Explanations of Conformity AO3

• +One strength of NSI; evidence supports it as an explanation of conformity, When Asch interviewed his participants, some said they conformed; they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer & were afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5%; giving answers privately meant that there was no normative group pressure. This shows that atleast some conformity is due to a desire to not be rejected by society or the group for disagreeing with them.
• -One limitation is that NSI doesn't predict conformity in every case. Some people have a strong need to relate to other people - affiliators. McGhee and Teevan found that students who were nAffiliators were more likely to conform. This shows that NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others. There are individual differences in conformity that can't be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.
• +One strength is there is research evidence to support ISI. Lucas found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problem was difficult; when the problems were easy, the participants knew their own minds but when the difficulty increased, the situation became ambiguous. The participants didn't want to be wrong so they relied on the answers they were given. This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity; the results are what ISI would predict.
• +-Is often unclear whether its NSI or ISI at work in research studies. Asch found that conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant . The dissenter may reduce the power of the NSI; they provide social support: or they may reduce the power of the ISI; they provide an alternative source of social information. Therefore, its hard to separate NSI and ISI since both processes operate together in most real world conformity situations.