TOPIC 1 : Social Influence 👯‍♀️

Conformity

it is a chnage in behaviour due to real or imagined pressure in a majority group

What is conformity?

• KLEMAN created the 2 types of conformity.

• compliance

• Internalisation

What are the 2 types of conformity and who created them?

It is a public agreement but a private disagreement and it is only temporary and happens when there is pressure to fit in with majority

What does the term compliance mean?

a public agreement and a private agreement this is permanent as they think majority is right.

What does the term internilisation mean?

• They created the explanation of conformity

• Compliance: Normalative social influence- desire to be liked where we conform to fit in because we don’t want to appear foolish or be be left we also conform to be accepted.

• Internalisation : informational social influence - desire to be right where we accept majority opinion because we believe it is correct. we accept it because we want to be correct. 

What did Deutch and Gerald do and make up in their study?

Smoking or vaping you would vape with your friends to fit in because everyone around you is doing even though when you were In private you would never do it because you know it is wrong and feel pressured to do it.

What is an example of compliance?

Your friends being vegan and they explain why they are vegan and what happens to animals. Then you start eating vegan food by yourself everyday as well as eating vegan food in public because they think they are right which is why they would publicly and privately eat vegan food.

What is an example of internalisation?

Solemn Asch

Who did the original study in 1951 of conformity?

It was 123 males

How many students took part in Asch’s conformity study

• Original study

• Group size : as the group of confederates increased Asch noticed that the naive participants conformed due to normalative social influence even though the participant clearly knew the answer they were saying was wrong there was much higher pressure to conform and he realised when there were 5 confederates conformity rates limited and found it made no difference.

• Unanimity : as one confederate said the correct answer the pressure to conform with the rest of the group reduced the pressure and the naive participant felt they were able to share their own answer and did not conform to the rest of the group.

• Task difficulty : as the lines were closer to the size to X the naïve participant felt pressure to conform through informational social influence as they genuinely believed that the confederates were right.

What were the different variations of his study?

Ethical issues including informed consent and withdrawal difficulties and also caused psychological damage.

What was another limitation of the study?

Asch’s study has been criticised for having a low ecological value as participants were in a artificial environment with strangers. This may have made them feel awkward or out of depth meaning they were more likely to conform because they were not in their natural environments.

Does Asch’s experiment have low or high ecological validity?

desire to be right where we accept majority opinion because we believe it is correct. we accept it because we want to be correct. 

Internalisation : informational social influence

It has been criticised to have low population validity because it used American males uni students which means findings cannot be generalised to other demographics include American males of the same age who are in employment rather than uni.

Does Asch’s study have low or high population validity?