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social influence and asch - conformity - Coggle Diagram
social influence and asch - conformity
conformity
a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a group of people
types
compliance - simply going along with others in public but privately not changing personal opinions or behaviour. it results in a superficial change and it is also only temporary as it stops when the group isn't present
identification - conforming to the opinions and behaviours of a group because we value being part of it. it is a moderate type of conformity. we publicly change our opinions and behaviours as we value being a part of the group even though we privately don't agree with it
internalisation - occurs when a person genuinely accepts the group norms. this is a deep type of conformity which results in a private change as well as a public one. the change is likely permenant because attitudes have been internalised, the change persists despite the absence of the group members
explanations - Deutsch and Gerard developed a two process theory
informational social influence - an explanation that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it is correct. we accept it because we want it to be correct as well. this may lead to internalisation. it is all about who has the better information, it is most likely to happen in situations that are new to a person or in situations where there is some ambiguity where it isn't clear what is right. decisions must be made quickly so people look to experts
normative social influence - an explanation that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked. this may lead to compliance. it is about social norms, people do not want to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval than be rejected. it is an emotional process rather than cognitive. it is most likely to occur in situations where you feel conscious about rejection
evaluating explanations
strength - Lucas et al asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult. there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easier ones. the study shows that people conform in situations when they feel they don't know the answer, which is exactly the situation predicted by the ISI explanation when we look to people and assume they know the better answer.
limitation - some research shows that NSI does not affect everyones behaviour. for example people who are less concerned with being liked are less effected by NSI. those who have a need for association with others are described as nA'ffiliators. McGhee and Teevan found that students who had a high need for affiliation were more likely to conform. this shows that there are individual differences in the way people respond.
limitation - Deutsch and Gerard's two process theory states that behaviour is due to either NSI or ISI, not both. However, more often than not both process are involved. conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant in Asch's experiment. the dissenter may reduce the power of NSI because the dissenter provides social support and may also reduce the power of ISI because there is no alternative source of information. this casts doubt over the NSI and ISI explanations.
asch
procedure - 123 male American undergraduates were tested in groups of 6-8. they were told it was psychological experiment about visual judgements. each group contained only 1 real participant and the others were confederates. Asch showed a series of lines to the participants who were asked to say out loud which line matched the standard line. participants always answered in the same order, either last or second to last. the confederates were instructed to give the same incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trials, called critical trials
results - on the 12 critical trails, the naive participant gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time. one quarter of the participants did not conform on any of the trials meaning 75% conformed at least once. to show the trial was unambiguous, Asch conducted a control trial with no confederates giving the wrong answers.
conclusions - normative social influence had led to conformity- the real participants agreed with the opinion of the group because they wished to be accepted by them.
asch conducted three variations
group size - with three confederates, conformity rose to 31.8% however the addition of further confederates made little difference. this suggests that a small majority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted but there is no need for a majority of more than three
unanimity - he wanted to know if the presence of another non-conforming person would affect the naive participants. he introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others, sometimes giving the correct answer and sometimes giving the wrong one. the presence of a dissenting confederate meant that conformity was reduced by a quarter, enabling the naive participants to behave more independently. this suggests that the influence of the majority depends on the group being unanimous.
task difficulty - asch made the line judging tasks more difficult by making the comparison lines similar in length. he found that conformity increased under these conditions suggesting that social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder because the situation becomes more ambiguous so people are more likely to look to other people for the answers.
evaluating asch
strength - there is a high degree of control. asch was able to manipulate the lines to make the task more difficult and found that conformity increased as the participants looked to others for the answer. using a lab experiement meant that variables were easy to manipulate to test factors affecting conformity, increasing the validity of the results
limitation - there are ethical issues with his research. the participants were deceived as they believed the confederates were also participants who were taking part in a 'visual judgement' task. this is a limitation as participants could not give true informed consent. HOWEVER THE BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THE ETHICAL ISSUES AS IT WOULD NOT HAVE WORKED WITHOUT DECEPTION
limitation - there are important cultural differences in conformity yet asch only tested American males. Smith et al found that the average conformity rate in individualist cultures was 25% while the average conformity rate in collectivist cultures was 37%. Neto suggested women were more conformist than men due to their concern for social relationships. this suggests that asch's findings can only be generalised to American men, meaning it has low population validity