TYPES OF CONFORMITY:
What is conformity?
When a person changes their attitude or behaviour due to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ group pressure.
There are three different levels of conformity: Compliance, Identification and Internalisation.
Compliance: lowest level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour but NOT their
private beliefs, this is usually a short-term change.
Identification: middle level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour AND their
private beliefs, but only while in presence of the group they are trying to identify with, this is usually
a short-term change.
Internalisation: deepest level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour AND their
private beliefs, this is usually a long-term change.
There are two types of social influence: Normative social influence and Informational social
influence.
Normative social influence (compliance, identification): is when an individual conforms to be
associated, accepted and belong to a group. This is socially rewarding and means the individual can
avoid punishment.
Informational social influence (internalisation): is when an individual conforms to gain knowledge
and be ‘right.’ This enables an individual to act appropriately and avoid standing out.
RESEARCH INTO CONFORMITY
Jenness (1932)
Jenness was one of the first psychologists to study conformity. His experiment used an ambiguous
situation involving a glass bottle filled with beans. He asked participants individually to estimate how
many beans the bottle contained.
Jenness then put the group in a room with the bottle and asked them to provide a group estimate
through discussion.
Jenness found that nearly all participants changed their original answer when they were provided with
another opportunity to estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle.
Males Females
Average estimate before 790 925
Average estimate after 695 878
Average change 256 382
1
,Asch (1951)
Asch’s sample consisted of 123 male students from three different colleges in the USA, who believed
they were taking part in a vision test. Asch used a line judgement task, where he played one naïve
participant in a room with seven to nine confederates (actors), who had agreed their answers in
advance. The naive participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other seven to nine people
were also real participants. The naive and participant was always seated second from last. In turn,
each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was most like the target line in length. The
correct answer was always clear. Each participant completed 18 trials, and the confederates gave the
same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials. Asch wanted to see if the real participant
would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect.
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, the
real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the
participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the participants never conformed.
Lacks ecological validity- Asch uses an artificial task that does not represent everyday examples
(e.g. smoking/drinking) of conformity; this task had no real consequences.
Lacks population validity- all the sample is made up of men (gender bias) and therefore does not
demonstrate how females conform; all the men were American (ethnocentrism) and therefore may not
demonstrate how other cultures conform.
Lacks temporal validity- the study took place in 1951, and levels of conformity may have changed
in the last 60-70 years.
There is a lot of evidence to back up Asch’s claim that task difficulty is one of the factors that
affects conformity. Todd Lucas et al. asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems.
Participants were given answers from three other students (not actually real). The participants
conformed more often (i.e. agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder.
Asch used a highly controlled lab procedure, therefore meaning that there was a reduction in
extraneous variables; it was easier to replicate to test for reliability and provides an interesting starting
point for conformity research.
Asch’s Variations
2
, Variation Overall conformity on critical trials
(higher/lower) and % (if applicable)
Group size: 1 Confederate Lower (3%)
Group size: 2 Confederates Lower (12.8%)
Group size: 3 Confederates Remained the same (32%)
Group size: 15 Confederates Lower (29%)
Group size:
Asch wanted to see if the number of people giving a wrong answer (confederates) would affect
conformity. He found that conformity increased with group size up to a certain point but plateaued
after reaching a specific number of confederates.
Unanimity:
Asch explored the impact of a dissenting opinion within the group. He discovered that even one
dissenting confederate, regardless of whether they were correct, significantly reduced conformity.
Task Difficulty:
Asch examined how the difficulty of the task influenced conformity. He found that when the task
was more difficult or ambiguous, participants were more likely to conform to the group's answer.
CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL ROLES:
3
What is conformity?
When a person changes their attitude or behaviour due to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ group pressure.
There are three different levels of conformity: Compliance, Identification and Internalisation.
Compliance: lowest level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour but NOT their
private beliefs, this is usually a short-term change.
Identification: middle level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour AND their
private beliefs, but only while in presence of the group they are trying to identify with, this is usually
a short-term change.
Internalisation: deepest level of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour AND their
private beliefs, this is usually a long-term change.
There are two types of social influence: Normative social influence and Informational social
influence.
Normative social influence (compliance, identification): is when an individual conforms to be
associated, accepted and belong to a group. This is socially rewarding and means the individual can
avoid punishment.
Informational social influence (internalisation): is when an individual conforms to gain knowledge
and be ‘right.’ This enables an individual to act appropriately and avoid standing out.
RESEARCH INTO CONFORMITY
Jenness (1932)
Jenness was one of the first psychologists to study conformity. His experiment used an ambiguous
situation involving a glass bottle filled with beans. He asked participants individually to estimate how
many beans the bottle contained.
Jenness then put the group in a room with the bottle and asked them to provide a group estimate
through discussion.
Jenness found that nearly all participants changed their original answer when they were provided with
another opportunity to estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle.
Males Females
Average estimate before 790 925
Average estimate after 695 878
Average change 256 382
1
,Asch (1951)
Asch’s sample consisted of 123 male students from three different colleges in the USA, who believed
they were taking part in a vision test. Asch used a line judgement task, where he played one naïve
participant in a room with seven to nine confederates (actors), who had agreed their answers in
advance. The naive participant was deceived and was led to believe that the other seven to nine people
were also real participants. The naive and participant was always seated second from last. In turn,
each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was most like the target line in length. The
correct answer was always clear. Each participant completed 18 trials, and the confederates gave the
same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials. Asch wanted to see if the real participant
would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect.
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, the
real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the
participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the participants never conformed.
Lacks ecological validity- Asch uses an artificial task that does not represent everyday examples
(e.g. smoking/drinking) of conformity; this task had no real consequences.
Lacks population validity- all the sample is made up of men (gender bias) and therefore does not
demonstrate how females conform; all the men were American (ethnocentrism) and therefore may not
demonstrate how other cultures conform.
Lacks temporal validity- the study took place in 1951, and levels of conformity may have changed
in the last 60-70 years.
There is a lot of evidence to back up Asch’s claim that task difficulty is one of the factors that
affects conformity. Todd Lucas et al. asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems.
Participants were given answers from three other students (not actually real). The participants
conformed more often (i.e. agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder.
Asch used a highly controlled lab procedure, therefore meaning that there was a reduction in
extraneous variables; it was easier to replicate to test for reliability and provides an interesting starting
point for conformity research.
Asch’s Variations
2
, Variation Overall conformity on critical trials
(higher/lower) and % (if applicable)
Group size: 1 Confederate Lower (3%)
Group size: 2 Confederates Lower (12.8%)
Group size: 3 Confederates Remained the same (32%)
Group size: 15 Confederates Lower (29%)
Group size:
Asch wanted to see if the number of people giving a wrong answer (confederates) would affect
conformity. He found that conformity increased with group size up to a certain point but plateaued
after reaching a specific number of confederates.
Unanimity:
Asch explored the impact of a dissenting opinion within the group. He discovered that even one
dissenting confederate, regardless of whether they were correct, significantly reduced conformity.
Task Difficulty:
Asch examined how the difficulty of the task influenced conformity. He found that when the task
was more difficult or ambiguous, participants were more likely to conform to the group's answer.
CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL ROLES:
3
