Social Influence - Flashcards

Topics included: Types of Conformity; Explanations for Conformity;

What is meant by conformity?

Conformity is a phenomenon which involves someone changing, adapting or taking on new behaviours in order to fit in with the group.

Compliance is a type of conformity which involves ________ with or behaving like the group in ______ but disagreeing with or having different opinions to the group _________.

Compliance is a type of conformity which involves agreeing with or behaving like the group in public but disagreeing with or having different opinions to the group privately.

What is the definition of internalisation?

Internalisation is when an individual accepts and agrees with the group both public and privately, i.e., internalising the group’s norms, values and attitudes.

True or False?

Identification results in long-term change?

False.

Identification results in short-term change as the individual is not completely in agreement with the group (although they will not necessarily express any disagreement publicly).

Which is the weakest type of conformity?

a) Identification

b) Compliance

c) Internalisation

b.

Compliance is the weakest type of conformity, as it only involves surface and superficial change; it ceases when someone is not with the group.

True or False?

Conformity mostly occurs due to majority influence.

True.

Conformity mostly occurs due to majority influence, as people tend to want to conform to larger groups (safety in numbers).

Identification is a type of conformity that includes temporarily adopting the attitudes and behaviours required of a specific social ____.

Identification is a type of conformity that includes temporarily adopting the attitudes and behaviours required of a specific social role.

Meeting a new group of people at college and changing personal styles, hobbies, attitudes, etc. to align with the group is an example of:

a) identification

b) compliance

c) internalisation

c.

Meeting a new group of people at college and changing personal styles, hobbies, etc. to align with the group is an example of internalisation.

What is meant by informational social influence?

Informational social influence is an explanation for conformity, suggesting that an individual will follow the majority when feeling unsure or lacking knowledge about what to do or how to behave.

What is meant by normative social influence?

Normative social influence is the need to be liked/accepted by the group (the fear of rejection), i.e., they adhere to the group’s norms, values and attitudes.

Which two types of conformity is normative social influence linked to?

a) Identification

b) Compliance

c) Internalisation

a. and b.

Normative social influence is linked to compliance and identification.

True or False?

Informational social influence can occur when there is a crisis and a decision needs to be made quickly.

True.

Informational social influence can occur when there is a crisis and a decision needs to be made quickly.

Normative social influence has a good application to real behaviour in real settings, making it high in __________ validity.

Normative social influence has good application to real behaviour in real settings, making it high in ecological validity.

Informational social influence as an explanation of conformity is linked to which type of conformity?

a) Internalisation

b) Identification

c) Compliance

a.

Informational social influence as an explanation of conformity linked to internalisation.

True or False?

It is rare for both normative and informational social influence to be tested in real conditions.

True.

It is rare for both normative social influence and informational social influence to be tested in real conditions.

Most research in this field is lab-based, which makes it low in mundane realism and external validity.

Neither explanation for conformity explains why some people resist social influence. This is an example of a limitation relevant to:

a) ecological validity

b) reliability

c) individual differences

c.

Individual differences, e.g., people such as rebels go directly against the majority, which means that both explanations for conformity cannot be generalised to everyone.

How many critical trials were there in total per group in Asch’s study?

There were 12 critical trials within the total of 18 trials in Asch’s study.

What is the definition of a naïve participant?

A naïve participant is not aware of the true aim(s) of the study or even that they are taking part in a study.

All of Asch’s participants were naïve, as they believed that they were taking part in a study investigating perception of line length rather than conformity.

Asch’s results showed that participants gave the wrong answer on:

a) 36.8% of the critical trials

b) 66.7% of the critical trials

c) 15.2% of the critical trials

a.

Asch’s results showed that participants gave the wrong answer on 36.8% of the critical trials.

Asch concluded that people will conform to the majority even when the situation is ___________.

Asch concluded that people will conform to the majority even when the situation is unambiguous.

True or False?

Asch’s study cannot be replicated.

False.

Asch used a standardised procedure (e.g., same group number per trial; same number of trials; same question asked), which means that the study can be replicated many times over.

True or False?

Asch’s study investigates the effect of group pressure on individual behaviour.

True.

Asch was interested in seeing the extent to which group pressure could influence an individual to agree to giving the wrong answer in an unambiguous task.

A limitation of Asch’s study is that it lacks:

a) reliability

b) temporal validity

c) quantitative data

b.

A limitation of Asch’s study is that it lacks temporal validity.

Asch’s research took place in the 1940s/50s, when conformity was arguably higher than it is today.

A limitation of Asch’s study is response bias. What is meant by response bias?

a) Answering questions to make yourself appear more socially desirable

b) Answering questions to spoil or damage the research

c) Answering questions to align with what you think the researcher is looking for

c.

Response bias is answering questions to align with what you think the researcher is looking for.

If Asch’s participants had guessed the aim of the study, then they may simply have gone along with giving the wrong answer.

What are the three variations of Asch’s experiment?

The three variations of Asch’s experiment are group size, unanimity, and task difficulty.

When group size involved just one confederate giving the wrong answer, conformity dropped to:

a) 3% of the critical trials

b) 12.8% of the critical trials

c) 31.8% of the critical trials

a.

When group size involved just one confederate giving the wrong answer, conformity dropped to 3% of the critical trials.

What is meant by unanimity?

Unanimity refers to the extent of agreement/consensus across a group.

In Asch’s original experiment, all the confederates were in agreement as to the wrong answer, i.e., they were unanimous.