Conformity refers to how an individual or small group change their behaviour and/or attitudes as a result of the influence of a larger group, where there is no direct request for them to do so.

Explanations of why people conform:

Informational Social Influence – the desire to be right

Some people will change their thoughts and actions because they are uncertain what to think or do in any given situation, so shall look to the majority for information on what to do. This is known as Informational social influence. This is more likely to occur in ambiguous situations, in other words, when the correct way to behave is unclear. It is also more likely to result in internalisation – this means that the person who is conforming takes the values behind the behaviour as their own, and therefore it is likely to result in a permanent change in behaviour.

Normative Social Influence – the desire to be liked

Sometimes we change our behaviour because we want to be liked and accepted by those in the majority. This is known as normative social influence. It is most likely to result in compliance – this is where we change our public behaviour for the period of time we are with the group, but maintain our own private beliefs and are therefore likely to revert back to our former behaviour as soon as we leave the situation. Therefore, compliance usually results in a very short term change.

Conformity

Evaluation of Explanations of conformity

Evaluation point 1

P Sherif’s study using the autokinetic effect gives support for the existence of informational social influence. E Sherif found that when participants were asked to judge how far a spot of light had moved in a dark room, when answering individually, estimates were relatively stable, but there was considerable variation between participants (between 2 and 12 inches – 5cm and 30 cm). However, when they were put into groups of three their judgements converged towards a group norm.

E Sherif suggests this is because the task is difficult and therefore the group members are more likely to look to others to guide them to the right answer

L therefore supporting the view that informational influence leads to conformity

Evaluation point 2

Asch’s study gives support for the existence of normative social influence. He found that when participants were asked to give an answer to an easy task, (judging which out of three lines was the same as the sample line), but the confederates, who answered first, all gave the same wrong answer, there was a 32% general conformity rate across critical trials. As the task was easy, this suggests that participants conformed in order to fit in with the group. This is evidence to support normative social influence as an explanation for conformity

Evaluation point 3

The research in this area has useful applications. For example, members of a jury may feel pressured to conform through normative influence, which could lead to a miscarriage of justice if a minority feel pressured to agree with a majority verdict. This knowledge can be used by the courts to make jurors aware of the importance of being able to cast their vote privately, and not say it publicly, which should reduce the pressure each jury member feels to conform. This should result in a fairer verdict, one which truly reflects the opinions of the jury members, showing that psychological research can have real benefits in society.

Types of Conformity:

Kelman (1958) suggested three different types of conformity:

Compliance: This is the most superficial type of conformity. It occurs when an individual wants to achieve a favourable reaction from the other group members. A person will adopt this behaviour to gain specific rewards or avoid punishment and disapproval. With this type of conformity, it is likely that the person does not necessarily agree with the group, and will stop conforming when there are no group pressures to do so. Thus he or she conforms at a public level but not a private level. This type of conformity usually results from normative social influence

Identification: This is where the individual adapts their behaviour and or opinions because they value membership of a particular group. It is a deeper level of conformity than compliance, because the individual maintains the group behaviour/option, even when they are not with the group. However, it is still likely to lead to a temporary change as when the individual leaves the group they are likely to revert back to their old behaviour/attitudes. Identification was demonstrated in Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment

Internalisation: This is the deepest level of conformity and is sometimes referred to as ‘true conformity’. It refers to when an individual accepts the influence of the group because the ideas and actions are rewarding and consistent with his or her own value system. A person will show conformity to a group because he or she genuinely agrees with their views (they have been ‘internalised’). This means it leads to a change in behaviour/attitudes both in public and in private which is permanent. This type of conformity usually results from informational social influence

Evaluation of types of conformity research

Evaluation point 1

P Asch’s study of conformity gives support for the existence of compliance.

E When Asch interviewed his participants post-procedure to try to determine why they had conformed to an obviously wrong answer, although a few reported that their judgement had been distorted by the majority, most said that they had conformed to avoid rejection and that they were aware that they were giving the wrong answer,

E supporting the view that they had changed their answer temporarily to avoid the disapproval of the group, rather than their behaviour being subject to a more permanent change.

