conformity

• what is conformity?


  • conformity is a type of social influence that describes how a person changes their attitude or behaviour due to group pressure.
• what are two main explanations for conformity?

  • normative social influence (NSI) - people conform with the group in order to be accepted by them.
  • informational social influence (ISI) - conforming with the group because you think they know more about the situation than you do.
• what are the different types (levels) of conformity?

  • compliance
  • identification
  • internalisation
• what is compliance?


  • compliance is the shallowest and lowest level of conformity.
  • here a person changes their public behaviour but not their private beliefs.
  • usually a short-term change and is often the result of NSI.
• what is identification?


  • identification is the middle level of conformity.
  • here a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in presence of the group.
  • usually a short-term change and is normally the result of NSI.
• what is internalisation?


  • internalisation is the deepest level of conformity.
  • here a person changes their public behaviour and private beliefs.
  • usually a long-term change and often the result of ISI.
• Asch's research into conformity:

  • AIM - Asch (1951) wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority when an answer was obvious.
  • PROCEDURE - 123 males. there were 5-7 participants per group. each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. in each group there was only one true participant, the remaining 6 were confederates. the confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 ''critical'' trials.
  • RESULTS - real participants conformed on a third of the trials. also, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.
• strengths (AO3) of Asch's study:

  • high internal validity
• limitations (AO3) of Asch's study:

  • lacks temporal validity - accused of being a ''a child of its time'' as was arguably higher when the study was done.
  • lacks ecological validity - the line judgement task is an artificial task which also means it lacks mundane realism.
  • not generalisable - lacks population validity, gender bias, study only done on males. if females were involved, levels of conformity would be higher.
  • deception of real participants - cannot get informed consent.
• what where Asch's variables affecting conformity?

  • group size
  • unanimity
  • task difficulty
• how did group size affect conformity?

  • 3 is the optimal number of people for conformity where the real participants conformed 32% of the critical trials.
• how did unanimity affect conformity?

  • unanimity refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another.
  • if the real participant has support for their belief, then they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.
  • in one variation, conformity dropped to 9% showing that if you break the group's unanimous position, then conformity is reduced significantly.
• how did task difficulty affect conformity?

  • when the task is more difficult, the rate of conformity increased.
  • unambiguous tasks leads to NSI and ambiguous tasks lead to ISI.