Conformity

• Conformity: A change in a persons behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
• Group size: Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased with group size but only up to a certain point (when the majority was greater than 3).
• Unanimity: The extent to which all members of a group agree.
• Task difficulty: Asch's line judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer, causing conformity to increase.
• What was Asch's baseline procedure?

  • He wanted to know to the extent people would conform to the opinions of others.
  • He had one participant in a group of confederates and told them to say which line was the closest to the control line.
  • The confederates chose the wrong answer and Asch wanted to know if the participant would go with the majority or not.
• Three variables investigated by Asch: group size, unanimity and task difficulty.
• How did Asch test group size?

  He varied the number of confederates from one to fifteen, he found that conformity increased with group size but only to a certain point. With three confederates conformity rose to 31.8% but the presence of more confederates made little difference. This suggests that just one or two people are able to sway opinions.
• How did Asch test unanimity?

  He wanted to test if the presence of a non conforming person would affect the participants conformity, he introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others. Asch found that the presence of a dissenter made it more likley for the real participant to not conform.
• How did Asch test task difficulty?

  He wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity, he increased the difficulty making the lines look very similar in length. he found that conformity increased. If they didn't fully know the answer they may have looked to other people for guidance.
• Evaluation of Asch's study (limitation)-

  Artificial situation and task: Participants knew they were being researched and may have responded to demand characteristics. The task was trivial and there was no reason to not conform. The groups also did not reflect real life which means the findings do not generalise to real world situations.
• Evaluation of Asch's study (limitation)-

  Limited application: Asch's participants were all American men, other research suggests that women may be more conformist. The US is also an individualistic society where people are more concerned for themselves, the results could have been different in collectivist cultures.
• Evaluation of Asch's study (Strength)-

  Research support: Lucas et al asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems, the participants conformed more often to wrong answers when the problems were harder. This shows that Asch was right about people conforming more when the task is harder.

  Counterpoint: Lucas et al also showed that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested. Individual level factors can influence conformity as well.
• Types of conformity: Internalisation, Identification and compliance
• Internalisation: Deepest type of conformity, when the person genuinely accepts the groups norms. Results in private and public change of opinion, the change persists even when apart from the group.
• Identification: The person acts the same way as the group because they value and identify with the group. Public change of opinion because they want to be accepted even if they don't privately agree.
• Compliance: A superficial and temporary type of conformity where people go along with others in public but don't change their opinions in private. Change in opinion only lasts if the group is monitoring them.
• Explanations for conformity: Informational social influence and normative social influence.
• Informational social influence: The tendency to conform to the opinion of others because we believe their opinion is correct. We accept it because you may not know the actual answer so it is easier to agree with others. Follow the behaviour of the group because we want to be right as well. Could lead to a permanent change in opinion or behaviour (internalisation).
• Normative social influence: People conform to the norms of society as to not look foolish and to gain social approval. Leads to a temporary change in behaviour and is due to not wanting to feel rejected (compliance).
• Evaluation of explanations of conformity (strength):

  Research support for NSI- When Asch interviewed people in his experiment, they said they conformed to avoid looking foolish. Shows that at least some conformity is due to a fear of rejection.
• Evaluations of explanations of conformity (Strength):

  Research support for ISI- Lucas et al found that when he gave participants harder maths problems they were more likely to conform to the majority. Shows that if they don't know the answer they will look for guidance from others.

  Counterpoint- It may be hard to separate ISI and NSI as they could both play a part in conformity for the same situation.
• Evaluations of explanations of conformity (limitation):

  Individual differences in NSI- NSI doesn't predict conformity in every case. Some are more likely to conform than others, it's subjective. Individual differences in conformity cannot be explained by just one theory.
• Zimbardo: Stanford prison study

  • Set up a mock prison for 21 students (men) who were randomly assigned a role, guard or prisoner.
  • They were encouraged to conform to their roles through uniform and instructions
• Uniforms (Stanford prison study): Both roles were given uniforms, the prisoners were referred to as a number. The guards had a wooden club, handcuffs and mirror shades. This created a loss of personal identity.
• Instructions (Stanford prison study): The participants were encouraged to identify with their role through several procedures. E.G. applying for parole over leaving the study. The guards were remined they had complete control.
• Findings (Stanford prison study): The guards took up their roles with enthusiasm, after 2 days the prisoners rebelled. After the rebellion was put down the prisoners accepted their position. The guards were brutal and many of the 'prisoners' had to leave due to psychological harm. The study had to end after just 6 days.
• Conclusions (Stanford prison study): Social roles appear to have strong influence on peoples behaviour. They came to acting as if they were actually in a prison as opposed to a study.
• Evaluation of Stanford prison study (strength):

  Control- Zimbardo had control over key variables for example the roles were randomly assigned meaning that any difference in the way they acted was due to conformity not personality. This means the study had good internal validity.
• Evaluation of Stanford prison study (limitation):

  Lack of realism- It didn't have the realism of a true prison. The participants could have just been play-acting, their performance was based on stereotypes, so it tells us that the study says little about social roles (Banuazizi & Movahedi)

  Counterpoint- McDermott argues the participants spoke about it like real prison because it was it them, suggesting that the SPS did replicate a prison.
• Evaluation of Stanford prison study (limitation):

  Exaggerates power of roles- Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour. Most guards were able to resist being brutal which shows Zimbardo overstated the view of how they were conforming to social roles.