Social Influence

Conformity

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

Conformity is also referred to as majority influence as people tent to want to conform to larger groups.

Herbert Kelman (1958) suggested that there are 3 types of conformity:

1. Compliance

2. Identification

3. Internalisation

Types of Conformity

Compliance

When one simply goes along with others in public but privately does not change.

• This is superficial change, the shallowest form of conformity.

  • EXAMPLE: eating vegetarian food with a particular group of friends, but continuing to eat meat when the group in not present.

• Compliance ceases when someone is not with the group.

Identification

When one publicly behaves and is opinionated like the group yet does not agree privately to the whole point of view.

• It is temporarily adopting the habits and attitudes of the valued group.

• This is a short-term change.

  • EXAMPLE: dressing in the same style as a group of people at college.

• The individual is still not completely in agreement with the group in private.

  • There may be some change in private belief but not completely.

Internalisation

When one accepts the groups point of view publicly and privately.

• It is accepting and completely agreeing with the group.

• It is a long-term change.

  • Becoming wholly involved in the norms of a group, renouncing former beliefs, possibly cutting ties with people from the past.

  • EXAMPLE: meeting a new group of people at college and changing personal styles, hobbies, attitudes to align with the group.

• This is the strongest and deepest type of conformity.

Explanations of Conformity

Deutsch and Gerard (1955) developed a two-process theory arguing that there are two main reasons people conform.

1. Informational Social Influence

2. Normative Social Influence

Informational Social Influence

Information Social Influence (ISI) is a cognitive process about who has better information. It tends to take place when the individual is unsure and/or lacks knowledge about what to do or how to behave in a specific situation.

• ISI occurs when the individual looks to the group for guidance.

  • In new situations

  • Crisis situations

• The assumption that follows is that the group knows what to do.

• Someone is more likely to be affected by ISI if they are insecure about what is deemed right/wrong behaviour.

• ISI is linked to internalisation.

Normative Social Influence

Normative Social Influence (NSI) is the need to be liked or accepted by the group, out of fear of rejection. It is an emotional process and occurs when an individual is keen to adopt the social norms of a specific group.

• NSI most likely occurs if the individual feels that their behaviour and attitudes do not align with those of the group.

  • Meeting new people

  • Stressful situations

• The lack of cohesion with the group may cause anxiety which in turn may lead to an adjustment in behaviour.

• NSI may involve an individual going against their inner beliefs, ideals, or opinions in order to not be rejected.

• NSI is linked to compliance and identification.

Asch (1951)

Asch set up a study to investigate majority influence, conformity to social pressure in an unambiguous situation. He was interested in seeing the extent to which group pressure could influence an individual to go against what their eyes are telling them.

Method: Experiment

Type: Lab

Sample: 123 Male American undergraduate students.

Procedure

• Participants were asked to complete 18 line judgement tasks within a group of 6-8 males.

  • In each group there was only one naive participant.

• The task was to say which of the three lines were the same length as the line on the left of the card.

• There were 12 critical trials.

  • On each critical trial, the confederates all gave the same incorrect answer.

Results

• The naive participants conformed to the incorrect answer on 32% of the critical trials.

• 75% of the participants conformed on at least one critical trial.

• Less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer in the control trials.

Conclusion

Asch concluded that people will conform to the majority even when the situation is unambiguous. It is clear what the correct answer was per trial, yet participants still gave the wrong answer after hearing the confederates give the same wrong answer.

• People conform due to NSI and ISI

• Conformity to the majority is common but not inevitable.

  • 25% of the participants did not conform on any of the trials.

Variables

Asch conducted variations of his original line-length study, to test how conformity changes depending on the condition.

The variables he tested were GUTd:

• Group Size

  • With one confederate, conformity dropped to just 3% of the critical trials.

  • When the group size increased to two confederates, conformity was 12.8% of the critical trials.

  • In a group with three confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%.

    • This was the same percentage as the original.

    • Conformity peaks with three confederates.

  • People are less likely to conform in small groups, but in too large of a group people become suspicious.

• Unanimity

  • Referring to the extent of agreement/consensus across a group.

    • In the original, the confederates all gave the same incorrect answer, they were unanimous.

  • When a confederate gave correct answers, conformity dropped to ~5%.

  • When a confederate gave a different incorrect answer, conformity dropped to 9%.

  • This supports others to resist the pressure to conform.

    • Disrupting the group unanimity is therefore a way to reduce conformity.

• Task Difficulty

  • In the original study, the correct answer was obvious

    • It was unambiguous.

  • When the task was made more difficult, by making it more ambiguous, the rate of conformity increased.

  • This supports ISI - looking to the group for guidance.