L This supports the view that normative social influence tends to lead to compliance, a short-term change.

Evaluation point 2

Sherif’s study of conformity, using the autokinetic effect, gives support for the existence of internalisation. This is because, when asked to judge how far a spot of light had moved in a dark room (a task that had no right answer), there were wide variations between participants’ answers in the first individual condition. However, when they were put into groups of three, a group norm was established that was maintained in a further condition where they answered individually. This suggests that they were truly persuaded away from their original answers and had taken the group view as their own, thus demonstrating a fairly permanent change which is characteristic of internalisation

Evaluation point 3

The research into types of conformity has some practical applications. For example, it alerts us to the fact that if the majority are attempting to effect a permanent change in behaviour, it is important that they truly persuade the minority away from their existing view or behaviour. Failure to do so may result in little more than a superficial, temporary change in behaviour. For example, those attempting to change the behaviour of heavy drinkers or smokers, may achieve agreement in a group setting through compliance, but a permanent change in behaviour will only be achieved if the message is strong and persuasive enough to result in internalisation of the anti-drinking/smoking values.

Research Study 1: Sherif (1935) - A demonstration of Informational Social Influence and Internalisation

This study can be used if a question asks you to outline and evaluate/discuss research studies into conformity, informational social influence or internalisation

Procedure:

 Sherif (1935) carried out a laboratory experiment using a repeated measures design. He used the autokinetic effect to demonstrate conformity. The autokinetic effect is an optical illusion that is experienced when a person, placed in a

completely dark room, perceives a

stationary light to be moving.

 Participants were first asked to judge,

individually, over several trials, how far the light appeared to move (condition 1). The participants were then put into groups of three, and asked to estimate again, announcing their estimates aloud (condition 2). They were then asked to go back to estimating individually (condition 3).

Findings:

 Sherif found that in condition 1, each individual’s estimates were relatively stable, but there was considerable variation between participants (between 2 and 12 inches – 5cm and 30 cm).

 In condition 2, their judgements converged towards a group norm. In other words their group answer tended to be an average of the individual estimates.

 In condition 3, the individual participants tended to maintain the group norm

Conclusions:

 This study shows that when faced with an ambiguous situation (when the right answer is not clear), the participants looked to others for help and guidance. This can be explained by informational social influence, as the participants will changed their thoughts and actions because they were uncertain what estimate to give in this ambiguous situation. The finding that the individuals continued to use the group estimate when they were away from the group demonstrates that they had internalised the estimate of the distance.

Evaluation of Sherif’s Research study

Evaluation point 1

The research is high in internal validity due to the highly controlled conditions of the experiment

This is because Sherif was able to isolate the variable of informational influence (working in a group of three) and measure its effect on the responses of the participants. He also found a way to demonstrate internalisation in a laboratory situation, which is a concept that does not lend itself well to experimental manipulation. This allows us to draw firm conclusions about

the role of informational influence on a person’s behaviour

and/or attitudes and its potential to influence behaviour and

attitudes in the long-term as well as the short term, which

could be useful for those who might benefit from majority

influence. For example, employers may find that working

groups are more effective at solving problems, rather than

relying on individual members of the workforce to generate

solutions alone, which may not lead to a clear route forwards

Evaluation point 2

Other research has supported the view that conformity is likely to occur in an ambiguous situation. In a similar procedure to Sherif, when Jenness asked participants to estimate the number of jellybeans in a

jar, he found that in the group condition answered converged, much the same as in Sherif’s study, and also that in a second private estimate, the individuals tended to move towards the group norm. The reliability of the research in this area adds weight to the conclusions made by Sherif, increasing the scientific validity of the research. However, we still have to bear in mind that these findings apply to laboratory studies, and therefore we may not see the same effect in a real-life situation.

