Social influence

• Group size


  • Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group
  • Varied the number of confederates from one to 15 (so the total group size was from two to 16)
  • Found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
  • Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point
  • With three confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
  • The presence of more confederates made little difference - the conformity rate soon levelled off
• Unanimity


  • Asch wondered if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the naive participant's conformity
  • Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates
  • Genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
  • The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
  • The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently
• Task difficulty


  • Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity
  • Increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length
  • Conformity increased
  • May be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder - it is unclear to the participants what the right answer is
  • In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and you are wrong (this is called informational social influence)
• Asch's baseline procedure: Solomon Asch (1953) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain and unambiguous
• The specification focuses on the findings and conclusions from Asch's later research, so the baseline procedure and findings are not described in the main text
• Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead to an increase or a decrease in conformity
• One limitation of Asch's research is that it was artificial - the participants may have gone along with the majority because they felt they had to, rather than because they genuinely believed the majority was right
• Another limitation is that the research was conducted in Western, individualistic cultures, and the results may not generalise to other cultures where conformity is more important
• One strength of Asch's research is that it allowed him to investigate the effects of task difficulty on conformity
• Asch's research may help avoid ethical issues in real-world situations where conformity could be harmful
• Asch's research increased our knowledge of why people conform, which may help avoid mindless destructive conformity
• The naive participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved in the procedure (the confederates) were also genuine participants like themselves
• The ethical cost of the deception should be weighed up against the benefits gained from the study
• Conformity is not always a bad thing, some situations demand that everybody act in the same direction
• Asch's research


  • Examined the effects of group size on conformity
  • Found that conformity increases as group size increases
• Asch's baseline study


  • Group size of 3 had around 35% conformity rate
  • Group size of 7 had around 25% conformity rate
  • Group size of 12 had around 15% conformity rate
• Asch used a volunteer sampling method to recruit participants
• Strength of volunteer sampling


  Not specified
• Limitation of volunteer sampling


  Not specified
• When the total group size was four, there would be one participant and the others were confederates</b>
• The confederates made up a fraction and percentage of the total group size
• One variable that affects conformity is unanimity
• Apart from unanimity, other variables that affect conformity were not identified
• Internalisation


  When a person genuinely accepts the group norms, resulting in a private as well as a public change of opinions/behaviour that is usually permanent because attitudes have been internalised
• Identification


  Conforming to the opinions/behaviour of a group because there is something about that group we value and we want to be part of it, leading to a public change of opinions/behaviour even if we don't privately agree
• Compliance


  Conforming in public but privately not changing personal opinions and/or behaviour, resulting in only a superficial change that stops when group pressure stops
• Types of conformity


  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  • About who has the better information - you or the rest of the group
  • A cognitive process leading to a permanent change in opinion/behaviour
  • Most likely to happen in new or ambiguous situations, or crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  • About norms, i.e. what is normal or typical behaviour for a social group
  • An emotional process leading to a temporary change in opinions/behaviour (compliance)
  • More likely to occur with strangers or in stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support
• People do not like to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval rather than be rejected
• Normative social influence is an emotional rather than a cognitive process
• Informational social influence is a cognitive process
• Internalisation results in a private as well as a public change of opinions/behaviour that is usually permanent
• Identification results in a public change of opinions/behaviour even if we don't privately agree
• Compliance results in only a superficial change that stops when group pressure stops
• Conformity can be explained by the need to be right (informational social influence) and the need to be accepted (normative social influence)
• NSI


  • Evidence supports it as an explanation of conformity
• Evidence for NSI


  • Participants conformed because they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval
  • When participants wrote their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5% because there was no normative group pressure
• Conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them (i.e. NSI)
• ISI


  • Research evidence supports it as an explanation of conformity