Conformity

• Types and Explanations - PEEL 1:

  Strength - supports NSI - Asch interviewed his PP and they conformed because they feel self-conscious - When PPs wrote answers down, conformity fell to 12.5% as giving answer privately means no NSI
• Types and Explanations - PEEL 2:

  Strength - ISI Support - Lucas et al (2006) - found that PPs conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths questions were hard - this is because when the questions were easy - PPs ‘knew their own minds’ when Qus were hard the situation became unclear
• Types and Explanations - PEEL 3:

  Limitation - NSI doesn‘t always predict conformity - some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others (nAffiliators - need for affiliation and want to relate to others) - therefore individual differences in conformity cant be explained by 1 theory
• Types and Explanations - PEEL 4:

  Limitation - unclear whether it is NSI or ISI at work in real life - hard to separate as they both operate together in most real world conformity situations
• Types and Explanations - PEEL Paragraphs:

  1. Strength - Supports NSI
  2. Strength - Supports ISI
  3. NSI doesn’t predict conformity for everyone
  4. Unclear whether its NSI or ISI
• Conformity - a type of social influence that is defined as ‘yielding to group pressures’
• Conformity = ’ a change in a person behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people’
• Conformity occurs when:

  • someone changes their usual behaviour to fit a group
  • someone feels they will be rejected if they don’t align with group behaviour
  • expressing opinions that align with the group even if they don’t agree

  ————- > All examples are majority influence
• Majority influence - few influenced by the many
• Types of Conformity proposed by Kelman:

  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation - When someone not only accepts and agrees with the group publicly but also privately - i.e they have internalised the groups norms

  • strongest type of conformity
• Identification - Someone may temporarily adopt the behaviour of a role model or group if they wish to be included

  -e.g. conforming to (police, nurse or a teacher)
• Compliance - Involves someone agreeing with behaving like the group on the outside but disagreeing in private

  • weakest type of conformity as it only involves superficial change
• Explanations of conformity:

  • Informational social influence
  • Normative social influence
• Informational social influence = the need to know what to do (fear of social disproval or humiliation)
• Normative social influence = The need to be liked/accepted by others (fear of rejection)
• Informative social influence:

  • ISI tends to be when an individual is unsure and lacks knowledge about a situation and so looks to the group for guidance
  • can take place when there is a crisis situation, a decision needs to be made quickly and the assumption follows that the group knows what to use
  • Someone is more likely to be affected by ISI if they are insecure
• Informative social influence links internalisation
• Normative social influence:

  • tends to take place when the individual wishes to be accepted by a group
  • when an individual is trying to fit in with the groups norms
  • More likely to be affected by NSI if they feel that their own behaviour doesn’t align with the group and this causes them some anxiety

  ————-> more emotional than ISI
• Normative Social Influence example = Agreeing with the group that the new film was rubbish whilst secretly enjoying it
• Informative social influence example - Following the group at lunch time as you assume they know where they are going
• Asch (1951) supports NSI
• Asch (1951) - Aim:

  To investigate conformity and majority influence
• Asch (1951) - Sample:

  • 123 American males
  • Groups of 6 (1 true PP and 5 confederates)
• Asch (1951) - Procedure:

  • PPs presented with 4 lines (3 comparison and one 1 standard)
  • Asked which of the 3 lines was the same as the comparison line and had to answer out loud
  • The real PP always answered last
  • Confederates gave the wrong answer for 12/18 trials
  • Asch observed how often the PP would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates or the correct answer
• Asch (1951) - Findings:

  • 36.8% conformed
  • 25% never conformed
  • 75% conformed at least once
• Factors affecting level of conformity:

  • group size
  • unanimity of majority
  • Task difficulty
• Group size/ size of majority:

  An individual is more likely to conform when a large group does

  Asch - if all 3 confederates agree on an answer then conformity is more likely
• Unanimity of majority:

  An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous
• Task difficulty:

  An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult as we are more certain of our answer so look to others for confirmation
• Asch - Control trial:

  PPs experienced the same test but without the confederates to eliminate eyesight as an extraneous variable)

  • only 1% of responses were incorrect
• Asch Evaluation 1:

  Strength = High internal validity - there was strict control over extraneous variables such as timing of the test and type of task used
• Asch Evaluation 2:

  Strength = lab experiment - can be easily replicated which increases reliability
• Asch Evaluation 3:

  Strength = Supports NSI as PP’s reported they wanted to fit in with the group
• Asch Evaluation 4:

  Weakness - lacks ecological validity- wasn’t an everyday task that would take place in real life
• Asch Evaluation 5:

  Weakness = lacks population validity - Only males used so has gender bias and can’t be generalised to females
• Asch Evaluation 6:

  Weakness - ethical issues - deception as PPs were tricked into thinking the study was about conception rather than conformity - psychological harm to PPs as they may be embarrassed when realising the true intentions of the study
• Asch Evaluation 7:

  Weakness - lacks temporal validity - the social context of the 1950s when people were more afraid to speak out - so can’t be generalised across all time periods