  • When the task is easy, and people conform, it supports NSI.

Conformity: Evaluation

Explanations: Evaluation

Research Evidence

• There is research supporting ISI

• Jenness (1932) asked participants to estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar.

  • The participants individually estimated the number before discussing in groups of 3.

  • Following the discussing, the participants were provided with another opportunity to individually estimate the number.

    • To see if they changed their original answer.

• It was found that the second estimate moved closer to the group estimate, supporting ISI.

• However, the study lacks strong validity.

  • The sample size was 26 students which is low population validity, thus cannot be easily generalised to the target population.

  • The study used an artificial task, this reduces the ecological validity of the study.

• There is research supporting NSI

• Schultz et al (2008) gathered data from hotels about whether guests changed their behaviour after receiving a door hanger.

  • The sign informed participants of the environmental benefits of reusing towels.

    • Half of the guests received additional information, stating that ‘75% of guests choose to reuse their towels each day.’

• It results showed a 25% reduction in the use of fresh towels in the rooms which displayed the sign compared to a control with no sign.

  • Guests had conformed to the norms of the majority, to ‘fit in’ with the perceived group behaviour.

Limitations

• Neither explanation explains why some people resist both NSI and ISI.

  • The observation means that both explanations for conformity cannot be generalised to everyone.

    • It does not account for individual differences.

• Perrin and Spencer (1980) conducted an Asch-style experiment with UK engineering students.

  • There was only 1 case of conformity out of nearly 400 trials.

  • This could be due to the fact that the students felt more confident in their ability to judge line lengths, due experience in engineering, so felt less pressure to conform.

  • Neither NSI or ISI explains why this occurred.

Asch and Variables: Evaluation

Methodology

• Asch used a standardised procedure

  • This can be replicated

• His settings were highly controlled

  • Increases internal validity.

• However, there are various methodological limitations

  • Asch used a gender-biased sample of 123 male students

    • This lowers the population validity.

    • Furthermore, it is an example of beta bias, as the results were generalised to females, ignoring any potential differences.

  • His method included an artificial task.

    • This reduces the ecological validity.

    • Judgement of line length does not reflect conformity in everyday life.

Research Evidence

• Asch’s research took place at a particular time in US history where conformity was arguably higher.

• A criticism of the study is that it is ‘a child of its time’.

  • The study took place in the 1940s/50s directly after WW2 and pre-civil rights and feminist movements.

  • This suggests the study lacks temporal validity.

• Furthermore, replications of the study support this lack of temporal validity.

  • Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s study with engineering students from the UK.

  • They found that only one participant conformed out of 396.

• Mori and Arai (2010) repeated Asch’s procedures yet had participants wear filtering glasses.

  • These altered their perceptions.

  • 104 male and female Japanese undergraduates.

• The results for females were very similar to Asch’s original study. (73%)

  • For males, conformity was much lower.

• This partially supports the validity of Asch’s study.

Conformity to Social Roles

Social Roles: The parts people play as members of various social groups. Everyday examples include parent, child, student, passenger etc. These are accompanied by expectations of what is appropriate behaviour in each role.

EXAMPLE: A parent has to be caring, students should be obedient.

Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment

Aim: To investigate how rapidly people would conform to the assigned social roles in a simulated environment.

• Specifically, to investigate why “good people do bad things”

Procedure

• The basement of the Stanford University was converted into a simulated prison.

• Sample

  • 24 Male students via volunteer sampling.

    • These participants were paid for their participation

  • The participants were tested for psychiatric vulnerabilities and were deemed ‘emotionally stable’

• The participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard, both roles wore uniforms.

  • Uniforms were designed to erode personal identity and to emphasise each participant’s social role.

  • Prisoners:

    • Were arrested in the early hours of the morning at their homes.

    • Referred to by assigned numbers → dehumanising them

    • Stripped and deloused and then wore shapeless smock

  • Guards:

    • Given props like handcuffs and sunglasses → making eye contact with prisoners impossible → reinforce the boundaries between the social roles within the established social hierarchy

• The guards were instructed to set prison rules, hand out punishments and control the prisoners.

  • No physical violence was permitted to prevent complete overruling.

• No one was allowed to leave the mock prison.

Zimbardo’s Dual Role: Zimbardo oversaw the experiment as a psychologists but also assumed the role of warden monitoring both guards and prisoners.

Findings

Within a very short time, both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily.

The guards exhibited increasingly authoritarian and abusive behaviours, while the prisoners displayed signs of psychological distress, passivity, and even emotional breakdowns.

The experiment ended after 6 days due to unexpectedly rapid and intense negative psychological effects.

