Conformity

Define internalisation

A deep type of conformity where we take the majority’s opinion and accept it as correct. This leads to a permanent change in both public and private behaviour.

Define identification

A moderate type of conformity where we value what the group believes and internalise parts, but not all, of it. This leads to a change in public behaviour but only a partial change in private behaviour.

Define compliance

A temporary conformity where we don’t agree with what the group says but change our public behaviour to fit in

Define informational social influence (ISI)

One of the reasons people conform. It is a cognitive process and occurs when there is ambiguity in a situation and we assume the majority has more correct information than we do. This explanation is most commonly associated with internalisation.

Define normative social influence (NSI)

One of the reasons people conform. It is an emotional process, and occurs when we want to be socially accepted by a group and we were concerned about rejection. This explanation is most commonly associated with compliance.

Explain research support for NSI as a strength, and individual differences as a limitation

Research support: Asch’s participants said they conformed because they felt self conscious about giving a different answer than the group - when the participants wrote their answers down, the conformity rate fell to 12.5%

Individual differences: NSI doesn’t predict conformity in every case, people who are more concerned with being liked by others (nAffiliators) are more likely to be affected by NSI than others, and some are less affected, like Asch’s participants who never conformed.

Explain research support for ISI as a strength, and the unhelpful distinction between ISI and NSI as a weakness

Research support: Lucas et al found that participants conformed more to incorrect answers when the maths problems they were presented with were harder. This shows ISI is a valid explanation for conformity as when the participants became less confident in their own knowledge, the more they conformed.

Useless distinction: Lucas et al. (2006)’s findings could also be due to NSI partially, as well as many other research studies. Therefore, the NSI/ ISI distinction might not be all that useful. 

 

What was the aim of Asch’s baseline procedure

To assess the extent to which people would conform to the opinion of others, even when the answer to the situation is clear

Outline Asch’s baseline procedure, including the year, participants, method and what the researchers measured

1951, 123 American men were tested, they were placed in a group of confederates who they believed to be fellow participants. They were given an easy task, they were shown a line and then three others, and were told to say which of the three lines was closest in length to the original line. The confederates all gave an incorrect answer out loud, before the participant was given a chance to say their answer. The researchers measured how many times participants conformed and also gave the obviously incorrect answer

What were the findings from Asch’s baseline study (2 points)

On average, the genuine participants conformed a third of the time. There were individual differences though, 25% of the participants never conformed to the incorrect answer.

What were the three variables Asch investigated that could affect conformity

Unanimity, group size, and task difficulty

Explain the procedure and findings of Asch’s group size experiment

He varied the number of confederates from 1-15. He found a curvilinear between group size and conformity, that conformity rose a lot with each confederate up until 3 confederates, and any more from there made little difference.

Explain the procedure and findings of Asch’s unanimity procedure

He had two conditions, one where a dissenter gave a correct answer and another where the dissenter gave a different incorrect answer. Conformity decreased to less than a quarter of what it was before, in both variations

Explain the procedure and findings of Asch’s task difficulty procedure

He made the stimulus line and comparison lines closer in length, making the difficulty of the task much harder. He found that the rate of conformity consistently increased as the task became harder

Explain the research support that strengthens Asch’s findings

Todd Lucas et al. (2006) also measured the effect of task difficulty on the rate of conformity, using easy and harder maths questions. The findings were that people are more likely to conform when the task is more difficult

Explain three limitations of Asch’s study

It was artificial and trivial task, meaning there was no consequences for conforming. It was a lab study, meaning the participants may have been acting out of demand characteristics and the study does not resemble real life situations (lacks ecological validity). The sample used was made up entirely of American men, meaning it lacks generalisability and population validity

Define social roles

The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups, which are accompanied by expectations of what is appropriate behaviour for different social roles

What was the aim of Zimbardo’s research

To investigate whether prison riots in America had been due to dispositional factors of the prison guards or if they were due to situational factors which had created the sadistic personalities of prison guards

Outline the procedure of Zimbardo’s prison study, including the time and place it was set, the participants, the uniforms and instructions they were given

Took place in Stanford in 1973, used 24 ‘emotionally stable’ American men (student volunteers), participants were randomly assigned to the roles of prisoner or prison guard, prisoners were given a loose smock and cap and were identified by their numbers. Prison guards had uniforms, wooden clubs, handcuffs and mirrored glasses. Prison guards were reminded they had complete control over the prisoners, prisoners couldn’t leave the experiment they had to ‘apply for parole’ instead.

What was the purpose of the uniforms in Zimbardo’s prison study

To create a loss of personal identity, de-individuation

What were the results of Zimbardo’s prison experiment (5 points)

Within two days, the prisoners rebelled because of how harshly they were treated by the guards + guards retaliated with fire extinguishers, guards used ‘divide and rule’ tactics such as giving some prisoners ‘special privileges’ to turn prisoners against each other, guards harassed prisoners constantly such as frequent headcounts at night, prisoners became depressed and anxious - one being released by he showed signs of psychological disturbance and another because he went on a hunger strike, guards became progressively more aggressive and brutal

What was the conclusions of Zimbardo’s prison experiment

Social roles appeared to have a strong influence on individuals behaviour, as the prisoners became submissive and guards became brutal. Roles were taken on even by participants, researchers who played the role of ‘prison chaplains’ felt as though they were also in a prison not a psychological study.

What was a strength of Zimbardo’s prison experiment

Study had a large amount of control over key variables and therefore internal validity, for example the control over the random assignment of participants, which ruled out individual differences, such as all aggressive participants being given the prison guard role

What are 2 limitations of Zimbardo’s prison experiment

Lack of realism - could be argued that the participants were merely acting based off what they had seen in media representations of a prison setting - suggests the study tells us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons. Exaggeration - Zimbardo may have exaggerated the findings of his study is his report, it was found that only 1/3 of the prison guards actually behaved in a brutal manner, and some even sympathised with the prisoners, meaning the influence of dispositional factors may have been more significant than Zimbardo reported.