Types & Explanations of Conformity:
Supporting evidence for NSI:
- Research to support
- Asch interviewed participants after, some said conformed due to feeling
self-conscious of giving the wrong answer and were afraid of disapproval.
(when answers written down, conformity dropped to 12.5%)
- This supports NSI as it shows that giving an answer privately, where there
is less normative group pressure, means people are less likely to conform
- This therefore increases the validity of NSI as an explanation of conformity
because it shows that some conformity is due to a desire to not be
rejected by the social group for disagreeing with them, because less
conformity occurred when people were less afraid of not being
accepted/approved by their social group
Supporting evidence for ISI:
- Research to support
- Todd Lucas et al found participants conformed more to maths q’s when
they were more difficult
- This supports ISI as it shows that when the participants were in an
ambiguous situation where the answers were less clear, they were more
likely to conform as they didn’t want to be wrong/less likely to know their
‘own mind’
- Therefore, ISI as an explanation for conformity has good validity as this
study shows that when the correct answer was less clear, participants
were more likely to conform as they wanted to be correct in front of their
social group, making ISI a valid explanation
Counterpoint:
- However, it is often unclear whether conformity is due to NSI or ISI in
research studies
- For example, Asch found conformity decreased when there was a
dissenter
- This could mean the dissenter decreases the power NSI has as it provides
social support; however, it also decreases power of ISI because it helps to
provide an alternative source of information which the participant may
think is the correct answer
- There are therefore limitations with these explanations because it is hard
to separate them as they can both operate in real word conformity
situations, meaning these explanations may lack reliability
Individual differences in NSI:
- NSI cannot predict conformity in every case
- A study found that people who are nAffiliatiors (greatly concerned with
being liked by others) are more likely to conform
, - This shows that NSI underlies conformity more/more strongly than it may
in other people
- Therefore, NSI as an explanation for conformity may lack validity because
some people in a situation have a stronger sense to conform than others,
so there are individual differences that can’t be fully explained
Variables affecting Conformity:
Lab experiment:
- The findings from this study may have good internal validity
- This is because the Asch line study was a lab experiment
- his means this study would have had good control over variables and the
ability to repeat the experiment
- Therefore, the study has good internal validity and good reliability
because it had high levels of control, being a lab exp, therefore increasing
the validity and reliability of the findings of the study
Lacks ecological validity:
- However, there are limitations to the study
- This is because it was an artificial setting and task
- This means that participants may have guessed the aim of the study and
may have displayed demand characteristics, meaning the results could be
inaccurate
- Therefore, this study lacks validity because results obtained may lack
validity due to the participants displaying demand characteristics, and
because the task was in an artificial setting with an artificial task, it may
not reflect conformity in real world situations
Lacks population validity/generalisability:
- However, this study may lack population validity/generalisability
- This is because this study was conducted with 50 male American students
- This means that findings collected may only be applicable to people who
fit into those categories as results were only collected on these groups for
this study
- Therefore, we cannot generalise finding to the whole population as it may
not represent conformity in all groups
Ethical issues:
- This study has more limitations
- This is because Asch broke some ethical guidelines such as deception and
didn’t protect his participant from harm
, - This is because he told it was a vision test, when he was measuring
conformity, and many participants reported afterwards they felt stressed
when they disagreed from the majority, causing them psychological harm
- Therefore, this study has ethical issues, however, to overcome this, he
debriefed all participants to overcome the issue and followed the debrief
procedure (e.g. right to withdraw etc)
Zimbardo Conformity to social roles:
Control over variables:
- A strength of Zimbardo's study into conformity into social roles is the
control over variables
- For example, emotionally stable participants were chosen and were
randomly assigned to the role of guard or prisoner
- This therefore ruled out individual personality differences, meaning their
behaviour must have been due to the role itself rather than the individual
themselves
- This therefore increases the internal validity of the study due the control
over variables, increasing the validity of the findings of conformity into
social roles
Lacks realism:
- However, a limitation of this study is that it lacks the realism of a real
prison
- This could mean that the participants performance was based on
stereotypes of how they though guards/prisoners acted
- This means that the participants could have been ‘play-acting’ to their role
rather than conforming to their role
- Therefore, the findings may lack validity because the participants may
have been acting rather than reflecting their true behaviour/conforming to
a role, meaning this study may tell us little about conformity to social roles
in prisons
Counterpoint:
- However, the participants may have behaved as if the prison was real to
them
- This is because 90% of the prisoners’ conversations were about prison life
and they addressed themselves/each other by their numbers not names
- This suggests that the prisoners were immersed in their roles as they were
being influenced by the prison environment and their social roles
- This could mean the study did have a high degree of internal validity as
this experiment may have replicated the social roles of prisoners/guards in
real prisons, due to participants acting as if they were prisoners
Supporting evidence for NSI:
- Research to support
- Asch interviewed participants after, some said conformed due to feeling
self-conscious of giving the wrong answer and were afraid of disapproval.
