AQA A Level Psychology Social Influence Review Questions and Answers

State the definition of conformity An individual is said to be conforming if they choose a course of action that is favoured by the majority of the group members. State and explain the three types of conformity Compliance - Individuals follow what the group is doing in order to be accepted or to fit in, even if there personal views may differ to the one they are portraying. This will not chance their underlying attitude towards something. (Asch) Internalisation - This involves both public and private attitudes and is where the individual may believe that the groups view, after close inspection, is correct and theirs is wrong. This leads them to changing their public and private view towards something in order to be correct. This is the deepest level of conformity and becomes a permanent attitude. (Sherif's Autokinetic) Identification - The individuals attitudes both private and publicly will change but in this case only for a temporary amount of time and also is in order to fit in and be liked, essentially it is a mix of compliance and internalisation. (Zimbardo) There are two explanations for conformity, outline and explain them Normative Social Influence - This is where people go along with a majority in order to feel that they fit in and not be ridiculed for having a different opinion to everyone else. Informational Social Influence - Occurs when an individual accepts information from the majority as they see them as experts or someone with more understanding of a particular subject. This is done in order to be correct. Outline and evaluate a study into informational social influence Jenness setup an ambiguous situation where participants were asked individually to estimate how many beans were in a glass bottle they were shown. This was recorded and participants were then put in a room with a group of people and asked as a group to come to an estimate. Again they were asked individually if they would like to change their original estimate, and nearly all of them decided they would like to change. This shows that most of them went through informational social influence where they conformed with a group in order