social influence

• what is conformity?


  Conformity is the tendency to adjust one's thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors to match those of a larger group or societal norms.
• What is social influence?


  Social influence refers to the process by which individuals or groups change the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of others through direct or indirect means.
• What were Deutsch & Gerrard (1955) explanation for conformity?

  They developed a 2-way process theory, arguing that there are two main reasons why people conform. This is based on the human central needs, which are:

  The need to be right (ISI)

  The need to be liked(NSI)
• Describe informational social influence (ISI)


  The need to be right. ISI is a cognitive process

  This refers to instances where people conform because they are uncertain about what to do in a particular situation, so they look to others for guidance. This explanation tends to lead to internalisation.
• Where does ISI happen?

  It happens in situations that are new to a person or where there is ambiguity, so it is unclear what is right.

  It is also typical in crisis situations where decisions need to be made quickly.

  It also occurs when one person or group is regarded as being more of an expert.
• what is compliance?


  Is the shallowest level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour, the way they act, but not their private beliefs. This is usually a short-term change and is often the result of normative social influence (NSI)
• what is identification?


  Is the middle level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group. This is a usually a short-term change and normally the result of normative social influence (NSI).
• what is internalisation?


  Is the deepest level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs. This is usually a long-term change and often the result of informational social influence (ISI). 
• Describe Normative social influence(NSI)

  Is when a person conforms to be accepted and to feel that they belong to the group. 
• is there a research support for conformity(NSI)?

  Asch’s (1951) study into conformity provides research support for normative social influence. He found that many of the participants went along with the obviously wrong answers of the other group members. When asked by Asch in post-experimental interviews why they did this, participants said that they changed their answer to avoid disapproval from the rest of the group, which clearly shows that compliance had occurred as the participants conformed in order to ‘fit in’.
• Is there a research support for ISI?

  Jenness (1932) provides research support for the role of informational social influence. Participants were asked to initially make independent judgements about the number of beans contained in a jar and then discuss their estimates in a group. Participants then made a second, individual private estimate. Jenness found that this second private estimate moved closer to the group estimate and that females typically conformed more. This shows that internalisation of group beliefs will occur especially in unfamiliar, ambiguous situations.
• how does individual differences act as a weakness for conformity?


  Individual differences may play a role in explaining social influence, which means that the processed will not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. Perrin and Spencer (1980) conducted an Asch-style experiment, but this time using engineering students in the UK. Only one conforming response was observed out of nearly 400 trials. This could be due to the fact that the students felt more confident in their ability to judge line lengths due to their experience in engineering and so felt less pressure to conform.
• Is social psychology deterministic and does it have free will?

  Social psychology acknowledges the role of situational factors, such as group pressure, in determining human behaviour such as conformity. However, it also suggests that individuals can exercise personal responsibility for their actions and demonstrate free will through showing independent behaviour.
• Does conformity(NSI/ISI) take the nomothetic approach?


  Explanations of conformity (NSI/ISI) adopt a nomothetic approach as they attempt to provide general principles relating to human behaviour when observed under group pressure from a majority.
• Asch 1951


  123 male US participants were tested in total, they had 12 trials where 36.8% of the responses made by true participants were incorrect. •They conformed to the incorrect response given by the confederates. •To make sure the line test wasn’t difficult, Asch conducted a control trial with no confederates. He found that people only made mistakes 1% of the time. There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer
• What did Asch find after interviewing participants on the reason they conformed?

  1)Distortion of perception: A small number of participants came to see the lines in the same way as the majority.

  2)Distortion of judgement: They were doubtful/unsure of their own judgement.

  3)Distortion of Action: Most participants continued to privately think differently from the group, but changed their public answer to avoid disapproval?