Conformity - Compliance, Internalisation, Asch’s experiment, variables affecting conformity: group size, unanimity, task difficulty

Who performed Conformity experiments in 1951?

Solomon Asch

What was the aim of Solomon Asch’s 1951 Conformity experiments?

to investigate whether participants will conform to an obviously wrong answer

What method did Asch use in his conformity experiments?(3)

A group of confederates (actors) gave answers publicly to the question “which line is the same length as the standard line?”, one person was the naïve participant, and unaware the others were confederates

Outline the characteristics of the participants and how many people were in each group (4)

50 male, American, undergraduate students, tested in groups between 7-9

What were the critical trials? (2)

the 12 of the 18 trials where the confederates gave the same wrong answers, the naïve participant was always last or second to last to answer

What was Asch testing with his method? (3)

whether naïve participants would give obviously wrong answers about length of lines, only because of the social pressure from others answering this way, would they show conformity

What were the results of Asch’s conformity experiments?(4)

32% of the trials ended in conformity, 74% conformed atleast once, 5% conformed on every critical trial, 26% did not conform on any critical trials

What conclusion can be made about human conformity from Asch’s experiments? (2)

people will conform as a result of normative social influence, even when they know the majority is wrong

What did most of the naïve participants say after the experiment when they were asked why they had conformed? (4)

they wanted to fit in with the others, even though they knew they were wrong, they didn’t want to be made to look a fool, they showed little conformity when asked to give their answer privately instead of publicly

What conclusion can be made from this experiment?

This research is a demonstration of normative social influence leading to compliance

What is conformity?

When a person changes their behaviour due to social pressure

Who proposed the two types of conformity in 1958?

Kerman

What is compliance?

superficial conformity adopted by an individual to gain approval or avoid embarrassment or disapproval

Outline the behaviour of compliance as a result of normative social influence (3)

the individual may not agree with the group, they conform in public, once the group pressure is removed they no longer conform in private

What is internalisation?

a type of conformity where an individual completely adopts a group’s view as a part of their own value system

What is internalisation also known as?

true conformity

What does it mean if someone has been ‘internalised’?

the individual genuinely agrees with the group’s views

Outline the behaviour of internalisation as a result of informational social influence (3)

the individual genuinely believes the group’s view, therefore it leads to a change in their behaviour both publicly and privately, permanently

What are 3 variables affecting conformity that Asch experimented with?

group size, unanimity, task difficulty

What was Asch’s aim with investigating group size as a variable affecting conformity?

to investigate whether conformity is affected by having more confederates giving the same answer

What method did Asch use to investigate group size affect on conformity? (3)

using the original setup, he only changed the number of confederates present, either 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10 or 15

What were the results of Asch’s investigation of group size affecting conformity? (4)

3% conformity when there was 1, 13% conformity when there were 2, 32% conformity when there were 3, conformity didn’t increase much beyond 3 even though the number of confederates increases

In some conditions, with 15 confederates and 1 participant, what happened and why? (2)

it lead to less conformity, perhaps due to demand characteristics

What conclusion was made about group size affecting conformity? (2)

group size increases conformity up until a majority of 3, after which further people do not increase conformity

What was Asch’s aim with investigating unanimity as a variable affecting conformity?

to see if one person disagreeing with the majority would effect the probability of the naïve participant conforming

What method did Asch use to investigate unanimity as a variable affecting conformity? (2)

one confederate either gave the wrong or correct answer, making sure to contrast the majority answer

What were the results of Asch investigating unanimity as a variable investigating conformity?(2)

conformity of the naïve participant decreased to 5.5% when one of the confederates gave the correct answer, conformity of the naïve participant decreased to 9% when one of the confederates gave the other incorrect answer

What conclusion can be made from Asch investigating unanimity as a variable affecting conformity?(2)

the important factor was the social support from the ally, whether they give a wrong answer or an incorrect answer

What was Asch’s aim with investigating the difficulty of a task as a variable that affects conformity?

to investigate whether conformity increases when a task becomes more difficult

What method did Asch use to investigate how task difficulty affected conformity?

the lines were made similar so it was more difficult to distinguish the correct answer

What were the results of Asch investigating how task difficulty affects conformity? (3)

conformity increased when the lines were made more similar, participants tended to give the same answer publicly and privately, suggesting informational social influence

What conclusion can be made from Asch investigating task difficulty affecting conformity?

the experiment supports the view that conformity is more likely when the task is difficult

Who stated there were two possible explanations for conformity in 1955? (2)

Deutsch and Gerrard

What are the two explanations for conformity?

normative social influence and informational social influence

What does informational social influence suggest about conformity?

individuals conform in order to be correct

When is informational social influence more likely to occur?

in ambiguous situations when you are unclear on how to behave

What does informational social influence result in?

internalisation

What does normative social influence suggest about conformity?

individuals conform in order to be liked or fit in

What does normative social influence normally result in?

compliance