types and exp.

types

  • herbert kelman

  • compliance - simply going along with others in public, but not agreeing in private. leads to superficial change. change in opinion stops as soon as group pressure stops

  • identification - conforming to group opinion because there’s smth about the group we value. identify with them so wants to join them. may agree publicly to be accepted but not everything privately

  • internalisation - when a person genuinely accepts the group norms. results in private and public change of opinion. change is permanent because it has been internalised. change in opinion persists even in the absence of other group members

explanations

Deutsch and Gerard

informational social influence (ISI)

  • following behaviour of group in order to be right

  • who has better information - you or group

  • results in internalisation

  • likely to happen in new situations, crisis and ambiguous

normative social influence (NSI)

  • norms regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals

  • people don’t want to appear foolish and want social approval

  • an emotional process rather than cognitive

  • leads to compliance

  • likely to occur w strangers (rejection), also friends (social approval), and stressful situations (social support)

AO3

  • a strength of NSI is that there is research support

  • when asch conducted his line perception study, he interviewed the ppts afterwards

  • they said they conformed because they were self conscious and afraid of disapproval

  • when answers were written down, conformity fell to 12.5% because there was no normative group pressure

  • this supports the idea that NSI occurs due to a fear of rejection and seeking approval

  • a strength of ISI is that there is research support

  • Lucas et al found that participants conformed more when the maths problem given was harder. this is because when it was easy, ppts ‘knew their own mind’ but when it was harder the situation became ambiguous

  • ppts relied on others because they didnt want to be wrong

    • however, it is often unclear whether it is ISI or NSI at play. conformity fell in asch’s study when there was a dissenter. this could be due to NSI (they offered social support) or ISI (they offered alternative source of information). both of these possibilities suggest that it is hard to separate the two explanations and most likely occur together in real life situations

  • one limitation is that NSI does not predict conformity in every situation

  • nAffiliators are people who are deeply concerned with being well liked by other s

  • mcghee and teevan found that these people were more likely to conform

  • this suggests that individual differences play a role in conformity and NSI underlies it more for some people than other