Social Influence: L1-4

Question 1

Conformity

Answer 1

change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people’

Question 2

Majority influence

Answer 2

the most common form of conformity; when an individual or small group is influenced by a larger or more dominant group.

Question 3

Compliance (+ example)

Answer 3

When individuals adjust/change their behaviour, and the views, attitudes and beliefs they voice in public, so that they are in line with the majority. There is no change to privately held views, attitudes and beliefs and conformity only lasts while the group is present.

• It is a superficial and temporary form of conformity.
• An example of compliance would be a student during their first day at school pretending to find other students’ conversations interesting, even though they actually think they are really dull.

Question 4

Internalisation (+ example)

Answer 4

when individuals publicly and privately adjust/change their behaviour, views, and beliefs so that they are in line with the majority.

• An example of internalisation would be a student during their first day at school watching the other students’ closely and the eventually we dress and behave like them because we agree with and value their dress sense and behavior.

Question 5

Identification (+ example)

Answer 5

moderate type of conformity, we conform to the opinions of the group because there is something about the group that we value. We identify with the group because we feel that we are similar to that group and therefore change our views to be part of it. We also identify with those people who we admire and may look up to.

• We may agree with the group publically but disagree privately.
• An example of identification is when you become a vegetarian because all your friends are and you do like vegetarian food. However, you still like meat!

Question 6

Deutsch and Gerard (1955)

Answer 6

developed a two-process theory and thus identified two reasons for conformity: the desire to be accepted and the desire to be right.

Question 7

Informational social Influence (ISI)

Answer 7

The person conforms because they are unsure of the correct answer/how to behave, so they look to others for information.

• In most cases, the drive for conformity is the need to be right, and is often a sensible decision. If the majority are correct, then the conformer will be too. If they are wrong, at least they will not stand out.

Likely to lead to internalisation

Question 8

Informational social influence is most likely when:

Answer 8

• the situation is ambiguous (the answer may
not be obvious)
• the situation is more difficult or complex
• the situation is a crisis .i.e. rapid action is
required.
• We believe others to be expert’s .i.e. more
likely to know what to do.

Question 9

Normative Social Influence (NSI)

Answer 9

NSI is all about norms – what is normal or typical behaviour for a social group. Norms regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals so we do tend to pay attention to them.

Furthermore, people have a fundamental need to be liked and accepted by others and to be part of a group. We therefore avoid any behaviour that will make others reject or ridicule us. This can lead us to copy the behaviour of others in order to ‘fit in’.

• NSI is likely to lead to compliance.

Question 10

Normative social influence is most likely when:

Answer 10

With people who are similar to them and so conformity can be an effective strategy to ensure acceptance.

• likely to occur in situations with strangers when you may be concerned about rejection.
• NSI may be more pronounced in stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support.

Question 11

Strengths of ISI

Answer 11

Lucas et al (2006) asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult, Lucas found that conformity occurred more to incorrect answers when the mathematical problems were more difficult rather than easy. In fact this was especially true for those students who felt that they mathematical skills were poor.

• This study thus supports the ISI explanation of conformity because this explanation suggests that conformity is more likely to occur when the situation is ambiguous or difficult.
• In Lucas’s study, those students who were poor at maths looked to others who they felt had more knowledge and were thus right.

Question 12

Strengths of NSI

Answer 12

Asch (1951) found that many of his participants went along with a clearly wrong answer because other people did.

• These participants feared rejection so agreed with the wrong answer. In Asch’s experiments, the answers to questions were not ambiguous or difficult but people still conformed due to NSI.

Question 13

Weakness of ISI

Answer 13

does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For example, Asch (1955) found that students were not as conformist (28%) compared to other types of participants (37%) – such as people working in offices - suggesting that even if the situation may be ambiguous we don’t always look to others for support and thus will not always conform

Question 14

Weakness of NSI

Answer 14

Some research has shown that not every individual shows NSI. For example, some individuals who are not concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI.

• This suggests that the NSI explanation for conformity may lack population validity (it doesn’t apply to everyone).

Question 15

What are nAffliators

Answer 15

• These are people who have a greater need for ‘affiliation’

Question 16

ISI and NSI may work together in explaining conformity rather than separately

Answer 16

• For example, in Asch’s experiments, conformity was reduced when there is one other dissenting participant (i.e. when another participant disagrees with the majority). In this case the dissenter may reduce the power of NSI because he is providing social support to the participant or may reduce the power of ISI because the participant now has an alternative source of information from this dissenter.

Question 17

Many supporting studies for NSI and ISI as explanations for conformity are lab studies which lack ecological validity

Answer 17

• For example, in Asch’s studies, participants were asked to judge the length of lines. In the real world, people rarely judge lines so the task given in lab settings is not true to real life so how can we be sure that in a real life situation people will behave in the same way?

Question 18

Sherif (1935) Autokinetic Effect Experiment: Aim

Answer 18

Sherif (1935) conducted an experiment with the aim of demonstrating that people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambiguous (i.e. unclear) situation.

Question 19

Sherif (1935) Autokinetic Effect Experiment: Method 1

Answer 19

Sherif used a lab experiment to study conformity. He used the autokinetic effect – this is where a small spot of light (projected onto a screen) in a dark room will appear to move, even though it is still (i.e. it is a visual illusion).

• It was discovered that when participants were individually tested their estimates on how far the light moved varied considerably (e.g. from 20cm to 80cm).
• The participants were then tested in groups of three. Each person in the group had to say aloud how far they thought the light had moved.

Question 20

Sherif (1935) Autokinetic Effect Experiment: Results of method 1

Answer 20

Sherif found that over numerous estimates (trials) of the movement of light, the group converged to a common estimate. The person whose estimate of movement was greatly different to the other two in the group conformed to the view of the other two.

