Types and Explanations of Conformity

• Types of conformity: compliance, identification, internalisation
• Compliance: agree in public, disagree on private, superficial and temporary, lasts as long as monitored by group.
• Identification: agree in public, mostly agree in private, act in the same way as the group as we value or want to be a part of them, but don’t agree with everything
• Internalisation: agree in public, strongly agree in private, accept the group’s majority view as correct, permanent even when the group is absent
• Explanations for social conformity: normative social influence, informational social influence.
• NSI: we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked, emotional and temporary
• ISI: We agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it is correct, we accept it because we want to be correct as well. cognitive and permanent
• social role: the parts that people play as members of various social groups
• zimbardo's stanford prison (zsp) aims: why prison guards behave brutally
• zsp sample: 21, male, us, student, emotionally stable, volunteers
• zsp method: emotional stability test, randomly selected for roles, prisoners abducted given numbers, deloused, made to wear smock and cap, guards got to set up prison and choose sunglasses, wooden bats, supposed to last 2 weeks, guards had unlimited power
• zsp results: prisoners rebelled, guards became increasingly violent, prisoners, obeyed, ended after 6 days
• zsp conclusion: social roles influence people especially once having formed a group identity
• bbc prison study: 2002, 15 men, 8 days, prisoners overthrow guards
• zsp strength: internal validity - control over all variables
• zsp weaknesses: ethics - abuse, social shame, lack of realism - acting like media and stereotypes show
• ISI strengths: research support from Lucas 2006, higher conformity with harder maths questions
• ISI weaknesses: asch, individual differences cause a decrease in conformity, students only conformed 28% as more confident
• NSI strength: research support from Asch 1955 less conformity only 12.5% when able to write down answers
• NSI weakness: individual differences presented by McGhee and Teevan 1967 for nAffiliators as they have a greater desire to be socially accepted