Types of conformity
Conformity = a change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or
imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
3 types of conformity:
- Compliance - agreeing with group but keep personal opinions, results in
temporary change in behaviour
- Identification - value membership of a group so conforms to their
behaviour or ideas to be part of the group even if we don't agree
- Internalisation - personal opinions genuinely change to match the group.
Permanent change in beliefs.
Explanations of conformity
Informative social influence = motivated by a desire to be correct, usually
results in internalisation
Normative = motivated by a desire to be accepted. usually results in
compliance
Research support for normative = Asch as p’s conformed to avoid rejection by
others
Support for informative = Jenness’ ambiguous task involving a glass bottle filled
with beans. Asked participants individually to estimate how many beans the
bottle contained, then in groups. Participants were then asked to estimate the
number on their own again to find whether their initial estimates had altered
, based on the influence of the majority. Results: Almost all changed their
individual guesses to be closer to the group estimate.
Conformity: Asch’s research (NSI)
Aim: study of majority influence
Procedure: 123 male students. 6 confederates and 1 participant. Told it was a
visual test, had to say which line out of a, b or c matched the standard line.
12/18 trials, critical trials, they’d say the wrong answer. Unambiguous task.
Results: Participants conformed on 32% of critical trials where confederates
gave the wrong answers. 75% conformed at least once.
Conclusion: this showed compliance which is a type of conformity as people
changed their public opinion but kept their true opinions in private. (supports
normative social influence)
Ao3 to Asch’s study:
Research that contradicts: Perrin and spencer refute Asch's theory. they
carried out an exact replication of the original Asch experiment using
engineering students. their results showed only 1 in 396 students conformed
to the majority. Perrin and Spencer said this shows that Asch's study lacks
temporal validity, it may have been true in 1950s America when there was
significant political pressure to conform due to the war but 29 years later this
isn't the case.
Limitation: findings can’t be generalised as it was only carried out on 123 white
men thus the sample lacks population validity, it tells us little of how women
conform. His theory is also androcentric as his sample was only 123 males yet
he claimed his theory was universal. He also studied in an individualist country,
studies in collectivist found higher conformity rates due to interdependence
therefore Asch didn’t take gender and cultural differences into account.
Lab experiment resulted in reliable data as the extraneous variables such as
age (a participant variable), was easy to control. However his study has low
ecological validity as Asch’s test of conformity, a line judgement task, is an
artificial task, which does not reflect conformity in everyday life. Consequently,
we are unable to generalise the results of Asch to other real life situations,
such as why people may start smoking or drinking around friends, and
therefore these results are limited in their application to everyday life.
Conformity = a change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or
imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
3 types of conformity:
- Compliance - agreeing with group but keep personal opinions, results in
temporary change in behaviour
- Identification - value membership of a group so conforms to their
behaviour or ideas to be part of the group even if we don't agree
- Internalisation - personal opinions genuinely change to match the group.
Permanent change in beliefs.
Explanations of conformity
Informative social influence = motivated by a desire to be correct, usually
results in internalisation
Normative = motivated by a desire to be accepted. usually results in
compliance
Research support for normative = Asch as p’s conformed to avoid rejection by
others
Support for informative = Jenness’ ambiguous task involving a glass bottle filled
with beans. Asked participants individually to estimate how many beans the
bottle contained, then in groups. Participants were then asked to estimate the
number on their own again to find whether their initial estimates had altered
, based on the influence of the majority. Results: Almost all changed their
individual guesses to be closer to the group estimate.
Conformity: Asch’s research (NSI)
Aim: study of majority influence
Procedure: 123 male students. 6 confederates and 1 participant. Told it was a
visual test, had to say which line out of a, b or c matched the standard line.
12/18 trials, critical trials, they’d say the wrong answer. Unambiguous task.
Results: Participants conformed on 32% of critical trials where confederates
gave the wrong answers. 75% conformed at least once.
Conclusion: this showed compliance which is a type of conformity as people
changed their public opinion but kept their true opinions in private. (supports
normative social influence)
Ao3 to Asch’s study:
Research that contradicts: Perrin and spencer refute Asch's theory. they
carried out an exact replication of the original Asch experiment using
engineering students. their results showed only 1 in 396 students conformed
to the majority. Perrin and Spencer said this shows that Asch's study lacks
temporal validity, it may have been true in 1950s America when there was
significant political pressure to conform due to the war but 29 years later this
isn't the case.
Limitation: findings can’t be generalised as it was only carried out on 123 white
men thus the sample lacks population validity, it tells us little of how women
conform. His theory is also androcentric as his sample was only 123 males yet
he claimed his theory was universal. He also studied in an individualist country,
studies in collectivist found higher conformity rates due to interdependence
therefore Asch didn’t take gender and cultural differences into account.
Lab experiment resulted in reliable data as the extraneous variables such as
age (a participant variable), was easy to control. However his study has low
ecological validity as Asch’s test of conformity, a line judgement task, is an
artificial task, which does not reflect conformity in everyday life. Consequently,
we are unable to generalise the results of Asch to other real life situations,
such as why people may start smoking or drinking around friends, and
therefore these results are limited in their application to everyday life.