• Both prisoners and guards settled into their new roles very quickly.

  • Guards adopted to their social roles quickly, easily, and with enthusiasm.

  • Identification with the social roles = very fast

• Guards began to harass and torment prisoners in harsh and aggressive ways.

  • They later reported to have enjoyed doing so and relished their new-found power and control.

• Two days into the experiment the prisoners rebelled

  • By ripping their uniforms, shouting, and swearing at the guards.

• Prisoners adopted prisoner-like behaviours

  • Became quiet, depressed obedient, and subdued.

  • Some became informants → snitching on other prisoners

  • Referred to themselves as their numbers

  • One prisoner had a mental breakdown → Zimbardo had to remind them it was not a real prison.

• As prisoners became more submissive → the guards became more aggressive and abusive

• A colleague of Zimardo’s visited the study and was horrified at the abuse and explotation.

  • The study was ended after 6 days instead of the intended 14.

Conclusions

The experiment demonstrated the power of situations to alter human behaviour dramatically. Even good, normal people can do evil things when situational forces push them in that direction.

• Social roles exert a strong influence on individual identity

• Power corrupts those who wield it

  • Particularly if environmental factors legitimise this corruption of power

• Harsh institutions brutalise people and result in deindividualisation

• A prison exerts psychological damage upon both those who work there and those who are incarcerated there.

SPE: Evaluation

Control

• A strength of the SPE is the high control over key variables

  • EXAMPLE: The selection of participants.

    • Emotionally-stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guards or prisoners.

  • This was one way the researchers ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation for the findings.

    • If the two roles behaved differently but participants were only in those roles by chance then the behaviour must be due to the role itself.

    • If the participants chose the roles, it would not be certain whether the individual acting as a guard was naturally more aggressive or the role made them act more aggressive.

• This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity.

  • More confident the findings are due to the influence of roles in conformity.

Lack of Realism

• A limitation of SPE is that it did not have the realism of a true prison.

• Participants may have acted with demand characteristics

  • The participants, especially the guards, may have been able to guess the aim of the SPE, and behaved accordingly.

• Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) argued that the participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role.

  • Participants’ performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.

  • EXAMPLE: One of the guards claimed he had based his role on a brutal character from a film.

• This would explain why the prisoners rioted → they thought that was what real prisoners did.

• This lowers the validity of the findings and thus the SPE tells little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.

COUNTERPOINT:

• However, it has been argued that the participants did behave as if the prison was real.

  • McDermott (2019) argued that they did act as if the prison was real to them.

  • EXAMPLE: 90% of the prisoner’s conversations were about prison life. Amongst themselves, they discussed how it was impossible to leave the SPE before their ‘sentences’ were over.

• This suggests that the SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison, giving the study a high degree of internal validity.

Exaggeration

• A limitation is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour.

  • Fromm (1973) argued that the roles were exaggerated.

• EXAMPLE: only 1/3 of the guards actually behaved in a brutal manner. Another 1/3 tried to apply the rules fairly. The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners.

  • They sympathised, offered cigarettes, and reinstated privileges (Zimbardo, 2007).

  • Most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role.

• Furthermore, the conclusion that conforming to a social role comes naturally and easily does not explain the third of guards who did not act violently.

  • Reicher and Haslam (2006) criticise Zimbardo’s explanation because it does not account for the behaviour of the non-brutal guards.

  • They used social identity theory (SIT) instead to argue that the guards had to actively identify with their social roles to act as they did.

    • The non-brutal guards did not actively identify with their social role.

• This suggests that Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors.

Ethics

• The study is known for its atrocious ethics.

  • Informed consent: Did not cover all aspects of what the participants could expect about the procedure.

    • EXAMPLE: They were not told about the arrests at night.

  • Right to Withdraw: The participants were given the right to withdraw but the routines and mechanisms of the prison made this difficult for all involved to actually withdraw.

  • Protection from Harm: Almost absent

    • Zimbardo actively encouraged the guards to be cruel and oppressive prior to the start of the study.

    • The prisoners suffered in their role, physically and psychologically.

    • The guards had to live with the knowledge of their potential for brutality after the study was over and the prisoners may have suffered PTSD as a result of their experience.

Explanations for Obedience

Obedience: compliance with an order, request, given by a person perceived to be in a position of authority.

Milgram’s Research

Milgram (1963) designed a baseline procedure that could be used to assess obedience levels. This was adapted in later variations by Milgram using the baseline findings to make comparisons.

• Aim: To investigate obedience levels when an authority figure instructs the participant to give an increasingly strong electric shock to someone in a different room.

• Procedure

  • 40 American men aged 20-50 volunteered to take part in a study.

