Conformity

• types of conformity AO1


  compliance - short term

  • changes how they act in public but their private beliefs remain the same

  identification - short term

  • change public and private beliefs

  internalisation - long term

  • changes public and private beliefs

  normative social influence

  • compliance
  • identification

  informational social influence

  • internalisation
• explanations of conformity AO1


  normative social influence - conform to feel like part of the group - wanting to be liked, often leads to compliance

  informational social influence - conforms to gain knowledge or because they believe someone else is right - often leads to internalisation
• explanations of conformity AO3


  + research from Asch - normative social influence

  +research from Jenness - informational social influence

  +real world application that demonstrates NSI:

  • Schultz - guests who received message that contained normative info about other guests reduced need for fresh towels by 25%
• Jenness


  aim:

  • examine whether individuals change opinion in ambiguous situations in a group discussion

  method

  • bottle with 811 beans, 26 students who guessed number of beans. divided into groups then estimated vie discussion and got to guess again

  findings:

  • nearly everyone changed their original answer, on average males changed by 256 beans and females 382, range decreased by 75%

  conclusion:

  • individuals change beliefs due to informational social influence as they believe group estimates were more likely to be correct
• Asch original study AO1

  Method:

  • 123 undergraduate students in America taking part in vision test - line judgement task
  • 1 naive participant and 6-8 confederated
  • each participant in 18 trials and confederates gave wrong answer in 12 critical trials

  Findings:

  • real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials, 74% conformed on at least one, 26% never conformed
  • result of NSI
• Variations of Asch

  group size:

  • varied from 1-15 confederates
  • 1 confederate - real participant conformed on 3% of critical trials
  • 3 confederates - conformed on 32% of critical trials - limit of conformity
  • 15 confederates - conformity dropped

  unanimity:

  • one confed gives right answer throughout - rate of conformity dropped to 5%
  • one confer give different incorrect answer - dropped to 9%

  task difficulty:

  • in origianl study the correct answer was obvious
  • made line lengths shorter so appeared closer together
  • conformity increased - informational social influence
• Asch AO3


  .

  • biased sample of 123 male students from America - population validity, beta bias
  • low levels of ecological validity: lacks mundane realism so harder to generalise
  • research a 'child of its time' - research took place when conformity would of been higher. Perrin and Spencer - lower levels of conformity amoungst maths and engineering students - lacks historical and temporal validity
  • ethically dubious - deception and protection from harm