conformity

• Conformity is when people change their behaviour to fit in with others because of a real or imagine pressure. There are three types of conformity, these are compliance; identification and internalisation.
• Compliance is when a person agrees with what someone else/the group is saying. Behaviour changes in public but does not change in private. This is a short-term type of conformity and is the shallowest form of conformity. Example: agreeing that a food tastes bad in public when you actually like the food.
• Identification is when people conform to be accepted by an individual/group, they feel the need to identify with others. Behaviour changes in public and can sometimes change in private. Identification is typically a short-term form of conformity but can be long-term, this conformity normally happens in the presence of the group. This is the medium level of conformity. Example: a police officer being authoritarian when in uniform but calm when out of uniform (identifying with the group).
• Internalisation is when people take on, accept and believe the behaviours/ideas of others to be true. Behaviour changes in public and in private as there has been a change within the person. This is a long-term type of conformity and is also the deepest type of conformity. Example: views on animal rights changing after meeting people who have a strong view on animal rights.
• There are two explanations of conformity, these are informational social influence and normative social influence.
• Informational social influence (ISI) is when people conform because they lack information, they turn to others for guidance. ISI is a cognitive process and explains internalisation. This is mainly done in ambiguous or new situations, also when we think others are right. Example: looking at someone else's answer and then changing yours to be the same as theirs.
• Normative social influence (NSI) happens when people desire social approval. NSI is an emotional process and explains compliance. This is done to prevent being seen as the odd one out. NSI is seen more when people are in the presence of strangers or in a stressful situation. Example: wearing clothes that the people you're with like.
• Explanations of conformity AO3:

  • Research support (NSI) - Asch (1951). After Asch completed his study he asked ppts why they conformed, most ppts said they conformed because they were scared of disapproval. Validates NSI.
  • Supporting research was done in labs. Little ecological validity, behaviour in real-life environments may change - decreased application to real-life conformity.
  • Research support (ISI) - Lucas at el (2006). Gave ppts maths questions varying in difficulty. The harder the question, the more conformity happened. Validates ISI.
• Asch (1951) aimed to see how much conformity happens in ambiguous situations. He used American male ppts who were told they were doing a vision test. The real participants got put in a group with 7 confederates, the group saw a line and 3 lines, ppts had to pick line A, B or C to match with the initial line. The confederates always said the same, incorrect answer. Asch found that the real ppts conformed in 12/18 of the trials; real ppts conformed 36.8% of the time; 25% of real ppts never conformed. Asch found that people conform to fit in with the majority. NSI.
• Asch did three variations of his study. He changed the group size, task difficulty and unanimity (broke unanimity). He wanted to see if these factors would increase or decrease conformity.
• Asch changed the number of people in a group. Groups would have 2-16 people, 1-15 of them being real ppts and the rest being confederates. Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity. When the majority increased, conformity also increased. However, once 3 confederates were in the group there was no longer a significant increase in conformity. This shows that group size has some influence but is not the main reason for why people conform.
• Asch broke unanimity by getting a confederate to be a dissenter (this confederate would give a different answer compared to the rest of the confederates). Asch found that the real ppts did not conform as much as they did in the baseline when someone else also disagreed with the majority. Conformity dropped to <1/4 of what it was when there was unanimity. Shows that unanimity influences conformity.
• Asch increased the task difficulty. He did this by making the lines more similar in length. Asch found that when the task was harder the real ppts conformed more. This shows that task difficulty influences how much people conform.
• Asch's research AO3:

  • research support - Lucas et al (2006). Found that harder maths problems = more conformity. Task difficulty variation = reliable.
  • Gender bias: all ppts were male. Might not represent how females conform, not generalisable. Culture bias: all American. Little population validity.
  • Ethical issues: informed consent; deception; protection from harm. Sensitive for real ppts & gives psychology a bad reputation. HOWEVER, if ppts knew the true aim they could have presented demand characteristics which would have made the results invalid.
• Deindividuation is when someone looses their sense of personal identity because they are immersed in the norms and values of a group.
• Zimbardo (1971) wanted to see if ppts would adopt to their given role. 21 (24 but 3 left) male ppts, all psychologically stable, either assigned to prisoner of guard. Prisoners were arrested & had to wear uniform & were numbered. Guards = no rules but told to keep prisoners in line & use no physical violence. Zimbardo = superintendent. Day 1: prisoners rebelled, guards locked them up. From this point, all started to adopt to their role. 1 ppt left after 36h, more left in following days. Study stopped at 6 days (meant to be 2 weeks). People conform to social roles - situational explanation.
• Zimbardo's research AO3:

  • controlled, artificial setting. Can control variables, increases internal validity. HOWEVER, not a realistic setting - little ecological validity.
  • unethical: protection from harm. 3 ppts left. zimbardo was the superintendent & tried to stop ppts from leaving (stopping the right to withdraw). Gives psychology a bad reputation.
  • gender bias: all ppts were male (+ American - culture bias). Findings are not representative so lack population validity.