Social Influence 16 Mark Essay Plans
Discuss Types and Explanations for Conformity
AO1 Conformity is a change of behaviour/ views due to social influence.
Types:
Compliance- agree with the group externally but keep personal opinions.
Identification- behaviour and opinions change only when with the group.
Internalisation- personal opinions match up with the group’s opinions (permanent change)
Explanations:
Normative social influence- when an individual’s opinions/ behaviour change to match the
groups to fit in and avoid rejection, this type of conformity is often compliance and is
temporary.
Informational social influence- looking to the group for guidance if the individual is uncertain
as the individual believes the group has more knowledge. This often leads to internalisation
and is driven by the need to be correct.
AO3 1. Asch’s 3-line experiment shows evidence for normative social influence. This study
involved a group with 1 participant and the rest were confederates. They were then
presented with a card with three lines and a card with 1 line and asked to match
which line (of 3) was the same length as the single line, but confederates gave the
wrong answer every 12/18 trials. Asch observed whether the participant conformed
by giving the same incorrect answer. They found that 75% conformed at least once,
showing evidence for normative social influence.
2. When the conforming participants were interviewed to discover why they conformed,
many answered that it was to avoid rejection, providing evidence for NSI.
3. Strengths of this study are that it is a lab study so there was high control of
extraneous variables, meaning we can determine a cause-and-effect relationship and
the results had high internal validity and are reliable (as the study is easily
replicable).
4. Limitations; as it was a lab study and uses an artificial task, it has low ecological
validity meaning we cannot generalise the results to real life situations. Furthermore,
as it took place in a lab, the participant may have guessed the true aims of the study
and presented demand characteristics in order to please the researcher, decreasing
the validity. There are population issues with this study due to the small sample size
of only American undergraduate males, so this population is not representative of the
population, yet the results were generalised to an entire population, including
females so this is an example of beta bias. Finally, there are ethical issues regarding
this study as the participant was deceived as they did not know the true aims of the
study so could not give informed consent. A cost/ benefit analysis needs to be done
to analyse whether the ethical issues are smaller than the benefits.
5. Asch’s variations also investigated the effects of group size, task difficulty and
unanimity and observed its effects on conformity.
6. Difficult to separate the two explanations and determine which one is at play as they
are not exclusive. This suggests that they should be seen as complementary.
7. Research support for ISI from Jenness who asked participants separately and then in
groups, then make a second guess of the number of sweets in a jar. The individuals
second private guess was closer to the groups guess then the first private guess,
providing evidence for ISI.
Discuss Types and Explanations for Conformity
AO1 Conformity is a change of behaviour/ views due to social influence.
Types:
Compliance- agree with the group externally but keep personal opinions.
Identification- behaviour and opinions change only when with the group.
Internalisation- personal opinions match up with the group’s opinions (permanent change)
Explanations:
Normative social influence- when an individual’s opinions/ behaviour change to match the
groups to fit in and avoid rejection, this type of conformity is often compliance and is
temporary.
Informational social influence- looking to the group for guidance if the individual is uncertain
as the individual believes the group has more knowledge. This often leads to internalisation
and is driven by the need to be correct.
AO3 1. Asch’s 3-line experiment shows evidence for normative social influence. This study
involved a group with 1 participant and the rest were confederates. They were then
presented with a card with three lines and a card with 1 line and asked to match
which line (of 3) was the same length as the single line, but confederates gave the
wrong answer every 12/18 trials. Asch observed whether the participant conformed
by giving the same incorrect answer. They found that 75% conformed at least once,
showing evidence for normative social influence.
2. When the conforming participants were interviewed to discover why they conformed,
many answered that it was to avoid rejection, providing evidence for NSI.
3. Strengths of this study are that it is a lab study so there was high control of
extraneous variables, meaning we can determine a cause-and-effect relationship and
the results had high internal validity and are reliable (as the study is easily
replicable).
4. Limitations; as it was a lab study and uses an artificial task, it has low ecological
validity meaning we cannot generalise the results to real life situations. Furthermore,
as it took place in a lab, the participant may have guessed the true aims of the study
and presented demand characteristics in order to please the researcher, decreasing
the validity. There are population issues with this study due to the small sample size
of only American undergraduate males, so this population is not representative of the
population, yet the results were generalised to an entire population, including
females so this is an example of beta bias. Finally, there are ethical issues regarding
this study as the participant was deceived as they did not know the true aims of the
study so could not give informed consent. A cost/ benefit analysis needs to be done
to analyse whether the ethical issues are smaller than the benefits.
5. Asch’s variations also investigated the effects of group size, task difficulty and
unanimity and observed its effects on conformity.
6. Difficult to separate the two explanations and determine which one is at play as they
are not exclusive. This suggests that they should be seen as complementary.
7. Research support for ISI from Jenness who asked participants separately and then in
groups, then make a second guess of the number of sweets in a jar. The individuals
second private guess was closer to the groups guess then the first private guess,
providing evidence for ISI.
