Conformity

Conformity

Changing behavior or belief due to group pressure or to 'fit in'.

Types of conformity

Compliance
Identification
Internalisation

Compliance

Conforms publicly but privately disagrees

Identification

Conforms publicly and privately because of identifying with group and feeling sense of group membership (often temporary change of belief)

Internalisation

Conforms publicly and privately as they have internalised and accepted views of the group (both beliefs and behaviour are changed

Normative social influence

Conforming thru a desire to fit in and be accepted by the group

Informative social influence

Conforming thru a desire to be correct by making the assumption that the majority must be correct

Variables investigated by Asch

Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty

Group Size

Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased by 31.8% with group size.
This shows how most people are sensitive to other peoples views due to how 1-2 more confederates was enough to make them conform.

Unanimity

Asch wanted to know if the presence of another non conforming person would affect the participants conformity
To test test this, he introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates
Conformity was reduced by 25% compared to when majority was unanimous
This suggests that the influence of the majority depends on a group being unanimous

Task Difficulty

Asch wanted to know whether making the test harder would affect the degree of conformity.
He tested this by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar lengths to eachother.
Conformity increased as the task was harder for the participants so they weren't sure if they were right or wrong.
Shows informational social influence due to how the participants assumed that the others were right and they were wrong.