Evaluation point 3

One of the reasons why the results may not generalise to a real-life situation is the lack of mundane realism in the task. Judging how far a spot of light moves in a dark room is unlikely to feel like an important task to the participant,

so it is likely that they will care less about their answer than if they were asked to conform in a real-life situation, where coming up with the right answer may be much more important, for example, if someone was trying to solve a difficult maths problem, or come up with a solution to a work-based issue. This means that we may find that laboratory studies exaggerate the amount of conformity in the field, as they are only using trivial tasks, rather than issues that people care about, where they may be less prepared to change their view

Asch (1951) - A Demonstration of Normative Social Influence and Compliance

This study can be used if a question asks you to outline and evaluate/discuss research studies into conformity, normative social influence or compliance

Aims:

 To see if participants would feel pressured into conforming to an obviously wrong answer

Procedure:

 Participants were asked to match one standard line with three possibilities

 In a control study of 36 participants taking part in 20 trials each, only three mistakes were made over a total of 720 trials.

 Participants in the experimental

condition (n=50, male college

students) were tested in groups of

7, 8 or 9. All the other members of the group were confederates of the experimenter.

 The confederates were instructed beforehand to give the same wrong answers on certain critical trials.

 The naïve participant was always the last or second to last to answer.

 The confederates gave the same wrong answer on 12 of the 18 trials. These were referred to as

‘critical trials’.

Findings:

 26% of participants did not conform on any critical trials.

 5% of participants conformed on every critical trial

 74% of participants conformed at least once

 32% was the basic conformity rate (total number of trials)

After the experiment, the participants were asked why they had conformed:

Some wanted to please the experimenter, and they thought that conforming was what the experimenter wanted; a few genuinely doubted their own eyesight; others reported that they did not want to appear different or be made to look a fool.

Conclusions:

This research is a demonstration of normative social influence. The finding that many did not want to appear different means that they did not internalise the answer, and would have returned to their original belief, so this is an example of compliance.

Evaluation of Asch’s study

Evaluation point 1

The research has useful applications which can potentially benefit society. For example, members of a jury may feel pressured to conform through normative influence, which could lead to a miscarriage of justice if a minority feel pressured to agree with a majority verdict. This knowledge can be used by the courts to

make jurors aware of the importance of being able to cast their vote privately, and not say it publicly, which should reduce the pressure each jury member feels to conform. This should result in a fairer verdict, one which truly reflects the opinions of the jury members. However, we also have to bear in mind that research such as Asch’s can also be used in a less positive way. For example, advertisers may seek to increase revenue for their clients by using the principles of normative social influence to make customers want to buy their products, for example, if a group of people are shown wearing a

certain brand of clothing. Some would consider this to be ethically unsound as it means that social influence research is being used to manipulate the general public for financial gain.

Evaluation point 2

There is evidence that suggests a cultural bias in Asch’s research. For example, Smith & Bond (1996) analysed over 100 studies using an Asch type procedure and

found that collectivist cultures conform more than

individualist cultures. Perrin & Spencer (1980) replicated

Asch’s study on engineering students and did not find

support for the conformity effect. These results may be

explained by cultural differences. Asch’s research was

carried out in an individualist culture, so we would expect

less conformity due to the value placed on independence

and autonomy in such a culture. However, in a collectivist

culture, we would expect more conformity due to the

importance placed on inter-dependence and being part of a

group. This means that Asch’s results may not generalise to non-western cultures, or collectivist sub- cultures within western society. In addition, the Perrin & Spencer finding may reflect a lack of temporal validity, as it was carried out nearly thirty after Asch’s original study. Therefore, we might conclude that conformity within our own society has diminished over that time.

