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Social influence - Conformity - Coggle Diagram
Social influence - Conformity
There is more then one type of conformity
Internalisation means accepting the majority's views as your own, as you've internalised them so they're now your own too
Compliance is going along with things even if you disagree with them. This is to appear normal and is a part of normative social influence.
Identification means doing what's expected of you to fulfil a social role, so therefore changing your behaviour because you want to fit a specific role in society.
Sherif's research into conformity and the auto kinetic effect
The method used a lab experiment with repeated measures design. She used a visual illusions, where a stationary spot light viewed in a dark room, appears to move . Participants were falsely told that the experimenter would move the light. They had to estimate how far it had moved. In the first phase, individual participants made repeated estimates. They were then put into groups of 3 people, where they each made their estimate with the others present, and were then retested individually.
Results - When they were alone the participants developed their own estimates, which varied a lot between participants. Once they were in a group their answers changed and were more alike. When they were retested on their own the estimates were more like the group estimates then the original answers
Conclusion - Participants were influenced by the estimates of other people, and a group norm developed. Estimates converged because participants used information from others to help them - they were affected by informational social influence
Asch's research on conformity on an unambiguous task
Method - Asch carried out a lab experiment with an independent group design. Groups of 8 participants judged the line lengths by saying which lines are the same length. Each group had at least one participant and the rest were confederates. The real participant always went last or last but one, so they heard the others' answers before giving theirs. Each participants did 18 trails. On 12 of these the confederates all gave the same wrong answer. There was also a control group, where the participants judged the line lengths in isolation.
Results - In the control trials, participants gave the wrong answer 0.7% of the time. In the critical trails, participants conformed to the majority 37% of the time. 75% conformed at least once. Afterwards, some participants said they didn't really believe their answers, but didn't want to look different.
Conclusion - The control condition showed that the task was easy to get right. However, 37% were wrong on the critical trails - they conformed to the majority due to normative social influence.
Asch's participants were influenced by situational factors
Group size - You might expect that the bigger the majority is, the more influential it will be. If that was the case, it would be easier to resist conforming when there were fewer people to influence you. To test this, Asch conducted his conformity experiment with different numbers of confederates as the majority.
Unanimity - Asch absolutely loved doing his conformity experiment, so he ran yet another version of it to test the effect of having a supporter in the group. Rather than the confederates forming a unanimous majority, one of the confederates agreed with the participant.
Task difficulty - When Asch made the task more difficult by making the lines more similar, conformity levels increased. People are more likely to conform if they're less confident that they're correct.
Social roles are the behaviours that society expects from you
People hold different positions in society, such as a teenager, grandparent, manager, priest, etc. Most people occupy several positions at the same time - e.g. student, waiter, brother and son.
Social roles are the sets of behaviours and expectations that come with holding these positions .
For example, in our society a woman who has a baby might be expected to look after and love her child - these are the behaviours that fulfil the social roles of 'mother'.
Conformity into social roles
People hold different positions in society in society, such as teenager, grandparent, manager, priest, etc.
Social roles are the sets of behaviours and expectations that come with holding these positions
Zimbardo's Stanford prison study
Method - Male students were recruited to act either guards or prisoner or guard, and their behaviour was observed. The prisoners were 'arrested' as they went about their day, taken to 'prison' and given uniforms and numbers. The guards also wore uniforms and mirrored sunglasses.
Results - Initially, the guards tried to assert their author their authority and the prisoner resisted by sticking toether. The prisoners then became more passive and obidient, while the guards invented nastier punishments. The experiment was abandoned early because some prisoners became very distressed
Conclusion - Guards and prisoners adopted their social roles quickly. Zimbardo claims this shows that our social role can influence our behaviour - seemingly well balanced men became unpleasant and aggressive in the role of guard
Reicher and Haslam - The BBC prison study
Method - This was a controlled observation in a mock prison, which was filmed for televison. The participants were 15 male volunteers who had responded to an advert. They were randomly assigned to 2 groups - 5 were guards and 10 were prisoners. They had daily tests to measure levels of depression, compliance with rules, and stress. The prisoners knew that oe of them, chosen at random, would become a guard after 3 days. An independent ethics committee had the power to stop the experiment at any time in order to protect the participants.
Results - The guard failed to form a united group and identify with their role. They didn't always exercise their power and said they felt uncomfortable with the inequality of the situation. In the first 3 days, the prisoners tried to act in a way that would get them promoted to guard status. After one was promoted they became a much stronger group because they knew there were no more chances of promotion. The unequal system collapsed due to the unwillingness of guards and the strength of the prisoner group. On day 6 the prisoners rebelled and the participants decided to live in a democracy, but this also collapsed due to tensions within the group. Some study was abandoned early on the advice of the ethics committee, as the participants showed signs of stress.
Conclusion - The participants didn't fit into their expected social roles, suggesting that these roles are flexible.