Psychology - Social Influence

• are you a conformist of course you're not but most other people are right damn sheep people they always act and dress the same way and believe the same things as everyone around them never truly thinking for themselves but why is this why is it so hard to go against the crowd
• which of these lines is longer it's B right okay of course it's a but is there any situation where you would feel like you had to say B just to fit in with a bunch of strangers
• well in Ash's research he managed to get three quars of his participants to at least once give into Conformity and give an obviously wrong response
• the psych boost app now has three features flashcards multiple choice quizes and see if you can work out the key term from it definition with the key term taster
• try paper one for free right now and Patron supporters can watch boost videos ad free learn from over 17 hours of exclusive exam tutorial videos and access hundreds of digital and printable resources including my Maps quiz sheets worksheets teaching slides and more
• Conformity


  A change in Behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure so an individual changing what they do or how they think because of what they consider to be pressure coming from a larger group
• the point about the imagin pressure is interesting I think we can all think of a time when we felt the need to change how we behaved to fit in with a group and likely that group actually didn't care or even notice
• keep in mind when it comes to Conformity we're not talking about the individual altering their behavior due to taking a direct order the members of these groups are likely to be groups of peers they're not authority figures
• obedience is obeying the direct orders of an authority figure obedience is a separate form of social influence that we'll discuss later on in this unit but I do find students new to the social influence unit often get the two confused
• Types of Conformity


  • Compliance
  • Identification
  • Internalization
• Compliance


  A type of Conformity where in response to pressure from others individuals change their behavior or what they outwardly claim to be their beliefs but their private beliefs were change the primary motivation behind compliance is the desire to get a positive reaction from others either avoiding disapproval or punishment
• Normative social influence


  An explanation for Conformity that suggests we conform to be liked or accepted by others
• the changes in Behavior due to compliance are superficial this means that they're only on the surface and are temporary only lasting as long as the external pressure is present one once the social pressure is removed so they're not in the presence of the group individuals will go back to their original beliefs or behaviors
• Identification


  A type of Conformity where the individual takes on the behaviors attitudes or values of a group because they want to be associated with a group unlike compliance which is Conformity to avoid rejection identification is about the individual aligning with a group to create or strengthen a social identity
• with identification the individual conforms not necessarily because they believe the behaviors or values are correct but they do want to feel connected with the group to be seen as a member and maintain a relationship with a group
• Internalization


  A type of Conformity where individuals truly adopt the beliefs values or Norms of a group so this deepest level of Conformity results in a private and Lasting change in beliefs and behaviors because the individual truly accepts the group's Norms as their own
• internalization happens when the individual perceives the group's Norms or values as matching their own values or when they believe accepting these Norms is morally right or beneficial
• Informational social influence


  An explanation for Conformity where individuals assume the group has more knowledge or information about a situation and look to others as a source of information to guide their decisions
• a key feature of internalization is the changes or beliefs and behaviors remain even when there's no longer any external pressures to conform so when the individuals from the group this is because the individual has permanently integrated the group's beliefs or Norms into their own value system
• the ash experiment in Ash's classic study of Conformity he used groups of male students St but unknown to one real participant all the other men around the table were actors working on behalf of the experimenter we'll call these people Confederates
• the real participant was told the task was about visual perception and they had to Simply identify the correct comparison line the one that matched the standard line
• in Ash's study there are 18 cards like this 18 trials each around the table took it in turns to say their response with the real participant being sat in the second to last place and at first each Confederate gave the correct answer in the final 12 critical trials something strange happened the Confederates all gave the same incorrect answer
• while conforming on every single critical trial was rare only 5% of participants never existed once the majority 75% of participant gave into group pressure and conformed at least once if we look at all of the critical Tri we can see that there was a mean Conformity rate of 32%
• Ash's findings are a support of normative social influence and if we're asked to write about NSI we can use the study as an evaluation the participants can form for social approval on what was an obvious so an unambiguous task
• in Ash's group size variation Ash exactly replicated the original setup with 1 2 3 4 8 and 16 Confederates this is the original table from Ash's paper I've added the Conformity rate and a graph of the results you should be able to see an interesting pattern here with one or two Confederates the Conformity rate is low it seems to be easy to resist an individual or a couple however when there are free Confederates the Conformity rate Rises dramatically but then levels off and seems to decrease a little at 16 Confederates
• in the Ash's unanimity variation he instructed one of the Confederates answering before the participant to act as an ally this denter gave the correct answer providing social support for the true participant this made it easier to resist the power of the group so the Conformity rate dropped to 5.5%
• in the task difficulty variation Ash increased the difficulty of the task by making the comparison lines closer in length to The Standard Line This increased the ambiguity of the task and while Ash didn't report exact figures he did say this significantly increase the rate of Conformity and we can suggest the reason for this increase is due to the addition of informational social influence participants being less sure of the correct answer so looking to the group for guidance so they can be correct
• one of the positives of Ash's original study and variations is that as a lab study it used standardized procedures that had a high level of control over variables this control means each participant had the same experience they all viewed the same lines and experienced the same level of normative social influence from the Confederates which means Ash's study has internal validy
• Perin and Spencer criticize the generalizability of Ash's work to modern society suggesting it lacks temporal validity and the study is over 70 years old in their replication with of a more modern British student sample in 396 critical trials there was only one example of Conformity they argued that the extreme conformity in Ash's work reflected the mindset of Cold War Americans who were afraid of standing out from the crowd
• another generalizability issue for Ash is the All American sample this potential for cultural bias was investigated during a met analysis by Bond 133 studies across 17 countries were included finding General support for Ash's original findings but significant differences between collectivist societies that value group Harmony and individualistic societies who value personal freedom perhaps unsurprisingly collectivist societies were more conformist
• Ash's work May tell us little about real life Conformity because people do conform in real life however it's usually around people they know personally and on work tasks or to their friends opinions while socializing we don't often find ourselves in a room full of strangers judging line lamps
• the original study supports normative social influence the task was obvious and unambiguous which means the reason why the participants conformed was to avoid being socially rejected by the group in another variation we didn't mention participants could write down their responses in secret eliminating the fear of rejection which resulted in a significant reduction in Conformity
• the task difficulty variation of Ash can be used as supporting research for informational social influence in increasing the difficulty of the task made it more ambiguous leading to the participants questioning their judgment this would explain why the Conformity rates increased with the participants relying more on the judgments of the Confederates to make the correct decision
• dispositional explanations include an affiliator people who have are stronger than normal need to be liked by others leading to increased Conformity whereas people with high confidence are less likely to conform as well as people with what is known as an internal locus of control
• it may be that even the person conforming isn't fully aware of their motivations this is even more true in real life examples of Conformity we often don't have a full understanding of a situation or issue and we usually want social approval so most cases of real world Conformity are likely to be a combination of both explanations