Social Influence (pmt)

• Conformity is a type of social influence. It is defined as ‘yielding to group pressures’.
• Internalisation = Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of informational social influence). An individual’s change of view is permanent e.g. being brought up in a religious household, and becoming religious yourself.
• Identification = Temporary and short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level) e.g. acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work.
• • Compliance = This means to follow other people’s ideas/to go along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval. You publically agree but privately disagree (lowest/ weakest level of conformity)
  • An individual’s change of view is temporary and is likely to occur as a result of normative social influence e.g. when friends pressure you into drinking alcohol when you don’t truly want to, and will not drink outside of such social situations.
• • Informational Social Influence: When someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation; when a person is uncertain or unsure, they would look to others for information.
  • It usually leads to internalisation and occurs in situations where we do not have the knowledge or expertise to make our own decisions.
• Evidence for ISI – Fein et al. asked participants to vote for a US presidential candidate after they saw others voting for somebody else. Most of the participants changed their mind because they wanted to be ‘correct’, thus demonstrating the impact of informational social influence as a mechanism for conformity
• Normative Social Influence – when someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group; when a person’s need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance. It often occurs when a person wants to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority
• + There is evidence supporting the link between NSI and bullying, thus suggesting a real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity. Garandeau and Cillissen found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising another child because the bully provides a common goal for the boy’s group of friends, the goal is to victimise the other child, so the boy would most likely also victimise the child to avoid disapproval from his friends.
• There is also evidence to support the role of informational social influence. For example, Lucas et al found that conformity to an obviously incorrect maths answer was greater when the question was more difficult and the participant rated their own maths ability unfavourably. This shows that individuals are more likely to turn to others when they lack the information to make their own informed decisions i.e. in an ambiguous situation
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard’s ‘Two Process Model’. For example, a dissenting confederate can provide social support, thus reducing the effect of NSI through providing the naive participant with a supporting, similar view. Equally, this can also reduce the effect of ISI through the confederate proving the participant with an alternative source of information. This means that it may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms.
• Asch Participants: 123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates
• Asch Aim: To investigate conformity and majority influence
• Asch Procedure:

  • Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line

  • They asked to state which of three lines was the same length as a stimulus line

  • The real participant always answered last or second to last

  • Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials

  • Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
• Asch Findings:

  • 36.8% conformed
  • 25% never conformed
  • 75% conformed at least once
  • In a control trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were incorrect (which eliminates eyesight/perception as an extraneous variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)
• Asch Group Size:

  • An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.
  • There was low conformity with group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity rose by 30%
  • A person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the same answer, because it will increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their confidence in their own answer.
  • Conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size.
• Asch Group Size Link:

  • This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence, but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all instances to bring about conformity.
• Asch Unanimity:

  • An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to them all giving different answers.
  • When joined by another participant or disaffected confederate who gave the correct answer, conformity fell from 32% to 5.5%. If different answers are given, it falls from 32% to 9%.
  • The more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participant will have that they are all correct, and therefore the participant’s answer is more likely to be incorrect
• Asch Unanimity Link: Unanimity is vital in establishing a consistent majority view, which is particularly important by providing normative social influence through preventing any conflicting views arising.
• Asch Task Difficulty:

  • An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult
  • For example, Asch altered the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) making them more similar in length. Since it was harder to judge the correct answer conformity increased.
  • When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity.
• Asch Task Difficulty Link: This suggests that informational social influence is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the individual does not have enough of their own knowledge or information to make an informed decision independently, and so has to look towards others.
• Asch High internal validity:

  • There was strict control over extraneous variables, such as timing of assessment and the type of task used. The participants did the experiment before without confederates to see if they actually knew the correct answer, thus removing the confounding variable of a lack of knowledge. This suggests that valid and reliable ‘cause and effect’ relationships can be established, as well as valid conclusions.
• Asch Lab experiment:

  • Extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning that replication of the experiment is easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings because it reduces the likelihood that the observed findings were a ‘one-off’.
• Asch Ethical issues:

  • The researchers breached the BPS ethical guideline of deception and consequently, the ability to give informed consent. However, the participants were debriefed. Ethical issues do not threaten the validity or reliability of findings, but rather suggest that a cost-benefit analysis is required
• Asch Supports NSI:

  • Participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group, so it supports the idea of normative influence, which states that people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.
• Asch Lacks ecological validity:

  • It was based on peoples’ perception of lines and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life as it does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity i.e. where there are many other confounding variables and majorities exert influence irrespective of being a large group
• Asch Lacks population validity:

  • For example, the participants were only American male undergraduates, and so the study was subject to gender bias, where it is assumed that findings from male participants can be generalised to females (i.e. beta bias).
• Asch Ethical issues:

  • there was deception as participants were tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance so they could not give informed consent.
  • There could have been psychological harm as the participants could have been embarrassed after realising the true aims of the study.
  • Such issues simply mean that a cost-benefit analysis is required to evaluate whether the ethical costs are smaller than the benefits of increased knowledge of the field. They do not affect the validity or reliability of findings!
• Zimbardo Participants: 24 American male undergraduate students
• Zimbardo Aim:

  • To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles in a simulated environment, and specifically, to investigate why ‘good people do bad things’.
• Zimbardo Real life applications:

  • This research changed the way US prisons are run
• Zimbardo Debriefing:

  • Participants were fully and completely debriefed about the aims and results of the study.
  • This is particularly important when considering that the BPS ethical guidelines of deception and informed consent had been breached.
  • Dealing with ethical issues in this way simply makes the study more ethically acceptable, but does not change the quality (in terms of validity and reliability) of the findings.
• Zimbardo Ethics:

  • The amount of ethical issues with the study led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines so that future studies were safer and less harmful to participants due to legally bound rules. This demonstrates the practical application of an increased understanding of the mechanisms of conformity and the variables which affect this.
• Zimbardo Lacks population validity:

  • The sample only consisted of American male students and so the findings cannot be generalised to other genders and cultures.
  • This suggests that such findings may be culture-bound
• Zimbardo Lack of fully informed consent:

  • Due to the deception required to (theoretically) avoid demand characteristics and participant reactivity.
  • However Zimbardo himself did not know what was going to happen, so could not inform the participants, meaning that there is possible justification for a breach of ethical guidelines.
• Zimbardo Psychological harm:

  • Participants were not protected from stress, anxiety, emotional distress and embarrassment e.g. one prisoner had to be released due to excess distress and uncontrollable screaming and crying
• Zimbardo Lacks ecological validity:

  • The study suffered from demand characteristics.
  • For example, the participants knew that they were participating in a study and therefore may have changed their behaviour, either to please the experimenter or in response to being observed
• Agentic state – This is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions.
• When a person shifts from an autonomous state (the state in which a person believes they will take responsibility for their own actions) to the agentic state, it is called an Agentic Shift.
• Agency theory is the idea that people are more likely to obey when they are in the agentic state as they do not believe they will suffer the consequences of those actions. This is because they believe that they are acting on behalf of their agent.
• Legitimacy of authority – This describes how credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right, and legitimate