• Sherif said that this showed that people would always tend to conform. Rather than make individual judgments they tend to come to a group agreement.

Question 21

Sherif (1935) Autokinetic Effect Experiment: Part 2

Answer 21

In a follow up experiment, Sherif started the participants in groups where they agree on a group answer.

• When individuals were taken from this group and did the experiment on their own their answers were very similar to the group norm. This suggests they had internalised the group norm, that is, taken it in as their own view.

Question 22

Sherif (1935) Autokinetic Effect Experiment: Conclusion

Answer 22

The results show that when in an ambiguous situation (such as the autokinetic effect), a person will look to others for guidance (i.e. adopt the group norm).

• This is an example of ISI

Question 23

Who devised the conformity experiment in 1951

Answer 23

Solomon Asch

Question 24

Aim of Aschs experiment

Answer 24

Solomon Asch (1951) conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform to a majority who gave obviously wrong answers in a non-ambiguous situation.

Question 25

Procedure of Aschs experiment

Answer 25

123 male US undergraduates participated in a ‘vision test.’ Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with up to eight confederates.

Each person in the room had to state aloud their answer. The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave his answer last. There were 18 trials in total, and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trials.

Question 26

Results of Aschs experiment

Answer 26

On average, about one third (32 – 36%) of the participants went along and conformed to the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials.

Also, about 75% of participants conformed at least once. In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Question 27

Conclusion of Aschs experiment

Answer 27

Most of the participants said that they knew their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed. This confirms that participants complied due to NSI.

Question 28

Variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch: Group Size

Answer 28

Asch looked at the number of people in a group and whether this had an effect on the conformity rate. He found that there was very little conformity if there were one or two confederates in the majority. However, if there was a majority of three confederates, conformity rates went to 30%. However, after this further increase in the majority size did not affect conformity rates – showing that group size is important up to a point.

Question 29

Campbell and Fairey (1989) on group size

Answer 29

Group size will have an effect depending on the type of judgement being made and the motivation of the individual.
If the task is ambiguous, then conformity is likely to happen following the majority. If the task is clear, then conformity is likely to happen to ‘fit in’.

Question 30

Variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch: Unanimity of the majority

Answer 30

This simply means that when everyone in the group agreed with the same answer (regardless of whether this answer was right or wrong). However, If one confederate gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped significantly from 33% to 5.5%. If one confederate gave the wrong answer and it was not the same as the majority, then conformity rates dropped to 9% suggesting that you only needed one break in the unanimous decision for conformity rates to drop.

Question 31

Variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch: Task difficulty

Answer 31

his variable was measuring whether the difficulty of the task given to the pps had an effect on whether they would conform or not. In one variation, Asch made the differences between the line lengths much smaller (so that the ‘correct’ answer was less obvious). Under these circumstances, the level of conformity increased.

Question 32

Lucas et al. (2006)

Answer 32

They found that the influence of task difficulty is moderated by the self-efficacy of the individual. (the term self-efficacy refers to the idea that how competent/confident a person feels in carrying out a task). When exposed to maths problems in an Asch-type task, high self- efficacy participants, even under conditions of high task difficulty remained more independent than participants of low self-efficacy. This shows that situational differences (task difficulty) and personality differences (self-efficacy) are both important in determining conformity

Question 33

Evaluation of Asch’s studies and variables affecting conformity: Asch’s study may be a child of its time

Answer 33

Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s original study on engineering students in the UK and found that only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials – remember in Asch’s study 75% of his sample conformed at least once. Thus Perrin and Spencer’s study shows that conformity does not always occur.

Therefore Asch’s research lacked temporal validity.

Question 34

Evaluation of Asch’s studies and variables affecting conformity: Artificial situation and task

Answer 34

Fiske (2014), argues that ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’ since they do not resemble the groups that we are all part of in everyday life. Both these points about the actual task given and the group of confederates opens Asch’s study to criticism because we cannot thus generalise the findings to everyday situation especially when in everyday situations conformity may be important especially when we interact with people and groups in a more direct manner - we could thus argue that Asch’s studied lacked ecological validity.

Question 35

Evaluation of Asch’s studies and variables affecting conformity: Limited application of findings

Answer 35

Also, Bond and Smith (1996) point out that the men in Asch’s study were from the US which is seen as an individualistic culture where people are concerned about themselves rather than the group. Interestingly, when Asch’s study was carried out in more collectivist cultures such as China, conformity rates were higher. This finding makes sense since ‘collectivist cultures’ are more oriented to group needs.

We could thus argue that Asch’s research lacks ‘population validity’!

Question 36

Evaluation of Asch’s studies and variables affecting conformity: Ethical issues

Answer 36

The main ethical issue in Asch’s study was deception the real participant was not aware that the group formation was confederates. Also, he got the confederates to give wrong answers on 12/18 trials.

This deception could then lead to psychological harm for the participant because they would be confused on why everybody in the group is giving a clearly wrong answer.

Although Asch did debrief his participants, does this then justify the deceit used in this experiment

Question 37

What is obedience?

Answer 37

Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.

Eg during the Nazi regime

Question 38

Procedure of Milgrams obedience experiment (Participant selection)

Answer 38

• Milgram selected participants by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University. This is known as a volunteer sampling method. There were 40 male participants in all that took part in his original study.
• The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates

Question 39

Milgrams predictions before the study

Answer 39

Milgram had predicted before the study that 2% of people would shock to the highest level, but most people would quit very early on.

• In fact, prior to the study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants’ behaviour. The students estimated that no more than 3% would continue to 450 volts.

Question 40

Strengths of Milgrams experiment: Good external validity

Answer 40

It still shows the relationship between the authority figure (in this case the experimenter) and the participant. Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected real life authority.