Social Influence A-level

Types of Conformity.

Internalisation-Person genuinely accepts the group norms and their behaviour/opinions change permanently in public and private.

Compliance-Superficial change, a persons behaviour/opinion only changes in public, staying the same in the absence of group pressure.

Explanations of conformity ISI-

Dependent on the better/correct information. We follow group behaviour due to uncertainty and wanting to be correct. Occurring commonly in ambiguous or often crisis situations, leading to permanent change in behaviour/opinions, it is a cognitive process. Leads to internalisation.

Explanations of conformity NSI-

About norms and the typical behaviour in a social setting. We conform to not appear dumb and gain social approval, an emotional process leading to a temporary change in opinions/behaviour (compliance.)

Research support for NSI-

Evidence support. Aschs line study where participants conformed despite the clarity of the obvious right answer and said they conformed due to feeling self conscious and afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote down their answers privately, conformity dropped to 12.5%—because the privacy eliminated the group pressure.

Research support for ISI-

Lucas et al. Participants conformed more often to incorrect answers when the math problems were more difficult—the increasing difficulty also increased the ambiguity of the situation— and participants did not want to be wrong and so relied on the answers given by others.

NSI & ISI work together.

It is often unclear whether it is solely NSI or ISI at work in research studies. Asch found that conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant who reduces the power of NSI as they provide social support or reduce ISI maybe it provides another source of social information. Both interpretations are possible. There it is hard to separate ISI and NSI.

Individual differences in NSI

One limitation is that NSI does not predict conformity in every case. Some people are majorly concerned about being liked by others—Affiliators. Mcghee et al found that the former were more likely to conform. NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others—individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.