social influence- conformity

Definition of Conformity:

Conformity is a form of majority influence where the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours of people in a particular group are adopted in response to real or imagined group pressure.

TYPES of conformity- compliance:

• Compliance is publicly conforming to the behaviour or views of others in a group to be accepted or avoid disapproval but privately maintaining one's own views.

• This is a temporary change in behaviour; it only lasts as long as the group pressure is present.

• For example, going along with the group such as claiming to support a certain football team, because many others of your age group do, and you want to be accepted and not mocked by them. However, privately you may have little interest in this team, or indeed football at all.

TYPES of conformity- internalisation:

• Internalisation is a conversion (or change) of private views to match those of the group.

• The behaviour or belief of the majority is accepted by the individual and becomes part of their own belief system. It is the most permanent form of conformity as it usually lasts even if the majority is no longer present.

• For example, a student who becomes a vegetarian while sharing a flat with animal rights activists at university may keep those views and continue to be a vegetarian for the rest of their life.

EXPLANATIONS of conformity- normative social influence:

Desire to be liked - following the crowd.

• People conform because they desire to be liked, by the other members of the group, and also want to avoid being rejected. NSI is conforming for emotional reasons.

• The important thing is the need for acceptance and social approval from the group, which encourages agreement with the norm, or central view, of the group.

• It is associated with compliance.

• For example, you may listen to a certain type of music while with friends because you feel being part of this group is desirable and you don't want to be rejected. However, when you are away from this group, you do not listen to this music.

EXPLANATIONS of conformity- informational social influence:

Desire to be right - accepting the majority's viewpoint.

• Informational social influence is based on the desire to be right and occurs when we turn to others who we believe to be correct, in an attempt to gain information about how to think or act, or in ambiguous situations where there is no clear answer - conforming for cognitive reasons.

• This type of conformity is common when people are uncertain about their own opinions or how to behave in a novel or unclear situation and therefore must rely on others for guidance.

• Leads to internalisation.

• For example, you may not know the answer to a question in class but if most of the class agrees on one answer, you accept this answer because you feel they are probably right.

Evaluation of explanations for conformity: Evidence to SUPPORT NORMATIVE social influence (Asch).

• Line judgement task: Participants judged which of the three comparison lines matched a standard line-The correct answer was obvious yet judgements were affected by the majority opinion even when they were obviously wrong.

• Findings: 37% conformity rate to wrong answers and 75% of participants conforming to at least one wrong answer.

• Interviews: participants admitted that they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer- feared disapproval

• Wanted to be accepted and have approval from the group. → NSI

Written answers: privately-conformity rate fell to 12.5% → reducing NSI = no social pressure.

Evaluation of explanations for conformity: evidence to SUPPORT INFORMATIONAL social influence (Lucas et al).

• Students answered mathematical problems that were either easy or difficult. → greater conformity to incorrect answers with difficult questions- particularly participants that rated their maths ability as poor.

• Support ISI → people in ambiguous situations may feel uncertain about the correct answer = look at others for information assuming they know better demonstrating the desire to be right.

Evaluation of explanations for conformity: LIMITATION- individual differences are ignored

• ISI & NSI do not effect everyone’s behaviour in the same way → fails to account for individual differences.

• Asch found student were less conformists than other participants.

• Perrin & Spencer replicated Asch’s original study with UK engineering students = less conformity → may have been more confident in ability to measure lines accurately suggest more knowledgeable/ confident people may be less influenced by majority’s apparently right opinion.

Evaluation of explanations for conformity: LIMITATIONS- not always possible to distinguish between ISI & NSI.

Why is it difficult to distinguish between NSI & ISI?

• Deutsch & Gerard suggest conformity is due to EITHER ISI or NSI (dual process model) → truth is both process are involved.

• Asch’s experiment → conformity reduced when there is one dissenting participant.

• Dissenter = reduces power if NSI by providing social support

• Reduce ISI by providing an alternative source of information

• Dissenter → person who disagree with the majority opinion.

Research into conformity- NSI: Asch (1951: line experiment

Aim:

To investigate the extent to which individuals would conform to a majority giving obviously wrong answers.

PROCEDURE:

• 123 male US undergraduates participated in laboratory experiments: told its on visual perception.

• 7-9 Participants judged which of the three comparison lines matched a standard/ stimulus line-The correct answer was obvious (unambiguous) yet judgements were affected by the majority opinion even when they were obviously wrong.

• all participants except 1- who gave same incorrect answer on 12 critical trials out of 18.

• CRITICAL TRIAL: majority deliberate gives wrong answer.

FINDINGS:

• PARTICIPANTS conformed on 37% of critical trials.

• 75% of participants conformed to wrong answer at least = 25% never gave wrong answer.

• 5% confirmed to all wrong answers

CONCLUSION:

• interviews after: confirmed publicly to avoid rejection/ disapproval But privately maintained their own judgements/ views. Most confirmed publicly not privately= Motivated by NSI

• Participants showed a strong tendency to conform to group pressure- even when answer was unambiguous, roughly 63% of trials participants maintained their own Original judgements= tendency to maintain original judgment as they believes it’s correct.

Asch’s situational variables affecting conformity

TASK DIFFICULTY:

Variation: conformity increases when task Difficulty increases- correct answer becomes less obvious= confidence tends to drop.

Procedure (how): Asch increased difficulty by making the stimulus And comparison lines Similar to each other in lengths.

Conformity rates (findings): participants were more likely to conform to the wrong answer when task was difficult.

Conclusion: ISI play’s a greater role when task is more difficult as greater ambiguity= reduces confidence so look to others for guidance and assume they are correct,

⭐ ️GROUP SIZE:

Variation: conformity rate increases as size of a majority influence increases- only to certain point after which it plateaus.

Procedure: varying the number of confederates from 1-15.

Findings: conformity was 3% with 1 confederate, 13% with 2 and 32% with 3. Adding confederates up to 15 had no further effect.

Conclusion: The unambiguous task suggested conformity was due to NSI. Beyond 3-4 people conformity plateaued, Possibly, due to participant suspecting collusion Suggested by (brown and Byrne 1997).

COLLUSION: people secretly work together to deceive or mislead someone.

UNANIMITY:

Variation: All group members are in agreement with each other. Conformity decreases when the majority influence is not unanimous (majority does not agree with each other)

Procedure: Asch added a confederate( disagreed with the majority) sometimes giving the wrong and correct answer (diff to majority): test if a non- confirming person would affect the naïve participants conformity.

findings: Conformity to wrong answers dropped to 5.5% when the confederate was giving the correct answer’s throughout. When a lone dissenter gave the wrong answer (diff from the majority’s answer and the correct answer → majority influence depends on groups unanimity.

Conclusion: major factor: Breaking the groups unanimity reduces conformity. Dissenter enables naive participants to behave more independently.