and Carli (1981) carried out a meta-analysis of research into conformity and found that women were more likely to conform than men.

Question 16

Explanations Of Conformity - Informational Social Influence.

Answer 16

• Reasoning: Individual lacks information so looks for the person who they believe had better information in terms in who they believe is right.
• Cognitive Process.
• Occurs during a new situation, as well as ambiguous situations, or stressful situations.
• Can lead to internalisation.

Question 17

Evaluation Of Explanation Of Conformity: Strength - Supporting Evidence.

Answer 17

• Research to support the ISI explanation of conformity comes from Lucas et al.
• They asked students to give answers to maths problems that were easy or difficult.
• It was found that there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were more difficult than when they were easy.
• This shows that ppl conform in situations where they feel they do not know the answer.
• Therefore, there is evidence that supports the ISI explanation of conformity that we look to other ppl when we want to be right in a difficulty situation.

Question 18

Explanations Of Conformity - Normative Social Influence.

Answer 18

• Reasoning: Wants to be liked, wants to fit in the norm.
• Emotional Process.
• Occurs when you have a fear of being rejected if you don’t follow the norm. Can happen during unfamiliar setting. Stressful situations.
• Can lead to compliance and possibly identification.

Question 19

Evaluation Of Explanation Of Conformity: Strength - Support The NSI Explanation Of Conformity

Answer 19

• Research support the NSI explanation of conformity fro Asch’s experiment, where participants knew the group was wrong privately, but chose to conform, in order to be accepted.
• We know this bc participants that were interviewed afterwards said they conformed to avoid rejection.
• Therefore. there evidence to suggest that NSI is a valid theory of why ppl conform as it states we conform to be a part of a social group, not bc they believe the group to be right.

Question 20

Evaluation Of Explanation Of Conformity: Weakness - Individual Differences.

Answer 20

• Despite evidence to support the role of NSI in diff social situations there are individual differences in the process.
• Some research has shown that NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way.
• Ppl who are less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care more about being liked.
• This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some ppl more than others.
• This therefore weakens the explanation of conformity as it does not explain everyone’s behaviour.

Question 21

Evaluation Of Explanation Of Conformity: Weakness - Joint Explanation.

Answer 21

• The idea of Deutsch ‘two-process’ approach is that behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI, however usually both processes are involved.
• For example, conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant in the Asch experiment.
• This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (bc the dissenter providers social support) or may reduce the power of ISI (bc there is an alternative source of info).
• This shows that it is not always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI at work.
• This is a weakness of the explanation as it casts serious doubt over the view of NSI and ISI as two processes operating independently in conforming behaviour.

Question 22

Evaluation Of Explanation Of Conformity: Weakness - Alternative Explanations.

Answer 22

• Although, NSI has been shown to exist, it may not be detected as a causal factor in an individual’s behaviour.
• Nolan investigated whether ppl detected the influence of social norms on their own energy conservations.
• When asked about what factors had influenced their conservations, ppl believed that the behaviour of neighbours had the least impact yet showed that it had the strongest impact.
• This suggests that ppl rely

Question 23

Conformity To Social Roles.

Answer 23

• Social roles are the parts people play as members of various social groups.
• Accompanied by expectations.
• There is a considerable pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role.
• Conforming to a social role is called identification.

Question 24

Zimbardo’s Study.

Answer 24

Aim: Wanted to investigate how quickly people would conform to the social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that stimulated prison life. Also wanted to examine whether the behaviour displayed in prisons was due to internal dispositional factors (people themselves) or external situational factors (environment and conditions of prison).

Procedure: Converted a basement of the Standford University psychology building into a mock prison. Advertised for 24 male students to play roles of prisoners and guards (randomly assigned) for a fornight. Prisoners were blindfolded, strip-searched, issued a uniform and referred to by their number only. Guards were given uniform, whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses. The guards worked shifts of 8 hours a week (no physical violence were permitted). Zimbardo observed behaviour and also acted as a prison warden.

Findings: Prisoners originally rebelled and eventually guards began to conform to their role. Guards began to harass prisoners and behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner. Prisoners talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They ratted eachother out to the guards. Followed the prison rules and even began to side with guards against prisoners who did not obey. Prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive. Guards behaviour became a threat to the prisoner’s psychological and physical health and the study was stopped at 6 days rather than 14 days.

Conclusion: Zimbardo concluded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles. Situational factors were largely responsible.

Question 25

Zimbardo’s Study Evaluation: Strength - Control Over Variables.

Answer 25

• A strength of the Standford Prison Experiment is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over variables.
• Regarding selection of participants, emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the role of guard and prisoner.
• This was one way in which the researchers tried to rule out individuals personality difference as an explanation of the findings.
• Having such control over variables increases the internal validity of the study.

Question 26

Zimbardo’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Lacked Realism.

Answer 26

• There was a lack of realism in the study.
• According to Banuazizi and Mohavedi the guards may have actually been play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Their performance were based on stereotypes of how prisoners and guards should behave; guards acted brutally and prisoners started a riot.
• The behaviour that was observed may not have been due to the situation, but the participants assumptions about how they should have behaved meaning that it was not true or accurate.
• This shows the results may not have been valid.

Question 27

Zimbardo’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Lack Research To Support.

Answer 27

• There is a lack of research to support Zimbardo’s argument that the participants in the Standford prison study ‘naturally’ and easily conformed to their roles just because they were given to them.
• Reicher and Haslam (2006) partially replicated the Standford Prison Experiment and found that it was the prisoners who eventually took control of the mock prison and subjected the guards to harassment and disobedience.
• This is very different from Zimbardo’s findings and challenge the argument that individual will simply take on the roles that they are given.

Question 28

Zimbardo’s Study Evaluation: Strength - Real World Application.

Answer 28

• There are real world applications from the Standford Prisoner Experiement.
• Zimbardo believes that the same conformity to social roles in the SPE occurred at Abu Ghraib a military prison in Iraq, in which Iraqi prisoners were tortured and abused by American soldiers in 2003 and 2004.
• Zimabardo suggested that certain situational factors combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with certain roles can lead to people behaving in tyrannical and abusive ways.
• If we know what the situations are that can lead to people acting in inappropriate ways we can look at implementing practices to prevent such behaviour from occurring in the future.

Question 29

Zimbardo’s Study Evaluation: Weakness - Ethical Issues.

Answer 29

• A major ethical issues arose because of Zimbardo’s dual roles in the study.
• On one occasion a participant who wanted to leave the experiment spoke to Zimbardo when he was in his role as superintendent.
• This led to Zimbardo responding to the participant as superintendent worried about the running of his prison, rather than as a researcher with responsibilities towards his participants.
• The participants had to stay in the study for longer than they wanted putting them at risk of psychological harm and it prevented them the right to withdraw.