    • The study was supposedly on memory.

  • The participant was greeted by an experimenter in a lab coat and “randomly” allocated the role of teacher.

    • The confederate “Mr Wallace” was assigned the role of student and pretended to be electrocuted every time he got the memory recall incorrect.

  • The electric shocks

Obedience: Evaluation

Explanations of Resistance

Resistance: Evaluation

Minority Influence

Minority Influence is a form of social change which takes place when a small group of people changes the attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs of the majority. This is likely to lead to internalisation, because it is not easily achieved as majority influence is more powerful.

The processes at work include:

• Consistency

• Commitment

• Flexibility

• Deep Processing

  • When hearing something new and when the source is consistent, committed, and passionate, this can lead to deeper processing of the view.

  • This is important in the process of conversion to a different viewpoint.

• Snowball Effect

  • When over time, increasing numbers of people switch, convert, from the majority position to the minority position.

  • What starts small gathers pace and picks up new members faster.

  • Over time the minority becomes the majority.

Social Cryptomnesia: Where society forgets or fails to credit the original minority groups who initiated a social change. The new belief takes form without a conscious understanding of where it came from or the processes involved.

Consistency

Keeping the same view increases the amount of interest from other people. Promoting a specific message which does not fluctuate or change over time. Staying consistent is a way of showing the majority that the minority are firm, resolute, and strong in the face of possible criticism or outright hostility.

Consistency can be:

• Synchronic Consistency

  • The minority presents an united front and shares the same message.

• Diachronic Consistency

  • The minority have been promoting their message for some time. Keeping the same view over time.

Moscovici (1969)

• Procedure

  • Participants were put into groups of 6, and shown 36 slides of varying shades of blue.

  • The participants had to state out loud the colour of each slide.

  • Two of the participants were always confederates.

  • In the consistent condition, the two confederates said that all the slides were green.

  • In the inconsistent condition, the confederates said that 24 slides were green and 12 were blue.

• Findings

  • In the consistent condition, there were 8.2% agreement with the minority, agreeing that the blue slides were in fact green

  • In the inconsistent condition, agreement decreased to 1.25%.

• A consistent minority is more effective in terms of social influence than an inconsistent minority.

Commitment

When the minority group demonstrates dedication to their position, and not be put off by naysayers and critics. Commitment may be demonstrated via direct or indirect action.

EXAMPLE: Direct action may be setting lab animals free, indirect action may be starting a petition to close an animal-testing lab.

Strong commitment in the face of ridicule or hostility may lead the majority to think that the minority possibly have a point, as they are willing to be mocked publicly, make self sacrifices, and to face great hardship to change people’s minds.

Augmentation Principle: Going to extreme lengths, including activities with risk to the individual, to show commitment to the minority cause.

Flexibility

The way in which the minority influence is more likely to occur when the minority is willing to compromise. The minority should be able to adapt their message, as what they have to say may not be welcomed by many sectors of society.

The minority should be open to accepting reasonable and valid counter-arguments.

• People could be put off if they feel that they are being talked at.

• People do not like to feel that they are being chastised (being scolded) or patronised by others.

• People may remain unsympathetic if a minority continues to berate them for their behaviour.

• Maintaining a rigid, inflexible stance could alienate them from the majority.

Nemeth (1986)

• Investigated the extent to which a flexible minority could influence others.

• Procedure

  • Participants - one of whom was a confederate - were put into groups of four

  • The participants were presented with a scenario in which someone had been injured in a ski-lift accident

  • They had to decide as a group how much compensation the victim should receive.

  • There were two conditions

    • The inflexible condition. The minority (the confederate) argued for a low rate of compensation and refused to change his position.

    • The flexible condition. The minority argued for a low rate but then compromised, offering a slightly higher rate.

• Findings

  • In the inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority.

  • In the flexible condition, the minority was much more likely to change their view and go along with the minority.

• A minority needs to be flexible if it wants to change the attitudes and behaviours of the majority.

Minority Influence: Evaluation

Real World Examples

There are real-world examples that demonstrate that the processes of minority influence have direct application and relevance.

Suffragettes/Suffragists

• Consistency

  • Both parties asked for the same thing, simply the right for women to vote.

  • Instead of asking for many different things the movement focused on the right for women over 30 to vote.

  • The movement demonstrated synchronic and diachronic consistency.

• Commitment

  • Augmentation Principle was demonstrated in the way suffragettes went to prison, went on hunger strike, and even died for the cause.

  • Emily Davidson flung herself in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby to raise awareness of women’s right to vote.

• Flexibility

  • The suffragettes showed flexibility as they compromised and obtained the right for women over 30 to vote before they obtained the right for equal voting rights.

