Conformity

conformity definition

a change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure

3 types of conformity

internalisation, identification and compliance

internalisation ( a type of conformity )

taking on other peoples' beliefs and behaviours PERMANENTLY as you believe they're correct

identification ( a type of conformity )

changing public behaviour and their private beliefs ONLY in the presence of a group. temporary.

compliance ( a type of conformity )

changing public behaviours, but not their private beliefs. when not being monitored by a group, the changes in behaviour revert/are no longer shown.

explanations for conformity

the two process theory

what does the two process theory consist of?

informational social influence and normative social influence

what is informational social influence

agreeing with the opinion of the majority because we believe that they know more than us and must be correct (can lead to internalisation)

what is normative social influence

agreeing with the opinion of the majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked (can lead to compliance)

support for ISI (informational social influence)

task difficulty variable in asch's line study and lucas et al's study

support for NSI (normative social influence)

when asch interviewed participants he found that they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer. when asch had participants write their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5%

limitations of the two process theory

asch's study limitations + individual differences affecting conformity and NSI - some people seek social approval more than others

asch's study of conformity: aim

to assess the extent to which people will conform to the opinion of others

asch's study of conformity: sample

123 american men in groups of 6-8 participants.

asch's study of conformity: procedure

participants sat 2nd last or last. other participants were confederates and agreed on the wrong answer in the vision test. participants had to state out loud which line was the same length as line X.

asch's study of conformity: results

naive participants agreed with the confederated 36.8% of the time while 25% never conformed at all

asch's study variables

group size, task difficulty, unanimity

group size variable

confederates varied from 1-15. as the group size increased, so did conformity but ONLY up to a certain point.

unanimity variable

tested whether a non-conforming person would affect conformity. a dissenter (gave right answer) was introduced and conformity had decreased

task difficulty variable

increased the difficulty of the task by making the lines more similar in length. conformity increased - supporting ISI

limitations of asch

artificial environment - participants knew it was an experiment, could lead to demand characteristics, decreasing internal validity
artificial task - there weren't setbacks to conforming unlike in real life situations where conformity has consequences. also unable to generalise to real life situations.
population validity - all participants were american and MEN. ethnocentric + androcentric, unable to generalise to the general popualtion

strengths of asch

lucas et al - similar to asch. gave participants easy/hard questions. participants agreed with the wrong answers more when the questions were more difficult
asch was a lab study - controlled, standardised, therefore replicable and reliable