//Types of conformity Flashcards
What are confederates
Non participants working for the experimenter who have been briefed to answer or behave in a particular way
What is social influence
This is how we are influenced by others within a group or by an individual to change out behaviour or attitude
What is conformity
Changed in behaviour and/or attitudes occurring in response to group pressure. Attitudes, behaviours and/or beliefs are influenced by a larger group of people
What are the different types of conformity
compliance, internalisation, identification
What is compliance
- conformity to the majority view in order to be liked, or to avoid ridicule or social exclusion
- compliance occurs more readily with public behaviour than private behaviour and is based on power
- this stops when there is no more group pressure to conform in
What is internalisation
- deepest type of conformity
- geuine acceptance of group norms
- when an individual conforms because they have been completely accepted the views of the majority
- conformity is both public and private
What is identification
- conforming to the demands of a given role because of a desire to be like a particular person in that role e.g. role
- group membership
Asch (1951)-conformity on an unambiguous task aim
to see whether people would conform to a majority’s incorrect answer in an unambiguous task
Asch (1951)-conformity on an unambiguous task method
- Asch carried out a lab experiment with an independent groups design
- in groups of 8, pps judged line lengths, by saying out loud which comparison line matched the standard line
- each group contained only one real pp-the others were confederates
- the real pp always went last or second to last, so that they heard the others’ answers before giving theirs
- each pp did 18 trials-12 of these (critical trials) the confederates all gave the same wrong answer
- there was a control group where the pps judge the line lengths in isolation
Asch (1951)-conformity on an unambiguous task results
- in the control trials, pps gave the wrong answer 0.7% of the time
- in the critical trials, pps conformed to the majority 37% of the time
- 75% conformed at least once
- after the experiement, some pps said they didn’t really beliebe their answers but didn’t want to look different
Asch (1951)-conformity on an unambiguous task conclusion
- the control condition showed that the task was easy to get right
- 37% were wrong on the critical trails-they confomed to the majority due to normative social influence
Asch (1951)-conformity on an unambiguous task evaluation
- lab experiment-control of variables. However this minimises the effects of extraneous variables
- control of varibales means that study can be repeated but it wasn’t a natural setting so lacks ecological validity
- the pps might have been less liekly to conform if their answer had real life consequences
- the pps were deceived and might have been embarrassed if they found out the true nature of the study
Sherif (1935)-conformity and the autokinectic effect aim
to test whether people are influenced by others when they’re doing an ambiguous task (where the answer isn’t clear)
Sherif (1935)-conformity and the autokinectic effect method
- lab experiment with repeated measures design
- Sherif used a visual illusion called the autokinectic effect where a stationary spot of light appears to move
- pps were falsely told that the experiementer wouldn’t move the light
- they had to estimate how far it moved
- in the first phase, individual pps made repeated estimates
- they were then put into groups of 3 people, where they each made their estimate with others present
- finally they were retested individually
Sherif (1935)-conformity and the autokinectic effect results
- when they were alone, pps developed their own stabel estimates whch varied widely between pps
- once the pps were in a group, the estinated tended to converge and become more alike
- when the pps were then retested on their own, the estimated were more like the group estimates than their original guesses
