Conformity

• Conformity


  social pressure to change behaviour or beliefs in order to come into line with others in a group
• Compliance

  pretending to agree with a group and acting the way they do, even while privately disagreeing with their views - a change in behaviour but not in beliefs
• Identification


  when an individual comes to agree with a group of people and begin to behave like them even when they are not around them, however, these opinions are not strongly held and might change when the person leaves the group - a change in behaviour but no permanent change in beliefs
• Internalisation


  where the individual goes along with group pressure because they privately accept the majority view and therefore act in accordance with this view - there is a change in behaviour and a permanent change in beliefs
• Normative Social Influence


  the influence that others have to lead an individual to conform because they want to be liked and accepted as part of the group, it is based in the need that an individual has for social acceptance and approval - compliance is a result
• Informational Social Influence


  the influence to change which comes from other people whose views are considered reliable, it is based on an individual adopting the behaviour of the majority when they are uncertain about what to do in a particular situation
• Gender (Individual Factor)


  factor affecting conformity - research has shown that women conform more readily than men (Eagle & Carly 1981), suggested that this is because women tend to take on the role of nurturing and promoting group harmony, so in a group situation, they have different short-term goals than men
• Self-Esteem (Individual Factor)


  factor affecting conformity - Asch (1956) found that people with lower self-esteem were more likely to conform, Santee & Maslach (1982) found that people with higher self-esteem were less likely to conform
• Group Size (Situational Factor)

  factor affecting conformity - Asch (1955) found that depending on the size of the group, conformity was different, conformity tends to increase as the size of the group increases, however, there is little change in conformity once the group size reaches 4-5
• Group Unanimity (Situational Factor)


  factor affecting conformity - Asch (1951) found that even the presence of just one confederate that went against the majority choice reduced conformity from 32% to 5%, suggesting that individuals conform because they are concerned about that other people think of them (i.e. normative influence)
• Task Difficulty (Situational Factor)

  factor affecting conformity - when Asch made the comparison lines more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and he found that conformity increased, Crutchfield (1955) also found that the more difficult the task, the higher the rate of conformity
• Cultural Factors


  factor affecting conformity - Smith & Bond (1993) found that collectivist societies, such as those in Asia and Africa, were more likely to conform than individualistic societies, such as those in North America and Europe
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Aim


  to replicate Asch's experiment without the need for confederates
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Method


  the study was a laboratory experiment. the independent variables were gender and majority influence. the dependent variable was the number of errors made
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Sample


  104 participants - 40 males, 64 females, all undergraduate university students with an average age of around 20
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Design


  an independent groups design was used - 26 groups of 4 with the same gender grouping
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Procedure


  researchers used the MORI technique where participants wore filter glasses that allow them to watch the same film but see different things - meant that everyone was a true participant. one in each group was given a different type of filter glasses so they perceived a different view of the lines. four participants were placed in front of a projector screen with the same sets of lines being used form Asch's experiment. each participant answered out loud to the group having been given the instruction to make the judgment by themselves
• Mori and Arai (2010) - Results


  for female participants, results were similar to male participants of Asch, with conformity to the majority shown on 4.41 out of 12 critical trials - 29% error rate. however, it was found that the participants' conformity rates were much lower than in the Asch study, with only a 5% error rate. a questionnaire afterwards revealed that none of the participants had been aware that one of them had a different set of glasses that were showing a different image