1.1 Conformity

What is Conformity

It refers to a change in an individual's beliefs/behaviors in order to fit into a particular group.

What are the 3 different types of conformity?

- Compliance

- Identification

- Internalisation

What is Compliance?

- individual publicly conforms to the group even though they do not agree with its attitudes, beliefs or behaviour privately.

(E.g. a person can say he is a vegetarian when he is in a group because everyone is vegetarian, but he actually eats meat.)

What is Identification?

Identification is the temporary adoption of the behaviours/beliefs of a group or role model.

(E.g. a person begins to dress like a member of a certain group even though it is not their style in private.)

What is Internalisation?

• individual accepts and internalise the different views of the group members as their own.

(E.g. when an individual decides that his friend is right because he has become a vegetarian and decides to become one as well, then he will not be tempted to go back to his old diet.)

What are the 2 central human needs in conformity?

- needing to be right,

- needing to be liked.

What is Informational social influence?

• It happens due to a lack of knowledge about a certain situation or when a person is insecure and seeks guidance from the group.

• the individual accepts what the group considers right.

Usually it involves internalisation.

What is Normative social influence?

• a consequence of the individual's insecurity in their beliefs, so they rely on the group, considering it better informed.

• It can also happen due to an individual's desire to fit in with the group, so they accepts the group's decisions or behaviour in order to gain their approval.

This involves compliance.

What is Research support for informational social influence? Lucas et al.'s (2006)

Lucas et al.'s (2006) findings showed that the participants agreed more when the math tasks were difficult, in contrast to those participants when the math tasks were considered easy.

This was because the students were unsure of the answer and wanted to avoid making mistakes.

What is the Research support for normative social influence? Asch (1951)

Asch (1951) findings showed that participants maintained that they had given an incorrect answer even when they later learned it was incorrect.

This was because they did not want to feel self-conscious and did not want to go against the group and meet its disapproval.

What are the Limitations of informational + normative social influence?

- Often difficult to establish if it is informational or normative social influence within research studies as well as in real life.

- NSI does not predict conformity in every case and cannot explain why some people refuse to adapt, therefore does not consider individual social differences.

What did Asch want to investigate in the classic study of conformity?

Asch wanted to investigate whether people would comply in most situations when the answer was obvious.

What is Asch’s procedure?

• Participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8, where each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines.

• Participants had to say out loud which comparison line corresponded to the standard length.

• All Confederate participants gave the same incorrect answer because they were told to on 12 of the 18 trials.

What were Asch’s findings?

• The real participants agreed with the incorrect answers given by the confederates 36.8% of the time.

• A 1/3 of the time, real participants answered, and the study showed that 75% answered the majority on at least one trial. 25% of the participants did not give a single wrong answer, which indicates the existence of individual differences.

What do variables affecting conformity include?

Variables affecting conformity include group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.

How did group size affect conformity in Asch’s experiment?

- with 3 confederates conformity = 31.8%
- Addition of more made little difference = no need for a majority more than 3

How did Unanimity affect conformity in Asch’s experiment?

- Presence of a discerning confederate = conformity reduced by a quarter

How did Task Difficulty affect conformity in Asch’s experiment?

- Asch made standard and comparison lines more similar
- Conformity increased (Informational)