conformity☑️

types and explanations of conformity, conformity (asch' research) and conformity to social roles

types of conformity and researcher’s name

-three ways in which a person conforms to majority opinion suggested by herbert kelman (1958)

• internalisation

• identification

• compliance

internalisation

-internalisation: a deep, permanent type of conformity where a person genuinely accepts the group norms, resulting in a private and public change of opinions and behaviour. permanent change as attitudes have become internalised (a part of the way someone thinks). change persists in the absence of group members

example: converting religions

identification

-identification: a moderate change in an individuals public behaviour to that specific group, but only in the presence of that group

example: acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work

compliance

-compliance: a superficial and temporary conformity type where we outwardly go along with majority view, while privately disagreeing. this particular behaviour or opinion stops when group pressure stops.

conformity definition

a change in a person’s behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people’, where an imagined pressure is when there are no consequences for not conforming and a real pressure is when there are consequences for conforming.

explanations for conformity (2)

who it was developed by and explanations

-a two-process theory developed by morton deustch and harold gerard (1955) arguing there are two main reasons for conformity

• informational social influence (ISI)

• normative social influence (NSI)

informational social influence (ISI)

-informational social influence (ISI) - an explanation that states we agree with the opinion of majority because we believe its correct, where we accept it because of the need and desire to be right - usually leads to internalisation as its a congnitive process that involves the way we think. (when a person conforms due to the belief that someone holds more knowledge than themselves and so is more likely to be right)

-most likely to occur in ambiguous situations, in crisis’ where decisions must be made quickly, and situations that are new to people

normative social influence (NSI)

-normative social influence (NSI) - an emotional process where we temporarily change our opinions or behaviour; an explanation for compliance. (when an individual conforms due to the belief that they will be ostracised or percieved negatively if they don’t

-most likely to occur in situations with strangers where we may fear rejection, around friends to uphold the social approval of them, and more likely in stressful situations where there is a greater need for social support

evaluation for explanations of conformity

research support

research support for NSI - there is evidence that supports it as an explanation for conformity - asch’ participants stated they felt self-conscious giving the right answer due to fear of disapproval (when participants wrote their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5% due to lack of normative group pressure, proving some conformity is due to a desire to not be rejected by the group).

research support for ISI- evidence to support this as an explanation for conformity by todd lucas et al. found participants conformed more to incorrect answers they were given when maths questions were harder (when situation became more ambiguous). because participants didnt want to wrong, they relied on the answers they were given. results prove validity of ISI as it reflects what ISI would predict.

evaluation for explanations for conformity

limitations

[limitation] its often unclear whether NSI or ISI are at work. eg in asch’ research, the dissenter reduces power of NSI (provides social support) and power of ISI (provides alternative source of social information), therefore its hard to seperate the two theories and suggests they operate together in most real world conformity situations.

individual differences in NSI - [limitation] NSI doesn’t predict conformity in every case - nAffiliators (those with a strong need for relation to others) are more likely to conform, found by paul mcghee and richard teevan (1967), showing NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others and individual differences cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.

asch’ research

(baseline) aim, procedure and findings

aim: solomon asch (1951) devised a procedure to measure the extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in unambiguous situations

procedure: 123 american participants were seperately tested alongside 5-7 confederates. they were each given 3 comparison lines with the objective of matching one of them to a seperate comparison line. the naive participant was sat penultimate or last, after the confederates who were instructed to give the same, wrong answer

baseline findings: on average, genuine participants conformed 36.8%, but 25% of participants didnt conform a single time

asch’ research

variables investigated by asch (3)

-asch extended his baseline study to investigate variables that may lead to an increase or decrease in conformity.

1. group size

2. unanimity

3. task difficulty

group size

1: group size- he varied confederate number from 1-15, and found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity, showing conformity increased with group size but only up to a point. 3 confederates rose conformity to 31.8% but after that, rates levelled off. this suggests people are very sensitive to the views of others as opinion is easily swayed by even just 1 or 2 actors

unanimity

2: unanimity- by introducing a confederate to disagree with the others, (either by saying the right answer, or a different wrong answer) the genuine participant conformed less in the presence of the dissenter and conformity rate decreased to >1/4. the presence of the dissenter allowed the participant to behave more independently, suggesting majority influence depends on a large extent on unanimity.

task difficulty

asch research

evaluation

-[limitation] demand characteristics arise as participants knew they were in a study, and the task at hand was trivial/ artificial so therefore there was no reason not to conform.