(when answers written down, conformity dropped to 12.5%)
- This supports NSI as it shows that giving an answer privately, where there
is less normative group pressure, means people are less likely to conform
- This therefore increases the validity of NSI as an explanation of conformity
because it shows that some conformity is due to a desire to not be
rejected by the social group for disagreeing with them, because less
conformity occurred when people were less afraid of not being
accepted/approved by their social group
Supporting evidence for ISI:
- Research to support
- Todd Lucas et al found participants conformed more to maths q’s when
they were more difficult
- This supports ISI as it shows that when the participants were in an
ambiguous situation where the answers were less clear, they were more
likely to conform as they didn’t want to be wrong/less likely to know their
‘own mind’
- Therefore, ISI as an explanation for conformity has good validity as this
study shows that when the correct answer was less clear, participants
were more likely to conform as they wanted to be correct in front of their
social group, making ISI a valid explanation
Counterpoint:
- However, it is often unclear whether conformity is due to NSI or ISI in
research studies
- For example, Asch found conformity decreased when there was a
dissenter
- This could mean the dissenter decreases the power NSI has as it provides
social support; however, it also decreases power of ISI because it helps to
provide an alternative source of information which the participant may
think is the correct answer
- There are therefore limitations with these explanations because it is hard
to separate them as they can both operate in real word conformity
situations, meaning these explanations may lack reliability
Individual differences in NSI:
- NSI cannot predict conformity in every case
- A study found that people who are nAffiliatiors (greatly concerned with
being liked by others) are more likely to conform
, - This shows that NSI underlies conformity more/more strongly than it may
in other people
- Therefore, NSI as an explanation for conformity may lack validity because
some people in a situation have a stronger sense to conform than others,
so there are individual differences that can’t be fully explained
Variables affecting Conformity:
Lab experiment:
- The findings from this study may have good internal validity
- This is because the Asch line study was a lab experiment
- his means this study would have had good control over variables and the
ability to repeat the experiment
- Therefore, the study has good internal validity and good reliability
because it had high levels of control, being a lab exp, therefore increasing
the validity and reliability of the findings of the study
Lacks ecological validity:
- However, there are limitations to the study
- This is because it was an artificial setting and task
- This means that participants may have guessed the aim of the study and
may have displayed demand characteristics, meaning the results could be
inaccurate
- Therefore, this study lacks validity because results obtained may lack
validity due to the participants displaying demand characteristics, and
because the task was in an artificial setting with an artificial task, it may
not reflect conformity in real world situations
Lacks population validity/generalisability:
- However, this study may lack population validity/generalisability
- This is because this study was conducted with 50 male American students
- This means that findings collected may only be applicable to people who
fit into those categories as results were only collected on these groups for
this study
- Therefore, we cannot generalise finding to the whole population as it may
not represent conformity in all groups
Ethical issues:
- This study has more limitations
- This is because Asch broke some ethical guidelines such as deception and
didn’t protect his participant from harm
, - This is because he told it was a vision test, when he was measuring
conformity, and many participants reported afterwards they felt stressed
when they disagreed from the majority, causing them psychological harm
- Therefore, this study has ethical issues, however, to overcome this, he
debriefed all participants to overcome the issue and followed the debrief
procedure (e.g. right to withdraw etc)
Zimbardo Conformity to social roles:
Control over variables:
- A strength of Zimbardo's study into conformity into social roles is the
control over variables
- For example, emotionally stable participants were chosen and were
randomly assigned to the role of guard or prisoner
- This therefore ruled out individual personality differences, meaning their
behaviour must have been due to the role itself rather than the individual
themselves
- This therefore increases the internal validity of the study due the control
over variables, increasing the validity of the findings of conformity into
social roles
Lacks realism:
- However, a limitation of this study is that it lacks the realism of a real
prison
- This could mean that the participants performance was based on
stereotypes of how they though guards/prisoners acted
- This means that the participants could have been ‘play-acting’ to their role
rather than conforming to their role
- Therefore, the findings may lack validity because the participants may
have been acting rather than reflecting their true behaviour/conforming to
a role, meaning this study may tell us little about conformity to social roles
in prisons
Counterpoint:
- However, the participants may have behaved as if the prison was real to
them
- This is because 90% of the prisoners’ conversations were about prison life
and they addressed themselves/each other by their numbers not names
- This suggests that the prisoners were immersed in their roles as they were
being influenced by the prison environment and their social roles
- This could mean the study did have a high degree of internal validity as
this experiment may have replicated the social roles of prisoners/guards in
real prisons, due to participants acting as if they were prisoners
