Conformity

Conformity

•Changing behaviour to align with those of a group due to real or implied pressure.

•Occurs between people in the same social status and when explaining behaviour, people tend to take personal responsibility, rather than admit that they conformed. 

Factors Affecting Conformity: Normative Social Influence:

Factors Affecting Conformity:Informational Social Influence

Factors Affecting Conformity: culture

Factors Affecting Conformity: Group size

Factors Affecting Conformity: Unanimity

Factors Affecting Conformity: Deindividuation

Asch (1951) AIM

AIM:

to explore the conditions that would cause individuals to either resist or succumb to group pressures.

Asch IV

whether or not there was group pressure caused by unanimity

Asch DV

the level of conformity measured by the number of errors made.

Control group: followed the same procedure BUT wrote down their response rather than verbally stating it to the group.

CONTRIBUTION of the STUDY TO PSYCHOLOGY

Asch’s line study provided insight into the conditions in which people conform, and the reasons why people conform.

Criticisms and limitations

•While deception was required, there are people who feel some participants may have been embarrassed after finding out they conformed to the majority view.

•May be considered a breach of the participant right to be protected from psychological harm.

•Asch used a biased sample, as all the participants were male college students in the same age group.

•Limiting the ability to generalise results to the wider population.