psychology - SOCIAL INFLUENCE

define conformity

conformity is a change in a persons behavior or opinions as a result of real or imagined social pressure from person or group

explain compliance - type of conformity proposed by Kelman

• individuals may go along with the group in order to gain their approval or avoid their disapproval

• when exposed to the views or actions of the majority, individuals may engage in a process of social comparison, concentrating on what others say or do sp they can adjust their own actions to fit in

• change in behavior, not belief

• done due to desire to fit in

• public behavior changed

• weak form of conformity - eg peer pressure

• temporary - dependent on group membership or situation

explain internalization - type of conformity proposed by Kelman

• individuals may go along with the group because of an acceptance of their views when exposed to the views of other members of a group, individuals are encouraged to engage in a validation process, examining their own beliefs to see if they are the others are right

• close examination of the group may convince the individual that they are wrong and the group is right, this is particularly likely if the group is generally trustworthy in their views and the individual has tended to go along with them on prev occasions

• this can lead to both public and private acceptance of the groups views

• change in behavior and beliefs

• belief that the group is correct

• strong form of conformity - remains when group is not present

explain identification - type of conformity proposed by Kelman

• in some instances, an individual might accept influence because they want to be associated with another person or group

• by adopting this groups and attitudes, they feel more a part of it.

• identification has elements of both compliance and internalization, as the individual accepts the attitudes and behaviors they are adopting as right (internalization), but the purpose of adopting them is to be accepted as a member of the group (compliance )

• temporarily adopting the habits and attitudes of a group if someone values the group and wishes to be includes

• or conforming to the expectation required of a specific role, eg. police

explain the normative social influence as an explanation for conformity

• when an individual adapts to a group position in order to be accepted and gain approval and to to be perceived as deviant by other members of the group

• going along with a group not because you agree with them but due to the innate need to be liked, a fundamental need for social companionship and a fear of rejection

• an important condition for normative social influence is the belief that the individual is under survailence of the group, when this is the case ppl tend to conform in public but do not necessarily internalize the view.

explain the informational social influence as an explanation for conformity

• informational influence occurs when an individual accepts info from others as evidence for reality

• as well as having a need to be accepted, human beings also have a need to feel confident that their perceptions and beliefs are correct

• if checking facts against reality is not possible, individuals must rely on the opinions of others

• informational influence is more likely to occur the situation is ambiguous, or where others are experts

• as a result the individual does not just comply on behavior alone but also changes their behavior in line with group position

• because this involves changing both public and private attitudes and behavior this is an example of internalization

what is a weakness of compliance and inernalisation

• it is difficult to distinguish between the two

• the relationship between C and I is complicated because of difficulties in knowing when each is actually taking place

• for example, its assumed that a person who publicly agrees with a majority yet disagrees with them in private must be demonstrating compliance rather than internalization

• however it is also possible that acceptance of the groups views has occurred in public yet dissipates later get In private

• this could be because they have forgotten info given by the group or because they have received new info that changes their mind. this demonstrates the difficulty in determining what is and what isn’t simple compliance rather than internalization.

a strength and weakness of normative social influence

STRENGTH

• research support for NSI

• US research has supported the important role played by ppls normative beliefs in shaping behaviors such as smoking and energy conservation

• Linkenbach and Perkins found that adolescents exposed to the simple message that the majority of their age peers did not smoke where less likely to take up smoking

• likewise, Schultz et al found that hotel guests exposed to the normative message that 75% of guests reused towels each day reduced their own towel use by 25%

• these studies support the claim that ppl shape their behaviors out of a desire to fit in with their reference group, and as such demonstraight the power of normative influence

WEAKNESS

• normative SI may not be detected

• although NI undoubtedly has a powerful effect on the behavior of the individual, its possible that they don’t actually recognize the behavoir of others as a causal factor in their own behavior

• there is some support for this claim, Nolen et al investigated whether ppl detected the influence of social norms on their energy conservation, ppl believed that the behavior of neighbors had the least impact on their own energy conservation, yet results showed that it had the strongest impact

• this suggests that ppl rely on belief =systems about what should motivate their behavior, and so under detect impact of NI

a strength and a weakness of Informational influence

STRENGTH

• research support

• studies have deomonstrated how exposure to other ppls beliefs and opinions can shape many aspects of social behavior and beliefs

• Wittenbrink and henley found that ppts exposed to negative info about African Americans - which they were led to believe was a view of the majority - later reported more negative attitudes towards black individuals.

• research has also shown how ISI can shape political opinion, in a study by Fein et al, ppts saw what was supposedly the reaction of their fellow ppts on screen during a presidential debate

• this info produced large shifts in their judgements of the candidates performance and shows the importance of ISI in shaping social behavior

WEAKNESS

• ISI is moderated by type of task

• a problem for the informational explanation of conformity is that features of the task moderate the impact of majority influence. for some judgements there are clear physical criteria for validation, but for judging others, their may be no physical ay of validating them

• for example, deciding whether bristol is the most highly populated city in the south west of England can be determined through objective means like consulting stats

• however, other judgements like deciding that bristol is the most fun city to live in cannot be made using objective criteria as it doesn’t exist.

• consiquently, these judgements must be made on the basis of social consensus

• as a result, majorities should exert greater influence on issues of social rather than physical reality

• this is exactly what research tends to show

what was the procedure of Asch’s study

• Asch asked student volunteers to take part in a visual discrimination task, although unbeknown to these volunteers, all but one of the ppts were really confederates of the investigator , the real purpose of the study was to see how the lone ‘real’ ppt would react to the behavior o the confederates

• in total, 123 male US undergrads were tested.

• ppts where seated around a table and asked to look at three lines of different lengths

• they took turns to call out which of the three lines they thought was the same length as a standard line, with the real ppt answering second to last

• although there was always a fairly obvious solution to this task, on 12 of the 18 trials, the confederates were instructed to give the incorrect answer

• asch was interested in whether the real ppt would stick to what they believed to be right or cave into pressure of the majority and go along with its decision

what were the findings of Asch’s study

• on the 12 critical trials, the average conformity rate as 33%, meaning that the ppt agreed with the incorrect response given by the confederates

• 1 in 20 agreed with incorrect answer for all 12 trials

• when Asch interviews his ppts after, he found that the majority of ppts who conformed had continued to privately trust their on perceptions and judgements, hut altered their public behavior displaying compliance

variables effecting conformity : group size

Asch carried out a number of variations of his go study to find out which variables had the most significant effects on the level of conformity shown by ppts

GROUP SIZE

• found there was very little conformity when the majority consisted of just one or two confederates

• however under the pressure of a majority of three confederates, the proportion of conforming responses jumped up to about 30%

• further increases to size of majority didn’t increase this level of conformity substantially indicating that the size of the group is significant unto a point

• Campbell and Fairey suggests that group size has more of an effect when there is no objective answer and the individual is concerned about fitting in, then the larger the majority the more likely the are to be swayed

variables effecting conformity : unanimity of the majority

• in aschs go study the confederates unanimously gave the same wrong answer

• in one variation, the ppt was given the support of either another real ppt or a confederate who had been instructed to give the right the right answers throughout, conformity levels dropped significantly, reducing % of wrong answers from 33% to 5.5%

variables effecting conformity : difficulty of the task

• in one variation, Asch made differences between the line lengths much smaller (so the correct answer was less obvious and task more difficult)

• under these circumstances, level of conformity increased

• individual differences as well as situational differnces are importance - confident in ability = less conformity

strengths of Asch’s research