Types and Explanations of conformity

• What is conformity?

  It is the adoption of beliefs and attitudes after exposure of values of the majority
• Who came up with the 3 types of conformity?

  Kelman (1958)
• What is the first type of conformity?

  Compliance
• What is compliance?

  • Goes along with the majority without belief change
  • Involves temporary change in behaviour
  • Public behaviour changes but private behaviours do not
  • When group pressure is removed, the behaviour is reverted
• What pairs with compliance?

  Normative social influence
• What is normative social influence?

  • Happens due to a need to be accepted
  • Group can be strangers that we may not meet again due to the necessity of the need
  • As long as there is a sense of agreement and harmony within the group, there is no need for personal agreement
  • We go along with the group but not change private opinions
• What is the first evaluation of normative social influence?

  • Asch's line study
  • The difficulty of the task was so easy that it was not possible for informational social influence
  • Prior to the actual experiment, Asch did a study in which the p's were tasked individually but they got all the answers right
  • Difference in the actual and individual study was number of p's
  • Presence of group implied need of acceptance
• What is one evaluation of normative social influence?

  • Variation of Asch's study
  • Asch made p's give responses privately rather than verbally
  • Conforming rate decreased massively
  • Suggests that the nature of responding was the problem rather than the lack of information
• What is a negative evaluation of normative social influence

  • 26% never conformed in Asch’s study, therefore dispositional factors must play a part within the study
• What is internalisation?

  • Happens when someone inherits someone's beliefs as they believe in their thinking
  • Public behaviour and private opinion both change permanently
  • Even when group pressure is not present, the group's beliefs will still be present
  • Example is when an opinion of a family member is accepted
• What is informational social influence?

  • The need to be right
  • This is when there is no obvious answer and you look for the right answer to a question
  • The more uncertain or ambiguous something is, the more likely people will look for correct answers
• What is one evaluation of informational social influence?

  • Asch's line study
  • Difficulty of task increased also increased the rate of conformity
  • P's were less sure of the right answer and looked to the majority for information
• What is identification? (type of conformity)

  • We identify accordingly to the roles given to us
  • You will act differently in a job than as a friend
  • You may not always be enthusiastic about these roles
• What is identification? (explanation)

  We internalise what is expected of us and conform to certain expectations
• What is a positive evaluation of identification?

  • Zimbardo's study
  • Guards wore uniforms and dark glasses
  • Within days, they became cruel to the prisoners
  • Guards behaved in a way uncharacteristic to their normal personalities
  • We know this due to a screening of all the p's before the experiment for any personality traits like aggressiveness
  • Expectations of role influenced them
• What is a negative evaluation of identification?

  • Some argued that it was due to demand characteristics
  • Some argued p's thought guards were meant to act aggressive
  • One guard said he based his performance of cool hand Luke
  • Zimbardo's study may not show evidence of identification as a result