Conformity

• what is conformity?

  a change in behaviour or belief due to real or imagined group pressure
• what are the 3 types of conformity?

  compliance

  identification

  internalisation
• what is compliance?

  going along with the others in public but not privately changing beliefs. Only short term
• what is identification?

  we identify with a group we value and want to become part of it, publically change beliefs when in presence of the group

  short term
• what is internalisation?

  genuinely accepts groups beliefs and results in a private & public change of behaviour

  long term, permanent change
• what are the two explanations for conformity?

  informational social influence

  normative social influence
• what is ISI?

  where we conform out of desire to be right, occurs in ambiguous situations.

  cognitive process

  leads to internalisation
• what is NSI?

  desire to fit in with the groups social norms and behaviour, occurs in unfamiliar situations with people you know

  emotional process - prefers social approval

  leads to compliance
• strength of NSI

  research support

  Asch found many conformed rather than giving the correct answer because they were afraid of social disapproval

  when Ps wrote down answers, conformity fell to 12.5%
• limitation of NSI

  individual differences

  some are concerned about being liked by others (strong need for affiliation - relate to others). research found that those students were more likely to conform
• strength of ISI

  research support

  Lucas et al found Ps conformed more to incorrect answers when maths problems were difficult, the situation was ambiguous so they relied on the answers they were given
• How did Asch investigate conformity?

  the baseline procedure
• what were the aims of Asch's study?

  measure the extent to which people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the others' answers were clearly wrong
• what was Asch's procedure?

  Ps shown 2 cards, had to match line on 1st card to a line on the 2nd card. confederates (all but one) said the wrong answer
• what were the findings of Asch's research?

  naive participants conformed 36.8% of the time, shows a high level of conformity when the situation is unambiguous.

  75% conformed at least once
• what were the 3 variables Asch investigated?

  group size

  unanimity

  task diffuculty
• how did Asch investigate group size?

  varied the number of confederates between 1 and 15
• what were Asch's findings for group size?

  relationship between group size and level of conformity was curvlinear

  2 confederates conformity was 13.6%, 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8%. levelled off after this
• how did Asch investigate unanimity?

  introduced a dissenting confederate, sometimes gave the correct answer or a different, incorrect answer
• what were the findings for unanimity?

  conformity reduced to less than 1/4 of the level it was when there was no dissenter.

  reduced regardless of right or wrong answer
• why did the dissenter reduce conformity?


  allowed the participant to behave more independently
• how did Asch study task difficulty?

  made the line-judging task harder by making the lines more similar in length
• what were the findings of increasing task difficulty?

  conformity increased
• why did conformity increase when the task increased in difficulty?

  the situation was more ambiguous, more likely to look to others for guidance and assume they are right

  example of ISI
• limitations of Asch study?

  artificial task

  little application - only American men tested. Neto (1995) suggested women might be more conformist due to concern of social relationships

  collectivist cultures might behave differently
• strength of Asch research

  other evidence to support

  Lucas et al - asked Ps to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths problems. Given answers claimed to be from 3 others. conformed more often when the problems were harder