a03 types of conformity

• • Research support normative influence

  - research has shown a relationship between people’s normative beliefs and likelihood of taking up smoking: Linkenbach and Perkins found adolescents exposed to the simple message that the majority of their peers don't smoke subsequently less likely to take up smoking schultz found used to manipulate people into energy conservation ,hotel guests exposed to message 75% guests reuse their towels reduced their own towel usage by 25% showing conform because of a desire to fit in with the majority group. However based on one individualist culture
• Research support for informational influence

  Other studies have shown that people’s beliefs can have a large impact on social stereotypes, wittenbrink and henley found that participants exposed to negative information about african americans later reported more negative beliefs about black individualis. Which shows how incorrect information from ajorty groups can shift people’s views about social stereotypes and perception of reality  showing support for informational
• Research against informational

  One problem informational explanation is that The features a task moderate the impact of the majority impact. Some tasks may have a set of objective criteria eg. such as seeing if bristol is the most populated city can be found through statistics and census records however some things such as whether bristol is the most fun city doesn't havre objective criteria and has to be measured through social consensus which makes it difficult to measure the impact as there is no set answer, as informational often occurs in situations where the information is ambiguous.
• research showing people not recognise the behaviour of others as causal factor in own behaviour. Nolan investigated whether people detected social norms controlling energy conservation behaviour. When asked said neighbours had the least impact on their energy conservation when in fact had the most. This shows people tend to rely on the belief of what should shape their behaviour and normative social influence is greatly under detected. However there is no disputing the evidence that normative social influence still has a powerful influence on people's behaviour despite being unrecognised.
• p: research to support ISIe: Lucas et al (2006), students when given math problems, hard and easy, there was more conformity with the harder maths questions + even more conformity if they rated their maths ability as poor.e: shows people conform in situations where they are unsure o the answer - copying majority. good explanation cos there is research to support,

  asch-task difficulty inc. ex. val.

  however there will be individual differences for example people in this scenario would be more susceptible to informational social influence if they are worse at maths problems