• Deeper Processing

  • The marches, protests, and even the deaths for the cause made people stop and think about women’s rights.

• Snowball Effect

  • Once women gained the right to vote, it was easier to gain more rights afterwards.

  • The rate of change increased once this first right was gained.

• Social Cryptoamnesia

  • Today many people disregard the privilege to vote, or even vote without recognition of the privilege that they have.

Research Evidence

• There is research supporting minority influence.

• Wood et al (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of minority influence research.

  • They found that consistency was a strong factor in minority influence.

  • The study used almost 100 studies, meaning it has good reliability because of the large sample size.

• Martin’s (2003) research supports the role of deeper processing in minority influence.

  • Participants were given a message supporting a particular view and measured their support.

  • After, participants either listened to a minority group or majority agree with the initial view.

  • Participants were shown an opposing view and their support and attitude was measured again.

  • Martin found that the group who listened to the minority group’s initial support processed the message more deeply than the group who listened to the majority.

• Martin found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group.

• This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.

• This supports the role of deeper processing in minority influence.

Limitations

• Research into minority influence has low mundane realism.

• Moscovici and Nemeth’s studies use artificial tasks reducing the external validity of the research.

  • Moscovici required the minority confederates to convince participants of the colour of slides.

  • Participants lacked jeopardy.

• In reality, minority groups face many challenges.

  • Minority groups face hostility, violence, they are separated from the majority because of power, status, and money.

  • Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in California who was murdered due to his outspoken and relentless campaign to raise awareness of gay rights.

  • In some countries, minority groups are imprisoned for speaking out.

Social Change

Social Change: Evaluation

Revision

• Types of Conformity

  • Compliance is the weakest

  • Identification is the middle

  • Internalisation is the strongest

• Explanations

  • NSI and ISI

Situational Variables in Obedience

Variables = Location, Uniform, Proximity

There are numerous situational variables which could affect the levels at which people obey. These include: location, uniform, and proximity.

Scientific Basis of Milgram

• Demand Characteristics reduces internal validity

  • Orne and Holland (1968) = Participants knew the aims

Research Support for uniform

• Bickman (1974) = uniform affects obedience

  • Field experiment

  • Guard = 76%

  • No-uniform = 30%

Dispositional Factors (Authoritarian Personality)

• Other explanations may be more appropriate

• Adorno offers a different explanation for why people obey.

  • Supported by Milgram and Elms

• Mandel argues situational explanations offer an excuse for evil.

Explanations for Obedience

Agentic shift, Legitimacy of Authority

• Social hierarchy (LOA)

• (AS) when someone else is in charge, responsibility is placed on the person giving the orders.

• Authoritarian personality (HEROIC P)

  • hostile

  • ethnocentric

  • rigid in thoughts

  • obedient to above

  • intolerant to below

  • conservative

  • prejudiced

Research Evidence

• Hofling et al (1966) = 21/22 nurses obeyed

  • Nurses administered a drug dose by orders over phone from a doctor

  • Counter: Rank and Jacobson (1977) = 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders to administer excessive drug dose despite doctors clear authority figure.

  • Casts doubt on validity of LOA/Agentic shift

RWA

• My Lai massacre - Vietnam

  • 504 civilians

• Nazi Officer denied responsibility for killing as orders came from elsewhere

Situational Factors

Minority Influence

Moscovici = blue slides

AO1, do not give too much detail

• Consistent minority 8.42%

• Inconsistent Minority 1.25%

AO3

• Research support for X factor

• This supports the synchronic consistency is important for minority influence

• Do not mix consistency with commitment

  • Letterbombs and marches is commitment

  • Consistency is about the views and morals

• Lack of Scientific Basis

Nemeth = ski lift compensation

AO1

• Compromise was more successful to convince majority than refusal of changing mind.

AO3

• Research support for X factor

Real World Application

• Lack of RWA

• Real-life minorities are very committed to their causes

• Face hostile opposition

Social Processes in Social Change

Processes = conformity, obedience, minority influence

• Nolan et al = NSI using leaflets about residents energy uses

  • Change in energy uses as want to be liked by neighbourhood

  • Counter: Foxcroft et al (2015) = no reduction of drinking by students

• Nemeth (1986) = minority encourage people to deeper levels of processes

  • through divergent thinking

  • Counter: Mackie (1987) = majority can create deeper processing if we do not share their views.

  • Casts doubt on validity on the role of minority influence on social change

• Bashir et al (2013) = stereotypes of minority reduces their influence

  • Stereotypes of vegans, environmental activists can be off-putting

  • Majority often does not want to be associated with minority