-[limitation] susan fiske (2014) said ‘aschs’ groups weren’t very groupy’ (they didn’t resemble groups that we would experience in everyday life and so cant easily be generalised, especially in scenarios where consequences of conformity might be present and important

-[limitation] limited application: asch’ research only consists of american men. other research suggests women can be more conformist due to more care about social relationships and acceptance (neto 1995). further, the US is an individualist culture (citizens care more about themselves than their social group), but similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures show much higher conformity rates (bond and smith 1996) - showing asch’ findings tell little about conformity in women and other cultures.

-research support: [strength] support from other studies for the effect of task difficulty - todd lucas et al (2006)

counterpoint: lucas et al.’s study showed conformity is more complex than asch suggested as participants with higher confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks, showing individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables.

-deceipt

conformity to social roles - philip zimbardos research (1970)

stanford prison experiment (SPE)

aim and procedure

aim: done by philip zimbardo (1970) to find out why prison guards acted brutally during prison riots, due to sadistic personalities or their social role as a prison guard that made them act that way

procedure: a mock prison was set up in the basement of stanford prison’s psychology department. 21 male student volunteers (who were deemed to be emotionally stable) were randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner. the roles were encouraged to conform to their social roles through uniform and behavioral instructions.

-uniform: prisoners wore loose smock and hair cap, and identified by numbers . guards had a uniform to reflect their social role, with a wooden club, handcuffs and mirror shades - done for de-individuation (a loss of personal identity) so they’re more susceptible to conform to their perceived social role

-behavioral instructions: eg rather than leaving the study early, prisoners could apply for parole. the guards were encouraged to play their role by being reminded that they have complete control over prisoners

philip zimbardo’s SPE

findings

-guards took up their role with enthusiasm, treating prisoners harshly and within 2 days prisoners rebelled by ripping their uniforms and shouting/swearing at guards, who then retaliated with fire extinguishers

-guards harassed prisoners constantly to remind them of the powerlessness of their roles (eg through frequent headcounts, even at night, creating opportunities to enforce the rules and administer punishment (like the hole - a tiny dark closet))

-post-rebellion, prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious - one was released early due to signs of psychological disturbance

-the guards identified more closely with their role, with their behaviors becoming increasingly brutal and aggressive - some appearing to enjoy the power and inflicting pain on the prisoners. as a result of this, zimbardo was forced to end the study after 6 days rather than the intended 14.

conclusion: social roles appear to have a strong influence on an individual’s behavior; the prisoners became submissive where the guards became brutal. the roles were taken on very easily by participants - even volunteers in the study (eg prison chaplain) found themselves behaving as though they were in a real prison rather than a psychological study

conformity to social roles - SPE

evaluation

-control: [strength] zimbardo et al. had control over key variables - through selection of participants (emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to their roles - allowed individual personality differences to be ruled out as an explanation to the findings, and allowed them to conclude that behavior must be due to the role itself). the degree of control over variables increased the internal validity of the study, so we can be more confident about drawing conclusions about the influence of the roles on conformity

-lack of realism: [limitation] SPE didn’t have the realism of a true prison. ali banuazizi and siamak movahedi (1975) argued participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. they believed participants performances were based on their roles’ stereotypes (one guard claimed he based his role on a character from cool hand luke), which could be used an explanation for the riots (thats what they thought real prisoners did) - suggests SPE findings show little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.

{counterpoint} mark mcdermott (2019) argues participants did behave as though the prison was real to them. 90% of prison conversations were about prison life, and ‘prisoner 416’ later explained he thought SPE was a real prison, but ran by psychologists rather than the government - suggesting SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison, giving high degree of internal validity.

-exaggerated power roles [limitations] -zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour (fromm 1973). only 1/3 of guards actually behaved in a brutal manner, 1/3 applied rules fairly and the rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners by sympathising, offering cigarettes and reinstating privileges - most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role, suggesting zimbardo overstated his view and minimised the influence of dispositional factors.

-alternative explanation

conformity to social roles

comparisons to SPE - abu gharib

-abu gharib 2003-4: US army military police personnel committed serious human rights violations against iraqi prisoners at abu gharib prison, baghdad. prisoners were tortured, physically and sexually abused, routinely humiliated and some were murdered. zimbardo noticed remarkable similarities between behaviour of the personnel at abu gharib and the guards in the SPE