Types And Explanations Of Conformity, And Variables Affecting Conformity

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

Tendency to adopt group attitudes/behaviour influencing the majority as a result of real or imagined pressure (implicit expectations), leading to compliance with the majority position

Question 2

Who came up with the three types of conformity, when and what are they?

Answer 2

Herbert Kerman (1958):
1. Internalisation
2. Identification
3. Compliance

Question 3

What is compliance?

Answer 3

When a person goes along with the majority publicly as they want the approval associated with the action but privately they disagree with the action/behaviour

Summary: publicly agree, privately disagree

Question 4

What kind of conformity is compliance?

Answer 4

Superficial - a temporary type of conformity as you only show the behaviour when you are in the presence of the group, it is not a deep belief

Question 5

What is internalisation?

Answer 5

When a person goes along with the group action/behaviour and accepts the influence internally as it is in line with their own value system, taking the view deeply into their own beliefs

Summary: publicly and privately agree

Question 6

What can lead to acceptance of views that causes internalisation?

Answer 6

If the Individual engages in a validation process, examine their beliefs to see if the action is wrong or right. If the group is generally trustworthy that individual is more likely to believe they are wrong and the other individual is right

Question 7

What type of conformity is internalisation?

Answer 7

The deepest kind of conformity - it is permanent as you genuinely examine and accept the views you have conformed to

Question 8

What is identification?

Answer 8

Conforming to a group as you want to be associated with them, and feel more part of the group by adopting the actions/behaviours of that group e.g skate culture

Question 9

How does identification have elements of both compliance and internalisation?

Answer 9

. The purpose of adopting the actions is to be accepted and fit in (compliance)
. The individual adopts the actions as they believe they are right (internalisation)

Question 10

How is identification different to internalisation?

Answer 10

Although it is a permanent belief at the time, things change with age and you usually grow out of identification

Question 11

What type of conformity is identification?

Answer 11

Moderate - consists of superficial and deep conformity simultaneously

Question 12

What do social psychologists believe leads to conformity?

Answer 12

Psychological needs

Question 13

What did Deutsch and Gerard develop in 1955?

Answer 13

Developed a 2-process theory as to why people conform: claimed people conform based on two central needs:
. Need to be liked
. Need to be right

Question 14

Describe what normative social influence (NSI) is and what does it explain?

Answer 14

Going along with the way people do things as we have a need to be liked so we want to fit in. This explains compliance as it doesn’t lead to a change in private opinions

Question 15

Describe what informational social influence (NSI) is and what type of conformity does it explain?

Answer 15

When we conform because we believe others know better than us so they must be right, and we have a need to be right. It explains internalisation as we genuinely believe someone’s views are right and this leads to a change in private opinion

Question 16

When is NSI or ISI more likely to occur?

Answer 16

NSI: in an unambiguous situation: even though the answer is clear, we still conform with wrong answers as we want to fit in

ISI: in an ambiguous situation: as the answer isn’t clear, we turn to others who ‘know better than us’ as we need to be right

Question 17

What is the ‘Asch Effect’?

Answer 17

The extent to which participants conform even when the situation is non-ambiguous (clear right answer)

Question 18

What 3 variables of Asch’s study affected conformity and how did it affect conformity?

Answer 18

. Group size: increased group size = increased conformity up to an optimum point
. Unanimity: less unanimity decreases conformity
. Task difficulty: increased task difficult increased conformity

Question 19

What did Asch’s group size variation find?

Answer 19

Out of the 123 participants:
. One confederate in group - conformity = 3%
. 2 confederates = 13% conformity
. 3 or more confederates = 33% conformity
. Little change one group size reaches 4-5

Question 20

When the group size of Asch’s study changes, what size is this referring to?

Answer 20

The number of CONFEDERATES

Question 21

What is the optimal number or confederates for conformity to occur and what’s the evidence?

Answer 21

4. Brown and Byrne (1997) suggested that if the majority confederate wrong answer goes above 3-4 people, the person may feel they are being colluded/pressured into a wrong answer deliberately and are likely to reject the majority due to demand characteristics
   - a small majority is needed to conform, but no need to have a massive majority

Question 22

What study is there to support Asch’s research on group size?

Answer 22

Bond and Smith (1996) - performed a meta-analysis of 133 Asch-type studies from 17 different countries (culturally generalisable results) and found that conformity peaks with around 4/5 confederates

Question 23

What was the state of unanimity and conformity in Asch’s original research?

Answer 23

All 5 confederates were unanimous with the wrong answer (all gave the same wrong answer) and conformity was 33%

Question 24

What are the unanimity variations and results on Asch’s study?

Answer 24

. One confederate gives the correct answer: conformity = 5.5%
. One confederate gives different wrong answer to the majority: conformity = 9%

Question 25

What do the unanimity variations of Asch’s study suggest about the relation between unanimity and conformity?

Answer 25

If you break the unanimous position of the group, conformity is reduced, allowing the participants to behave more independently and allows them to resist the pressures of social influence

Question 26

How was task difficulty increased in Asch’s variations?

Answer 26

The three lines were made more similar in length so the correct answer was more ambiguous

Question 27

Asch didn’t record the percentage results of the task difficulty variation, but what was the general suggestion that was created?

Answer 27

Conformity increases as task difficulty increases, suggesting ISI causes conformity in difficult task as the task was more ambiguous (deeper conformity - internalisation)

Question 28

What was the problem with the fact that Asch used 123 MALE participants in his study?

Answer 28

. The results are not generalisable to women and therefore lack population validity
. This shows there is a gender bias that leads to beta bias (minimising/ignoring potential gender differences)
. Therefore, the validity of his findings are questioned as we don’t know if women conform in the same way

Question 29

What is a confederate?

Answer 29

Someone who knows what is going on and is there to influence the answers of the one real participant

Question 30

Why did the confederates give right answers the first few trials of Asch’s study before making errors?

Answer 30

To reduce demand characteristics as the näive participant might realise what’s going on

Question 31

How many trials were done in Asch’s study and how many did the confederates answer incorrectly in?

Answer 31

18 trials. Confederates gave wrong answer in 12 of them

Question 32

What kind of study was Asch’s study and what is the significance of this?

Answer 32

Lab experiment - lacks ecological validity of whether people conform in real life as you wouldn’t be looking at lines in a real life scenario

Question 33

Where was the genuine participant placed in Asch’s original study?

Answer 33

Second to last

Question 34

How many confederates did each real participant have in Asch’s study?

Answer 34

5

Question 35

What type of conformity was experienced in Asch’s original study and why?

Answer 35

Compliance as the task was unambiguous so NSI was more likely to explain the compliance