social influence

• Conformity is a type of social influence that can be described as changing your behaviour to go along with the group even if you do not agree with the group.
• What was the name of the famous study conducted by Philip Zimbardo that demonstrated the power of conformity to social roles?


  Stanford Prison Experiment
• Internalisation


  When an individual changes their behaviour to fit in with a group publicly while also agreeing with them privately.This is the strongest form of conformity as the group beliefs become part of the individual's belief system.
• identification


  when someone conforms to the demands of a social role in society. a good example of identification is the zimbardo (1971) standord prison experiment
• The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.
• what is compliance ?

  Compliance is a type of conformity which involves agreeing with or behaving like the group publicly but disagreeing with or having different opinions to the group privately
• what are 2 explanations for conformity ?

  • Normative social influence (NSI): the need to be liked/accepted by the group (the fear of rejection)
  • Informational social influence (ISI): the need to be right (fear of social disapproval/humiliation)
• outline a strength of asch's study

  • Asch used a standardised procedure (e.g. same group number per trial; same number of trials; same question asked)
  • A standardised procedure means that the study can be replicated many times over
  • repeated replications should show consistent results which equals high reliability
  • replications of Asch's study (Smith & Bond, 1996) have been used to identify cross-cultural differences in conformity giving validity to the idea that conformity is linked to group cohesion
  • The highest rates of conformity in the study were from collectivist cultures
• What is a strength of Asch's study?

  It used a standardised procedure
• Why is a standardised procedure important in Asch's study?

  It allows the study to be replicated
• What does high reliability in a study indicate?

  Consistent results across replications
• What did the replications of Asch's study by Smith & Bond (1996) reveal?

  Cross-cultural differences in conformity
• Which cultures showed the highest rates of conformity in Asch's study?

  Collectivist cultures
• how was asch's procedure standardised ?

  by using the same group number per trial; same number of trials; same question asked
• Asch's variations

  • group size
  • unanimity
  • task difficulty
• outline a limitation of asch's study

  • Asch’s research took place in the 1940s/50s, when conformity was arguably higher, directly after World War II 
  • the study lacks temporal validity
  • it is possible that some of the participants may have guessed the aim of the study due to the easiness of the task
  • If any participants had guessed the aim then they may simply have gone along with giving the wrong answer as this is what they thought was required of them (known as response bias)
  • Response bias reduces the validity of the findings
• what did zimbardo attempt to study ?

  conformity to social roles
• what is minority influence ?

  • occurs when a small group of people or even an individual changes the attitudes/behaviours/beliefs of the majority
  • Minority influence is likely to lead to internalisation because it is not as easily achieved as majority influence i.e. it is more meaningful
• agentic state

  a mental state where we feel no responsibilty over our behaviour because we belive we are acting for the authority figure
• what is the authoritarian personality ?

  a personality type adorno et al argues was suspectible to obeying authority figures and display submissive behaviour but are dismissive of those with status inferior to them
• who proposed the concept of locus of control ?

  Julian Rotter (1966)
• steps in how minority influence causes social change

  1. drawing attention
  2. consistency
  3. deeper processing
  4. augmentaion principle
  5. snowball effect
  6. social cryptomnesia
• limitation of agentic state

  • a study conducted in 1977
  • 16/18 nurses disobeyed doctor that administered an excessive drug dose to a patient
  • the nurses remained in the autonomous state despite doctor being an authority figure
  • agentic state only accounts for some situations of obedience