explanations of conformity

• who developed the two-process theory

  Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard
• what did Morton and Harold develop

  they developed a two-process theory, arguing that there are 2 main reason people conform to groups
• what are the 2 main reasons people conform

  • informational social influence
  • normative social influence
• what is informational social influence

  when a person conforms with the desire to be right it often happened in situations where the person is unsure and the person believes other members of the groups are more knowledgeable. it often leads to internalisation
• what is normative social influence

  the person conforms with the desire to be liked and the person fears rejection from the group and the person wants to maintain the peace within the group. This often leads to compliance
• what is an example of informational social influence

  if a person goes to a fancy restaurant where they are multiple knives and forks they may be unsure of which to use and look around at other people who they consider more knowledgeable to see and conform to what they are doing as they want to be right and believe they are behaving correctly
• what is an example of normative social influence

  if a person is a part of a goth group who wear all black the person may conform to wearing black, despite liking wearing other colours, as they want to fit in and keep the peace
• what is a strength of NSI and ISI (PEEL) (research support)

  P - a strength of NSI/ISI is that there is research support

  E - Asch asked participants to explain why they agreed with the wrong answer on the line estimate

  E - when they participant were asked why they put the wrong answer they said they felt self-conscious and scared to give the right answer as they did not want to be wrong or receive disapproval from others, however when they were asked to write down the answer their answers, conformity rates fell to 12.5%

  L - this support the participants own reports they they were conforming because of NSI
• what is a limitation of NSI and ISI (PEEL) (oversimplified)

  P - a limitation of ISI and NSI is that the 'two-process' approach is oversimplified

  E - this approach states that behaviour is due to either ISI or NSI

  E - however, conformity was reduced when there was a dissenting partner in the Asch experiment. This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (by providing social support) or reduce the power of ISI (because they are an alternative source of infomation)

  L - therefore it isn't always possible to know whether NSI or ISI is at work. This questions the view of NSI or ISI as operating independently is conformity behaviour
• what is a limitation of NSI and ISI (PEEL) (individual differences)

  P - a limitation of NSI is that there are individual differences

  E - people who care more about being liked are more affected by NSI

  E - McGhee found that people who have a greater need for social relationships were more likely conform

  L - the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some peiple more than others. One general theory does not cover the fact there are differences
• who carried out a famous study of conformity

  Solomon Asch
• what was the aim of Asch's study

  to investigate if people will conform to a group when there is clearly a right and wrong answer and the majority of the group are giving the wrong answer
• what was the method of Asch's study

  • carried out an experiment using groups of between 6 and 9 people
  • only one was a true participant (naive participant) the other were confederates (pretending to be participants but told by Asch what to do and say)
  • he told the participants that the experiment was testing visual perception and showed the group pictures of lines of different lengths
  • they had to state which of the ABC lines matched the test line in terms of length
  • he showed the participants 50 test lines and 50 ABC lines
  • each person in the group had to giver their answer with the naive participants being the last or second to last respond
  • the confederates had been told that sometimes they should all give the same, wrong answer (called a trial)
  • 12 times out of the 50 the confederates gave the same wrong answer
  • there was a control group of which the participants were alone
• what were the results of Asch's study

  • when the confederates gave the same wrong answer, the mean conformity rates was 32%, (one average, participants agreed with the wrong answer on about a third of the 12 trials)
  • 75% of the participants conformed at least once on the 12 trails
• what is the conclusion of Asch's study

  people will conform to a group's wrong answer even though it is clearly a wrong answer
• what is a limitation of Asch's study (PEEL) (artificial)

  P - one limitation is that the situations and task were artificial

  E - participants knew they were in a study so may have just responded to demand characteristics

  E - the study was done 50 times with 12 triads to which 75% of ps conformed at least once in the 12 triads, additionally, Asch's task of identifying lines was trivial and provided no reason to not conform

  L - therefore the finding don't generalize to everyday situations especially if the consequence of conformity might be more important
• what is a limitation of Asch's study (PEEL) (groups)

  P - another limitation is that the findings only apply to certain groups

  E - in Asch's study all the participants were men. Other researchers, such as Neto, preformed studies on conformity on women which suggested that women might be more conformist, possibly due to being more concerned about social relationships and being accepted than men

  E - additionally, all the men were from the US, an individualist culture, where people are more concerned about themselves than social groups. However, similar studies conducted in collective cultures, such as china where social groups are more important than individuals, they found higher conformity rates

  L - this shows that conformity levels are sometimes higher than Asch found. Asch's findings may only apply to American men but he didnt take into account gender or cultural differences
• what is a limitation of Asch's study (PEEL) (ethics)

  P - there are also ethical issues associated with Asch's research

  E - the participants were deceived and therefore were unable to make an informed decision to take part in the study. Additionally, the participants could be exposed to negative psychological consequences such as humiliation and self esteem issues

  E - but this ethical cost should be weighted against the benefit's of the study

  L - therefore this suggest that some psychologist may disagree that the study should have been done sue to the ethical issues broken

  H - however, many consider that the benefits of the study out weight the ethical cost as the study gave us knowledge that could benifit a range of people or society in combatting social influence and the degree of psychological harm is minor, many mild embarrassment