Social Influence

• Types of Conformity:

  Compliance- Person conforms publically but privately still disagrees. This is to fit in and is temporary. Laughing at a joke that is not funny but laugh due to everyone else laughing.

  Identification- Person conforms both publically and privately with the group as they have a sense of group membership. This is temporary anf can change over time.

  Internalisation- Both publically and privately display the same behaviour, with the behaviour bwing permanent. Friends are all vegan and so convert to being a vegan permanently.
• Asch 1951


  Experiment on conformity with 123 male undergraduates in the USA
• Experiment procedure


  1. 7 participants looking at two cards: one with a test line, the other with 3 lines of different lengths

  2. Participants called out which of the 3 lines matched the test line

  3. All participants were confederates except one who sat second to last

  4. Confederates gave unanimous wrong answers on 12/18 trials (called the critical trials)
• Asch's study


  • Carefully controlled laboratory setting
  • Reduced rate of extraneous variables
  • Changes in results due to change in independent variable and its effect on dependent variable
  • Showed social pressure to conform from unanimous majority in unambiguous situation led to conformity
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  When someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted by the group. The person may publically change their behaviour and or views but privately disagree. This leads to compliance. This is generally to attain group membership and approval of others. Eg. join a new school so pretend to like local football club to fit in and be accepted by your peers.
• Informational Social Influence (ISI)

  When someone conforms due to not knwing what to do, but they want to be correct. They follow the majority and assume that the majority know what is the right thing to do. Tends to lead to internalisation and is most likely to happen when there is a crisis, situation is ambiguous, novel or where others are believed to be experts. To attain group membership. New at a workplace and not sure when or where to go for lunch and so follow where everyone else goes.
• Asch's study


  • Provides research support for normative social influence
  • Found that many participants conformed to incorrect answers, even when correct answer was obvious
  • In a follow up interview participants said they conformed to avoid discomfort of disagreeing
• Normative social influence


  Compliance had occurred and participants conformed to fit in
• Conformity to Social Rules

  Deindividuation - process occurs when one loses ones sense of individual identity, social, moral and societal constraints on behaviour are loosened.

  Situational Factors - Any environmental variable that may trigger a cause or a change in behaviour.
• Zimbardo et al study


  1973
• Participants


  • 24 well adjusted male volunteers
  • Paid $15 a day
  • Two week prison simulation study
• Participant allocation


  Randomly allocated either a role of a prison guard or a prisoner
• Prisoner arrival


  1. Local police arrested 9 prisoners from their homes without warning

  2. Taken to Stanford University

  3. Stripped of belongings and clothes

  4. Sprayed with disinfectant

  5. Given smocks to wear

  6. Given a prison number to memorise
• Prisoner routine


  1. Controlled observation of 3 meals

  2. 3 supervised toilet trips

  3. 2 visitors per week
• Zimbardo's role


  Playing the role of the prison warden
• Guard uniform and equipment


  • Uniform including sunglasses
  • Wooden club
  • Handcuffs and keys
  • Complete power except no physical aggression was permitted
• Guard shifts


  • Worked in shifts, 3 at a time
• Zimbardo Findings

  Guards harassed the prisoners and conformed to their percieved roles, so much so that the study had to be stopped after obly 6 days instead of the original 2 weeks.

  Conforming to social roles:

  The prisoners rebelled against the guards after 2 days.

  Prisoners became depressed and anxious causing mental breakdowns; 1 prisoner on the first day and 2 more on the fourth day.

  One prisoner went on hunger strike.
• Zimbardo Conclusions

  The situational factors of the prison environment played a crucial role in creating the guards brutal behaviour. None of the men had displayed such tendencies before starting the experiment. People will readily conform to social roles, especially if they are heavily stereotyped. Due to the situation, their behaviour changes.
• Evaluations of Zimbardos Study

  Strength - A real world application of Zimbardos research, for example Nazi Germany, where Nazi soldiers conformed to their social roles. Zimbardo claims the atrocities carried out are the result of the situational factors that caused the abuse of power in their role. Zimbardos research has clear ecological validity, as it can be applied to real life examples.
• Evaluations of Zimbardos Study

  Limitation - Zimbardo played a dual role in the experiment. He acted as both the researcher and the prison warden. This meant there was conflict between being a researcher and protecting participants and the prison warden whose role was to reinforce the guards. Therefore, his behaviour may have effected the way the experiment went, meaning the validity of it may have been affected by investigator effects.
• Variables Affecting Conformity


  • Group Size
  • Unanimity
  • Difficulty of the task
• Group Size


  1. 2 confederates, participants conformed on 13% of trials

  2. 3 confederates, participants conformed on 32% of trials

  3. 15 confederates, participants conformed on 29% of trials
• Group size increases


  Conformity rates increase
• Unanimity


  1. Someone else in the group agrees or disagrees with the group

  2. Conformity reduced to 5% when 1 confederate gave different answer to everyone else

  3. Conformity reduced to 9% when confederate went against majority but gave incorrect answer
• Someone else disagrees with the group

  Conformity is reduced
• Task is easy


  Less likely to look to others for guidance
• Confidence in task


  Less likely to conform
• Variables affecting conformity


  • Strength of the group
  • Cultural differences
• Asch's line matching task variations


  1. Breaking the unanimity of the group

  2. Leads to a decrease in conformity
• Asch's variations show validity in the argument that a range of variables will affect whether people conform or not
• Individualistic cultures


  • UK, USA
• Collectivist cultures


  • China, Japan
• Conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures (37%) compared to individualistic cultures (25%)
• Cultural differences may explain conformity
• Asch's variations may need to be looked at in context of culture when explaining conformity
• Research into Obedience

  This is when somebody behaves as instructed but does not necessarily change their opinion. Someone who has authority over you and perform the action to behave in the directed way.
• Milgram experiment


  1963
• Participants


  • 40 male volunteers aged between 20 and 50
  • Paid to take part in experiment
• Location


  Yale University, a prestigious university