A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
, Conformity
Types of conformity:
Deepest - Internalisation: the person conforms publicly and
level privately as they have accepted and internalised the
views of the group. The group doesn’t need to be
present as it becomes part of the individuals own
behaviour and beliefs.
- Identification: when people conform publicly as well as
privately as the have identified with a group and have
sense of group membership. Change in behaviour or
belief is often temporary and doesn’t remain when the
person is no longer part of the group.
- Compliance: is where someone conforms publicly but
Shallowes disagrees privately – usually due to the desire to fit in.
t level
Explanations of conformity:
- Normative Social Influence (NSI) – is a type of social
influence that in volves a change in behaviour that’s
deemed necessary in order to fit in a particular group.
- Informational Social Influence (ISI) – when a person
conforms to gain knowledge or because the believe
someone else is right.
Conformity Study: Asch
- Participants: 50 male participants from Swarthmore
College who believed they were taking part in a visions
test.
- Procedure: Asch use a line judgement task and he put
a naïve participant in a room with 7 confederates. The
agreed in advance what their answers would be. The
real participants were led to believe the confederates
were also real participants, they also gave their answers
last (A, B, C). There were 18 trials, and the confederates
were wrong on 12.
- Findings: 32% of participants conformed with the
incorrect majority. 25% of participants never conformed.
75% of participants conformed at least once.
- Factors affecting levels of conformity: Group size –
Asch found conformity increased when the group size
, increased e.g. conformity increased by 13%, when 3 or
more people were added conformity increased to 32%.
Unanimity – Asch introduced a confederate who
disagreed with the others which enabled the real
participants to behave independently. Task difficulty –
when the line was smaller in length, it was harder to
judge the right answer, when we’re uncertain we look
for others for confirmation therefore, conformity had
increased in these conditions.
- Methodological issues: Asch used a biased sample as
all participants were males of the same age group –
study lacks ecological validity so results can’t be
generalised to other groups of people. He also used an
artificial task to measure conformity – low ecological
validity and results cannot be generalised to real life
situations.
- Ethical Issues: Participants aren’t protected from the
psychological stress which may occur if they disagreed
with the majority. Asch deceived student volunteers
claiming they were taking part in visions test.
Conformity to Social Roles: Zimbardo
Zimbardo (1973) – The Stanford Prison
Experiment:
- Aim: examine whether people would conform to social
roles of a prisoner or prison guard in a mock prison
environment.
- Sample: consisted of 21 male university students who
had volunteered in response to a newspaper advert.
Participants were randomly allocated to the role of a
prisoner or prison guard.
- Prisoners were arrested by real police and were
fingerprinted, stripped, chained and were given a
numbered smock to wear. Prison guards were given
reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and uniforms. The
experiment was set to run for 2 weeks. Zimbardo found
the prisoners and prison guards quickly identified to
their roles, within days prisoners rebelled but this was
squashed by the guards who became aggressive and
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
, Conformity
Types of conformity:
Deepest - Internalisation: the person conforms publicly and
level privately as they have accepted and internalised the
views of the group. The group doesn’t need to be
present as it becomes part of the individuals own
behaviour and beliefs.
- Identification: when people conform publicly as well as
privately as the have identified with a group and have
sense of group membership. Change in behaviour or
belief is often temporary and doesn’t remain when the
person is no longer part of the group.
- Compliance: is where someone conforms publicly but
Shallowes disagrees privately – usually due to the desire to fit in.
t level
Explanations of conformity:
- Normative Social Influence (NSI) – is a type of social
influence that in volves a change in behaviour that’s
deemed necessary in order to fit in a particular group.
- Informational Social Influence (ISI) – when a person
conforms to gain knowledge or because the believe
someone else is right.
Conformity Study: Asch
- Participants: 50 male participants from Swarthmore
College who believed they were taking part in a visions
test.
- Procedure: Asch use a line judgement task and he put
a naïve participant in a room with 7 confederates. The
agreed in advance what their answers would be. The
real participants were led to believe the confederates
were also real participants, they also gave their answers
last (A, B, C). There were 18 trials, and the confederates
were wrong on 12.
- Findings: 32% of participants conformed with the
incorrect majority. 25% of participants never conformed.
75% of participants conformed at least once.
- Factors affecting levels of conformity: Group size –
Asch found conformity increased when the group size
, increased e.g. conformity increased by 13%, when 3 or
more people were added conformity increased to 32%.
Unanimity – Asch introduced a confederate who
disagreed with the others which enabled the real
participants to behave independently. Task difficulty –
when the line was smaller in length, it was harder to
judge the right answer, when we’re uncertain we look
for others for confirmation therefore, conformity had
increased in these conditions.
- Methodological issues: Asch used a biased sample as
all participants were males of the same age group –
study lacks ecological validity so results can’t be
generalised to other groups of people. He also used an
artificial task to measure conformity – low ecological
validity and results cannot be generalised to real life
situations.
- Ethical Issues: Participants aren’t protected from the
psychological stress which may occur if they disagreed
with the majority. Asch deceived student volunteers
claiming they were taking part in visions test.
Conformity to Social Roles: Zimbardo
Zimbardo (1973) – The Stanford Prison
Experiment:
- Aim: examine whether people would conform to social
roles of a prisoner or prison guard in a mock prison
environment.
- Sample: consisted of 21 male university students who
had volunteered in response to a newspaper advert.
Participants were randomly allocated to the role of a
prisoner or prison guard.
- Prisoners were arrested by real police and were
fingerprinted, stripped, chained and were given a
numbered smock to wear. Prison guards were given
reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and uniforms. The
experiment was set to run for 2 weeks. Zimbardo found
the prisoners and prison guards quickly identified to
their roles, within days prisoners rebelled but this was
squashed by the guards who became aggressive and
