Psych

• Types of conformity

  1)Internalisation

  • accepts norms of group
  • private and public change
  • permanent change
  • persistant even when they public isn’t there
• Types of conformity:

  2)Identification:

  • something we value in the group
  • publicly but not privately
• Types of conformity:

  3)Compliance:

  • going along with others
  • publicly but privately not changing
  • stops as soon as group pressure stops
• Deutsch and Gerald developed 2 process theory based on 2 central human needs which is the need to be right and the need to be liked
• Explanations for conformity

  1)Informational social influence:

  • about who has better information
  • because we want to be right
  • cognitive process
  • permanent change in opinion->internalisation
  • situations that are new where there is ambiguity
  • situations where you have to do it quickly
• Explanations of conformity:

  2)Normative social influence:

  • norms->people don’t like to appear foolish and want to gain social approval
  • emotional process
  • temporary change->compliance
  • situations with strangers
  • stressful situations
• AO3-Research support of NSI

  • strength:evidence supports as an explanation of conformity
  • eg Asch interviewd his participants some conformed because they were self conscious and were afraid of disapproval
  • when they wrote their answer down conformity fell to 12.5%
  • giving answer privately meant no normative pressure
  • which shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire to not be rejected
• Research support for ISI:

  • Strength:evidence support ISI from study by Lucas
  • Lucas found participants conformed more often to incorrect answere they were given when maths problems were difficult
  • when problems were easy the participants knew their own mind but when it was hard the answer was unambiguous
  • they didn’t want to be wrong so they relied on the answer they were given
  • shows ISI was a valid explanation of conformity because results are what ISI would predict
• Counterpoint:Research support for ISI:

  • However unclear whether NSI and ISI work in research studies
  • eg Asch found conformity reduced when there is one other dissenting participant
  • dissenter may reduce power of NSI because they provide social support
  • reduce power of ISI because they provide alternative source of social influence
  • so it’s hard to separate ISI and NSI as both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations
• AO3-Individual differences in NSI:

  • one limitation is NSI doesn’t predict conformity in every case
  • eg some people are more concerned of what other people think
  • McGhee and Teevan found naffiliators->want to relate to people so there more likely to conform then others
  • NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others and there are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures
• Conformity Aschs Research:

  • 123 american men
  • 2 large white cards one with ABC and the other with X
  • groups of 6-8 only 1 was a naiive participan
  • Baseline findings:
  • genuine participants agreed with confederate incorrect answer 36.8%
• Aschs procedure was to assess to what extent will people conform to the opinion of others even in situations that are unambiguous

  1)group size: varied the number of confederates from 1-15

  • Found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity
  • conformity increased up to a certain point with 3 confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8% conformity rate soon fell off
  • most people are sensitive to views of others because 1 or 2 confederates was enough to saw their opinion
• Aschs findings:

  2)Unanimity:

  • Asch wondered if the presence of a non conforming person would affect the naive participants
  • he introduced confederates that disagreed with other confederates
  • genuine participants conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
  • rate decreased less that a quarter of the level it was when majority was unanimous
  • dissenters freed naive to act independently
  • shows influence of majority depends on whether it’s unanimous
• Aschs Research:

  3) Task Difficulty

  • Increased difficulty of line judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison line more similar
  • harder for participants to answer correctly
  • naturally they look at other people for guidance and assume their right (ISI)
• AO3-Research support

  • One strength is support from other studies of the effect of task difficulty
  • eg Lucas asked participants to solve easy and hard maths questions
  • they were given answers from 3 other fake students and they conformed in harder questions which shows asch is correct in claiming task difficulty is a factor affecting conformity
• AO3-Artficial

  • One limitation is that the task and the situation was artificial
  • this is because they knew they were in a research study and may simply go along with what they expect(demand characteristics)
  • it was trivial so there’s no reason not to conform
  • Fiske said they didn’t act very groupy so it doesn’t represent everyday life
  • these findings don’t generalise to real-world situations especially those where the consequences of confomity might be important
• AO3- Limited application

  • One limitation is ash's participants were all american men
  • research suggest women are more conformist because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted
  • USA is an individulaist culture so they are concerned about themselves
  • some conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures for example china where social group is more important showed that conformity was higher
  • Aschs findings tell us little about conformity in wen and people from other cultures
• coding:the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores