Social Influence

• Conformity


  A type of social influence that describes how a person changes their attitude or behaviour in response to group pressure
• Types of conformity


  • Compliance
  • Identification
  • Internalisation
• Compliance


  The shallowest level of conformity where a person changes their public behaviour, the way they act, but not their private beliefs
• Identification


  The middle level of conformity where a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group
• Internalisation

  The deepest level of conformity where a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs
• Explanations for conformity

  • Normative social influence (NSI)
  • Informational social influence (ISI)
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  When a person conforms to be accepted and to feel that they belong to the group
• Informational social influence (ISI)

  When a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is 'right'
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  Usually associated with compliance and identification
• Informational social influence (ISI)

  Usually associated with internalisation
• Compliance

  • Changes public behaviour but not private beliefs
  • Short-term change
• Identification


  • Changes public behaviour and private beliefs, but only in the presence of the group
  • Short-term change
• Internalisation


  • Changes public behaviour and private beliefs
  • Long-term change
• It is important to ensure that you understand the distinction between types of conformity (compliance, identification and internalisation) and the explanations for conformity (normative and informational social influence)
• Asch's (1951) study into conformity


  • Provided research support for normative social influence
  • Many participants went along with the obviously wrong answers of the other group members to avoid disapproval
• Jenness (1932) study


  • Provided research support for the role of informational social influence
  • Participants' second private estimate moved closer to the group estimate, showing internalisation of group beliefs
• Individual differences may play a role in explaining social influence, which means that the processes will not affect everyone's behaviour in the same way
• Perrin and Spencer (1980) study

  • Only one conforming response was observed out of nearly 400 trials, possibly due to the engineering students feeling more confident in their ability to judge line lengths
• Schultz et al. (2008) study

  • Guests who received a message that contained normative information about other guests reduced their need for fresh towels by 25%, showing they had conformed in order to 'fit in' with the perceived group behaviour
• Jenness (1932) study

  Examined whether individuals will change their opinion in an ambiguous (unclear) situation, in response to group discussion
• Nearly all participants changed their original answer when they were provided with another opportunity to estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle after group discussion</b>
• On average, male participants changed their answers by 256 beans and female participants changed their answers by 382 beans
• Ambiguous situation


  Unclear situation
• Method

  1. Used an ambiguous situation that involved a glass bottle filled with 811 white beans

  2. Sample consisted of 26 students, who individually estimated how many beans the glass bottle contained

  3. Participants were then divided into groups of three and asked to provide a group estimate through discussion

  4. Following the discussion, the participants were provided with another opportunity to individually estimate the number of beans, to see if they changed their original answer
• Nearly all participants changed their original answer when they were provided with another opportunity to estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle
• The range of the whole group went from 1,875 before the discussion to 474 afterward, a decrease of 75 per cent, which demonstrates the converging opinions of the participants, after their discussions
• Asch (1951)

  Study that examined the extent to which social pressure to conform from unanimous majority affects conformity in an unambiguous situation
• Asch's method


  1. Sample consisted of 123 male undergraduate students from Swarthmore College in the USA, who believed they were taking part in a vision test

  2. Used a line judgement task, where he placed one real (naive) participant in a room with six to eight confederates (actors working on behalf of the experimenter), who had agreed their answers in advance

  3. The naive participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other people were also real participants

  4. Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called 'critical trials'
• Variations of Asch


  Experiments that investigated factors influencing conformity levels, including group size, unanimity, and task difficulty
• Variations of Asch


  • Group size: 1 confederate (lower conformity at 3%)
  • Group size: 2 confederates (lower conformity at 12.8%)
  • Group size: 3 confederates (same conformity as original at 32%)
  • Group size: 15 confederates (lower conformity at ~29%)
  • Unanimity: One confederate gave correct answer (lower conformity at 5%)
  • Unanimity: One confederate gave different incorrect answer (lower conformity at 9%)
  • Task difficulty: Increased difficulty (higher conformity, percentage not reported)
• Asch's variation


  • Made the difference between the line lengths smaller and therefore appear closer together and more ambiguous
  • Increased the rate of conformity, although the percentage was not reported
• Asch's variation with smaller line length differences

  Likely resulted in informational social influence as individuals look to another for guidance when undertaking an ambiguous task
• Unanimity


  • Where one of the confederates gave the correct answer throughout: Lower (5%)
  • Where one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer to the majority: Lower (9%)
• Task difficulty

  Where the task was made significantly more difficult, by making the difference between the line lengths significantly smaller: Higher*
• Social psychology acknowledges the role of situational factors, such as group pressure, in determining human behaviour such as conformity
• Social psychology also suggests that individuals can exercise personal responsibility for their actions and demonstrate free will through showing independent behaviour
• Explanations of conformity (ESI/ISI) adopt a nomothetic approach as they attempt to provide general principles relating to human behaviour when observed under group pressure from a majority
• Social psychology uses scientific methods, often in highly-controlled laboratory settings, to investigate key concepts which can be replicated, for example, Asch's original study
• The fact that Asch only used male participants in his sample shows a beta bias, as his research may have ignored or minimised the differences between men and women in relation to conformity
• Compliance

  Private disagreement whilst publicly going along with the majority