Sociocultural - Abrams et al (1990) Flashcards
Social Identity Theory
A person has several social serves that correspond to group membership
Social comparison
A drive within people to gain accurate self-evaluations by comparing oneself
to other people
Social categorization
Process of classifying people into groups based on similar characteristics
In-group
the group you place yourself in
Out-group
the group you do not belong in
In-group bias
tendency to favor one’s group
Aim
determine if in-group identity would affect one’s willingness to conform
Procedure
Two independent variables: whether the confederates were from an in-group (psychology
students) or an out-group (ancient history students) and whether participants responses
were public or private
- Sample of psychology students.
- At the start of class three confederates were introduced as either a student from the
psychology department or a student of ancient history
- Participants showed stimulus line and three other lines- one of which was the same
length. Task was to identify which of the three lines matched the stimulus line.
- In nine of the trials the confederates gave the correct responses in the other nine they
gave incorrect responses
- In public condition, each member of group gave judgements aloud while in private
condition had one person recording the responses on a note
Results
77% of all participants conformed on at least one trial
- Conformity was maximized in the in-group public condition and minimized in the outgroup public condition.
- Social categorization can play a key role in one’s decision to conform publicly- public
conformity exceeded the usual level in the in-group condition
Evaluation
Low ecological validity
- Theory is more explanatory than predictive
- Ethical considerations about the use of deception
- Study was done in an individualistic society and is culturally biased
- Sample is ungeneralizable to general public
- In real life there may be several variable that interact to determine conformity behaviors
