Types,Explanations and Variables of Conformity Flashcards
Conformity
is a form of social influence where an individual changes their thoughts or behaviour so that they are the same as the majority of others in a group.
Three types of conformity
compliance, identification, internalisation
compliance
This occurs when a person publicly changes their behaviour to agree with others but privately continues to believe their own views.
You might say to everyone that Jurassic World was the best film ever when in fact you thought the plot line was feeble. You have conformed publicly so that you are accepted by your group of friends who rave about Jurassic World but in private you maintain your own opinion that it is overrated and that Toy Story 3 is still the best film.
- Supporting evidence: Asch
Identification
An individual adopts the behaviour and attitudes of a group that they “identify” with and want to be associated with. They demonstrate the same behaviour and beliefs as the group in public and also in private. This type of conformity is shown for as long as the individual values membership of that group. If they move away from the group or want to be associated with a different group the individual will no longer maintain the behaviour.
For example, someone who is in the army will adopt the behaviour and beliefs of soldiers wholeheartedly but if they leave the army will then take on the beliefs and behaviour of civilians.
- Supporting evidence: Zimbardo
Internalisation
If you change and adopt a new set of beliefs or behaviours that become part of your own personal values and are not dependent upon being part of a group, you have internalised them.
Imagine you have a new group of friends who are vegetarians and you become a vegetarian too. You move away and no longer see them but carry on being a vegetarian. You have been converted to vegetarianism and have internalised beliefs about not eating animals. You have changed both publicly and privately.
- Supporting evidence: Asch
Two explanations of conformity
informational and normative
Informational social influence
This explanation suggests that individuals conform because they want to be right and don’t want to seem foolish by getting something wrong. Individuals often look to others to help them decide the correct choice or decision.
In a situation where a person doesn’t know what to do eg which knives and forks to use in a smart restaurant, they may do the same as others around them. On your first day at college, informational social influence might have caused you to join a queue outside the classroom, even though the door was open, because you thought that was the right thing to do as others were doing it.
Normative Social Influence
This explanation suggests that individuals conform because they want to be liked and accepted by a group. This is because people generally want to behave in a way that is typical (normal) for that group.
In situations where most people in a group are doing or saying something e.g. starting to smoke, saying they like
One Direction, there is a strong influence on individuals to
follow suit, even if they don’t really want to so that they are accepted by the group and do not feel left out. In some situations, doing or thinking something different from others in a group can cause a person to feel embarrassed or even to be made fun of.
Evaluation of explanations for conformity (informational, normative), supporting evidence
There is supporting evidence for the explanation that people conform because of informational social influence. One study conducted in 2006 asked students to answer easy and difficult maths questions and were shown incorrect responses. There was greater conformity to the difficult questions than the easier ones, particularly amongst the students who said they were poor at maths. This suggests that we are more likely to agree with others when we are completing a difficult task and are uncertain about the correct answer. Another study has shown that information about others’ beliefs can have an effect on attitudes such political views. In 2007, participants watched what they thought was the reaction of other participants to candidates in presidential election debates. The reactions they observed led to a large shift in the participants’ judgement of the candidates. These two studies suggest show that people tend to conform to the behaviour of others in order to behave in a way that they think is correct.
- There is also supporting evidence for the explanation that people conform because of normative social influence. One study in 2003 found that adolescents given the simple message that most adolescents of their age did not smoke, were less likely to start to smoke than others who were not given the message. Another study found that hotel guests who were told that 75% of guests reused the same towels were more likely to also reuse their own towels. These two studies suggest that people tend to conform to the behaviour of others because of a desire to fit in with and be the same as a group that is similar to themselves.
Evaluation of explanations for conformity (informational, normative), criticisms
However, a criticism is that individual differences in conformity behaviour exist. Not everyone is affected by informational social influence to the same extent. One study involving science and engineering students showed that they were less likely to agree with others who gave the wrong answer to lengths of lines, compared to controls. Furthermore, not everyone is affected by normative social influence in the same way. Some people are less concerned about being liked by others so do not feel pressure to do the same as others in order to be accepted and belong to a group. People who are concerned are known as affiliators and research has shown that those who particularly need to affiliate (establish relationships with others) are more likely to conform. Differences in how individuals react to the pressure to conform means that neither explanation can be regarded as completely correct for everyone. This is a problem for their scientific credibility as science adopts a nomothetic approach which aims to identify general explanations for behaviour. Individual differences in how people react to the pressure to conform therefore make it difficult to propose scientific explanations for conformity.
- Another criticism was made by Insko (1983) who suggested that informational social influence and normative social influence were not exclusive but operate together to produce conforming behaviours.
Conformity, Research by Asch
Early research into conformity showed that individuals will readily conform when they are uncertain as to the correct answer. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch aimed to find out if people would conform and agree with a group of others when the others were clearly giving the wrong answer.
Procedure:
123 male American students were the participants. Each naïve participant was tested individually with a group of between 6 and 8 others who were confederates (accomplices of Asch).
Their task was to call out loud which line out of 3 was the same length as a target line that was shown to them separately. It was very clear which of the 3 lines was the matching length.
At the beginning of the study, the confederates all gave the correct answers and so did the naïve participant. Then the confederates began to give the same wrong answers as they had been instructed to do by Asch. They gave incorrect answers on 12 out of 18 trials – a trial is one single occasion of matching a line length.
Findings:
* On the 12 critical trials the conformity rate was 36.8%. This means that the naïve participants agreed with the wrong answers on average on one third of the trials.
* 74% of the participants agreed (ie conformed) with the wrong answers on the critical trials at least once.
* 5% conformed on all the critical trials.
* Participants were debriefed after the study and most said that they had agreed with the others because they did not want to attract disapproval from the rest of the group. They continued privately to believe their own judgement but gave the wrong answers publicly to fit in with the others. They showed compliance
Conclusions:
* Asch concluded that people feel a strong pressure to be the same as others and will conform even when they know that what they are saying or doing is incorrect. He also concluded that there is considerable individual variation in how people respond to group pressure, with some readily conforming and others not conforming at all.
Three variables affecting conformity
group size, unanimity, task difficulty
Asch aimed to investigate the conditions that might increase or decrease conformity rates.
Group size
2 confederates led to naïve participants conforming on about 13% of the critical trials.
3 confederates brought about conformity rates of about 32%. Increasing the number of confederates beyond three generally had little effect on raising conformity levels.
Asch concluded that a group of just three people is sufficient to exert conformity pressures on an individual and that a large majority is not necessary.
Unanimity
In the original study, all the confederates unanimously gave the incorrect responses. In a variation one confederate gave the correct answer throughout the trials and conformity rates fell to just 5%. Even when the dissenting confederate gave an answer that was not correct but was different to the other confederates, conformity rates were still low at 9%.
Asch concluded that a majority has influence largely because of its unanimity and that where a group is not unanimous conformity pressures are substantially reduced and an individual is more able to act independently.
Task difficulty
Asch made the original easy task more difficult by changing the lines so that they were much more similar. This made it harder to tell which one was the correct line. In this variation conformity increased.
Asch concluded that if a situation is ambiguous or a task is difficult, then people begin to look to others for the correct answer and assume that the others are correct.
However, other research has shown that there are individual differences in how people respond and that their self-efficacy (self-belief) also has an effect on conformity in a difficult situation. People who were confident in their maths ability remained independent and did not conform to the wrong answers to complex maths problems.
So, we can conclude that both the nature of the task and individual differences in confidence can affect conformity behaviour.
