Psychology: Social Influence

Conformity

When we change our views of behaviours due to the influence of a larger group.

What are the three types of conformity ?

• compliance

• Identification

• Internalisation

What is compliance ?

• type of conformity

• Superficial type of conformity

• Person conforms publicly with the group, but disagrees privately

• Example: someone may laugh with the group about a joke but they don’t find it funny.

What is identification ?

• type of conformity

• Moderate type of conformity

• When a person conforms with the views or behaviours of the group as they want to be part of the group.

• Individuals might most privately accept

• Purpose of conforming is to be publicly accepted as a group member

• Example: kid could start smoking cuz his friends do, wants to fit in.

What is internalisation ?

• type of conformity

• Deepest level of conformity

• Both publicly and privately accept the group norms

• Results in a long lasting change in the person conforming.

• Example: person could become vegan as her roommate is vegan.

What are the two explanations for conformity ?

• Normative social influence

• Informational social influence

What is NSI

• explanation for conformity

• Don’t privately accept what we are saying or doing publicly

• Want to be accepted by the group

• Based on the desire to be liked

• Usually involves public compliance

What is ISI

• explanation for conformity

• When people are unsure what to do in a situation, they look to others in order to identify correct behaviour.

• Based on the desire to be right

• Usually involves internalisation

Evaluation of NSI

Support NSI:

• Asch’s conformity research

• Group of confederates unanimously gave the same incorrect answer on line test = mean conformity rate of 37%

• People conformed to avoid standing out

• Suggests people conform to be accepted even when they privately disagree

Support NSI:

• Asch repeated his study

• Participants asked to write their answers down

• Conformity rates fell from 37% to 12.5%

• Shows how people conform less as they was less fear of social disapproval and rejection from the group.

However…..

• NSI struggles to explain individual differences

• 25% of participants in Asch’s research remained independent, going against the majority and giving the correct answers.

• Negative, doesn’t consider personality differences .

Evaluation of ISI

Support:

• Asch’s variations in his experiment:

• Made the line judgment task more difficult

• Conformity rates increased

• Due to participants having less confidence

• Shows we conform in ambiguous situations

However…

• conducted in a artificial lab

• Doesn’t reflect real life situations

• Low ecological validity ( how generalisable the results can be to the real world)

What variables affect conformity ?

• unanimity

• Group size

• Task difficulty

What is unanimity

• extent to which all members of the group agree

• Pressure to conform @ its highest when majority of the group agree

• Asch changed the study, added a dissenter- sometimes gave the correct answer and sometimes gave a different incorrect answer to the confederates.

• Conformity rates dropped from 37% - 25%

Group size

• small group ( 1-2) confederates giving wrong answer, conformity rates were low.

• 3 confederates, conformity increased to 32%

• However further increase in size ( beyond 7 ) didn’t affect conformity

• Concluded: size of the group is important but only up to a certain point.

Task difficulty

• when a situation is more difficult ( ambiguous)

• Person is more likely to conform

• Cuz they are less confident

• Look to others on how to behave

Which researcher investigated conformity to social roles ?

Zimbardo

• Stanford prison experiment

• Guards and prisoners

Social roles

• the behaviours expected by an individual who occupies a certain social position

Obedience

when someone acts in response to a direct order. This comes from a figure of authority. The person receiving the order what act in a way that they wouldn’t have done otherwise.

Example of obedience

• In WW2 Nazis killed innocent people, their response was that they were just ‘obeying orders’

What are the situational variables affecting obedience ?

• proximity

• Location

• Uniform

Proximity

• a situational variable affecting obedience

• How near an authority figure is to the person they are giving an order to

• The closer the figure, the pressure to obey them increases

• Milgrams research, when the researcher left the room and gave orders over the phone, the obedience relate dropped from 65%-21%

Location

• A situational variable affecting obedience

• When research takes place in a prestigious setting, ( YALE) obedience rates increased ( 65%).

• However when done in a run- down office, obedience dropped to 48%

Uniform

• a situational variable affecting conformity

• People in positions of authority have a specific uniform that is symbolic of their position.

• In milgrams Experiment, when a confederate was brought in wearing ordinary clothes to give the orders. Obedience dropped from 65%- 20%

• BICKMAN (1974), New York study, obedience. Police man giving orders vs ordinary person.

What are the social- psychological explanations for obedience ?

• legitimacy of authority explanation

• Agentic state explanation

Legitimacy of authority explanation

• explanation for obedience

• That we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have more social power than us.

• This could be due to their status or uniform they wear.

• Or we could obey them because we know they have a power over us to punish.

Evaluation of legitimacy of authority

Strengths

• supported in BICKMAN study

• In New York, when a guy in ordinary clothes asked someone to lend money to someone to pay parking fee, obey 30% of the time

• Compared to person dressed in a security guard uniform, obeyed 79% of the time.

• Shows that person will obey unusual orders as they perceive security guys to have a high social power and status.

Weakness

• individual differnces

• Some people obeyed in ordinary guy in BICKMAN experiment. Even when he lacks legitimate authority.

Agentic state explanation

• explanation for obedience

• Mental state where you are more likely to obey because you are acting for the authority figure.

• Like a agent, carrying out another persons wishes.

• Milgams, participants asked why they continued to deliver shocks ‘ because they were told to do it’.

Evaluation for Agentic state

Strengths

• Milgrams experiment, he asked people before the experiment if they thought they would continue. 1/1000 said they wouldn’t do it, however 65% did continue all the way

• Supports the idea of shifting states

Weaknesses:

• doesn’t take individual differences into consideration, as most people didn’t continue all the way

What is the Dispositional explanation for obedience

• authoritarian personality

What is a authoritarian personality ?

• when people look upto to those and obey orders from someone who has a high status, but look down to others who have a lower status than them.

AMRC research into authoritarian personality:

Adorno et al

Aim: to see weather certain personality’s make people more obedient

Method: 200 Americans, given an F-scale which asked them to agree or disagree on statements on religion, ethics and politics. Then the people who scored the highest, where then later interviewed.

Results: strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.

Conclusion: people with a strong authoritarian personality believe we need strong leaders.