Social Influence

• what are the three types of conformity?


  compliance, identification, internalisation
• what is compliance?


  when someone publicly agrees but privately disagrees with the attitudes/values/belief of others to gain approval. It links with NSI.
• what is identification?


  when someone temporarily changes their attitudes/values/beliegs whilst in the presence of the social group.
• what is internalisation?


  a permanent change in the attitudes/values/beliefs even when not in the presence of the social group (for a long time). Links with ISI.
• The two types of social influence are normative social influence (NSI) and informational social influence (ISI).
• What is normative social influence?

  when people's attitudes/beliefs/values are influenced by others due to their desire to be liked.
• what is informational social influence (ISI)?

  when peoples attitudes/values/beliefs are influenced by others due to their desire to be right.
• Evaluation: Lucas' Study (2006) - supports ISI

  Lucas gave students maths problems that were difficult or easy. He found that conformity increased as difficulty increased too. This proves that people are shown to conform in ambiguous situations where they feel insecure.
• Evaluation: Schultz' Study (2008) - supports NSI

  Schultz (2008) conducted research on guests and hotel towel usage. Guests were much less likely to want their towels washed if there was a sign saying that others did the same in order to help the environment. Simply explaining environmental damage/impacts did not have the same effect.
• Evaluation - NAfilliators

  Research shows that people differ vastly on how desperate they are to be liked/accepted by others.

  The term 'NAfilliators' is used by psychologists to describe people who need to be liked and are more likely to conform. This refutes NSI.
• What was the aim of Asch's experiment (1951)


  to see if participants would conform to majority influence.
• Procedure of Asch's experiment (1951)

  Seven white young male participants looked at two cards. A test card with a line and another card with a choice of three different sized lines. The pps had to call out in turn which matched the test line. All pps except one were confederates of the experimenter. The genuine pp called out his answer last but one. Accomplices gave unanimous wrong answers on 12/18 trials.
• Findings of Asch's experiment (1951)

  On average participants conformed to the unanimous uncorrect answer 36.8% of the time.

  74% conformed at least once.

  26% never conformed.
• What were the three variables affecting conformity in Asch's experiment?

  • Group size (3vs1 was the ideal ratio to incite conformity).
  • Unanimity (adding a dissetnter to affect it made it fall to 25% conformity)
  • Task difficulty
• Conclusion of Asch's experiment (1951)

  Even in unambiguous situations people can feel a real pressure to conform, especially when the majority is unanimous.

  After debriefing, Asch concluded that some people conformed due to NSI (fear of ridicule) and some to ISI (thought their eyes were deceiving them).
• Ecological validity - Asch 1951

  The lines task isnt a typical daily task that people would carry out, it lacks mundane realism, its artificial and conforming socially is more personal than a matching lines task.
• Population validity - Asch 1951

  Asch used young, white, male students - it lacked diversity.

  Smith and Bond carried out a cross cultural meta-analyses across the world and found that culture does indeed affect conformity.
• Temporal Validity - Asch 1951

  The experiment was done in 1950s America, where McCarthyism was still a huge problem. People didn't want to be seen as rebellious and were therefore more likely to conform.