conformity

• Social influence looks at human behavior as influenced by other people and the social context in which this occurs. Examples include Conformity, obedience and minority influence.
• conformity is a change in persons opinions or behaviour as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a group of people
• There are three types of conformity. Compliance, identification, internalization.
• Compliance which is the shallowest level of processing is when an individual goes along with a group for their approval however their views internally haven't changed.
• identification has elements of both compliance and internalisation as the individual accepts the attitudes and behaviours they are adopting as true (internalisation) but the only so so to be accepted as a member of the group (compliance)
• internalisation is the deepest level of processing and is when the individual accepts the group's point of view both publically and privately, this is true conformity.
• the dual process model by Deutsch and Gerard proposes two explanations for conformity. Informational social influence and normative social influence
• informative social influence is 'conforming to be right' when an individual is unsure of something they may seek the opinion of others especially if they are more knowledgeable. If someone is unsure how to behave conformity is a sensible option as the majority opinion is likely to be right
• Normative social influence is 'conforming to be liked' and its when an individual conforms to fit in with the group because they do not want to appear foolish or left out. One way to gain acceptance os to agree with them and this maybe because belonging to a group is rewarding
• Asch's baseline procedure was to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is obvious (unambiguous) 123 american men where tested to identify which of the three lines where the longest. The confederates always gave the wrong answer and on average genuine participants agreed with the confederates 36.8% of the time
• Asch then extended his baseline procedure to investigate variables that may increase or decrease conformity which was; group size, unanimity, and task difficulty.
• With the variable 'group size' Asch found that there was low conformity with group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity rose by 30% however conformity doesn't seem to increase in groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size.
• With the variable 'unanimity' Asch found that when someone gives the right answer the participant's confidence in their own answer increases and conformity falls. If all the participants have different answers conformity also falls. The more unanimous a group is the more confidence a participant will have in their own answer
• With the variable 'task difficulty' Asch found that an individual is more likely to conform when the answer is difficult. Asch altered the comparison lines and made them similar lengths making it harder to judge so when the participants were more uncertain of the answer they conformed to the opinions of others.
• A strength of Asch's research is that it has high internal validity as it was done in a lab there was a strict control over all extraneous and confounding variables. There's also support from other research for eg: Lucas et al found that when participants were given hard math problems they tended to conform more compared to when they were given easy math problems. This shows asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is a variable that affects conformity
• A limitation to Asch's research was that the participants were all men which creates gender bias. So it tells us little about how women conform. There may have also been demand characteristics as participants knew they were in a study so may have gone along with what was expected. There were also ethical issues as the participants were deceived into thinking the study was for smtg else and there cdve been psychological harm as the participants could have been embarrassed after realizing the true aims of the study.
• research support for NSI

  1 strength of NSI is that evidence supports it as an explanation of conformity. For eg; when Asch interviewed his participants they said they conformed because they felt self-conscious about giving the right answer & were afraid of disapproval. When participants were asked to write down their answers instead conformity fell to 12.5% as they were giving their answers privately & there was no normative group pressure. This shows that some conformity is due to the desire to be liked and not rejected by the group for disagreeing with them
• Research support for ISI

  Lucas et al found that participants conformed more to incorrect answers when the math problems were difficult. Because the participants didn't want to be wrong so they relied on answers given by others. This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity as the results are what ISI would predict. However its often unclear whether its ISI or NSI at work in research studies or in real life and both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations.
• One limitation of NSI is that it doesn't predict conformity in every case, some people (nAffiliators) have a strong need to want to relate to others and so they tend to conform more. This shows that there are individual differences in conformity and it cant be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.
• Soicla roles are the various 'parts' people play as members of various social groups for eg; student, parent etc These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of whats appropriate for the roles.
• aim of Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment

  to investigate how easily people

  would conform to the roles of guard and

  prisoner in a role-playing exercise that

  simulated prison life.
• The sample of Zimbardo's stanford prison experiment

  21 male university students randomly assigned either the role of guard or prisoner
• Location of Zimbardo's experiment

  Basement at Stanford Univeristy
• Zimbardo's experiment procedure

  prisoners were arrested at home and taken to the prison, had a uniform of smock dress, flip flops and

  stocking cap.

  Guards told to set up prison and given a uniform and sunglasses.

  Guards told to keep order but given no specific rules.
• Zimbardo's experiment results

  Within hours of beginning the experiment

  some guards began to harass prisoners.

  They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner,

  apparently enjoying it.

  The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like

  behaviour too.

  Some prisoners had to be released after showing signs of emotional disorder and on Day 6 Zimbardo had to shut down the experiment as there was a real danger someone could be hurt physically or mentally.
• Conclusions related to social roles


  Social roles have a strong influence on individuals behaviour. The guards became more brutal and the prisoners became more submissive.