Conformity

• Conformity - Asch‘s research

  123 male participants judged line lengths, confederates deliberately gave wrong answers

  Naive participants conformed on 36.8% of trials, 25% never conformed

  3 variations affecting conformity:

  • group size
  • unanimity
  • task difficulty
• Asch evaluation

  +Lucas et al found more conformity when math problem were harder

  -artificial situation and task, demand characteristics

  -limited application as only conducted on American men

  -ethical issues, participants were deceived
• Types of conformity

  Internalisation = private and public acceptance of group norms

  Identification = change behaviour to be part of a group we identify with, may change privately too but only temporarily

  Compliance = go along with group publicly but no private change
• Explanations of conformity

  Informational social influence = conform to be right, assume group knows better than us

  Normative social influence = conform to be liked or accepted by group

  +when no normative group pressure, conformity down to 12.5% (Asch)

  +participants relied on other people’s answers to hard math problems (Lucas)
• Conformity to social roles - Zimbardo’s research

  Mock prison with 21 student volunteers, randomly assigned as guards or prisoners

  Conformity to social roles created through uniforms (e.g. loose smocks, carrying wooden club) and instructions about behaviour (e.g. guards have power)

  Guards became increasingly brutal, prisoners rebellion put down and prisoners became depressed

  Study stopped after 6 days

  Participants strongly conformed to their social role
• Zimbardo evaluation

  +random assignment to roles increased internal validity

  -lack of realism, participants play-acted their roles according to media derived stereotypes

  -only 1/3 of guards were brutal so conclusions exaggerated