Evaluation point 3

Asch’s study lacks mundane realism due to the artificiality of the task and its trivial nature. It is unlikely that participants would have felt strongly about the task, because judging the length of a line is not an

emotive issue. However, in a real-life situation, conforming may involve compromise of the person’s values, for example, being with a group of people who laugh at a racist joke. This may mean that someone is less likely to conform due to normative pressures in an everyday situation, and therefore, Asch may have over-estimated conformity as his results are not necessarily generalisable. In addition, the artificiality of the situation means that conformity is studied outside of its true social context, which makes conforming behaviour look odd or negative, when in fact, we might consider it to be essential for social cohesion

Variables that affect levels of conformity

Group Size

Asch manipulated the size of the majority to record the effect it had on the participant. Using his original procedure, he varied the number of confederates in the group. Participants were tested using either 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10 or 15 confederates.

Findings

 Conformity was only 3% when there was one confederate

 Conformity was 13% when there were two confederates

 When there were three confederates, conformity increased to 33% and didn’t increase much beyond this regardless of the number of confederates

 In some conditions, a larger group of 15 confederates led to slightly less conformity, maybe because the participant was more likely to become suspicious when there was such a large group

Unanimity

Asch wanted to see if one person dissenting from the majority would affect the likelihood of the participant conforming

Findings

 When the participant had one (confederate) ally who gave the right answer before the participant answered, conformity dropped to 5.5%

 Asch found that when the confederate dissenter gave a different answer from the majority, but that answer was still incorrect, this was equally effective in reducing conformity in the participant. Asch concluded from this that the important factor was that the participant had support for deviating from the group, not support for his answer

Difficulty of the Task

Conformity increases when the task becomes more difficult.

Findings

 Asch found that when he made the length of the lines more similar, conformity increased. This supports the view that conformity is more likely when the task is difficult

Evaluation of the research into factors that affect conformity

Evaluation point 1

The research into group size has useful applications. As Asch’s original study is thought to support the existence of normative social influence, these variations are useful for understanding the optimum number needed in the majority to exert those pressures on the minority. This could be used in schools to make sure that children with problematic behaviour are grouped with three others whose behaviour is more desirable in the hope that the problem behaviour will be

modified by the presence of the larger group.

The observation that the larger group of 15 was

less influential backs up the idea that large

majorities are no more influential and possibly

less influential than smaller ones. However, we

have to be cautious about Asch’s finding as it

may have been caused by the real participant

becoming suspicious that ‘something was going

on’ when the majority is too large. This

highlights one of the problems of using lab

research to understand the influences behind

real-life behaviour.

Evaluation point 2

The observation that majorities need to be unanimous to be influential has implications for those wishing to exert influence. For example, in a business setting, where a management committee may be attempting

to influence a new member, they should be aware of the importance of maintaining the same public opinion, even if privately some members may disagree with the company line. It also alerts us to the increased pressure of those who are subjected to unanimous majorities, for example in a jury situation. It may be particularly difficult for one or two jurors to express their true opinion if faced with 10 or 11 people who are all in agreement. This also has useful applications as it shows the importance of allowing jurors write down whether or not they believe a suspect to by guilty, rather than declare it to the group.

Evaluation point 3

The observation that conformity increases when the task becomes more difficult can be explained through informational social influence. As the task becomes harder, there is a greater need to look to others for the right answer. Therefore, informational influence combines with normative influence to increase the conformity rate. This can be useful knowledge for those working in education, as it suggests that when students are working on a difficult assignment, they would benefit from being in a group, thus increasing their accuracy in the task.

Conformity to Social Roles: Zimbardo’s Research

(An example of Identification)

Conformity to social roles refers to how an individual’s behaviour changes according to the expectation of behaviour in that particular situation. For example, a person may behave very differently depending on whether they are performing a job, socialising with friends, or looking after their children.

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study

Aims:

 To test the dispositional versus the situational hypothesis. Are prison guards violent because they have violent personalities, or do their roles make them behave that way?

 To test the extent to which participants would adopt the role of prisoner or guard, even though the roles were determined randomly

Procedures:

 The study used a sample of 21 male student volunteers who were all rated as being psychologically stable

 Participants were randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard. Zimbardo played the role of prison superintendent

 The study took place in the basement of Stanford University, which was converted into a mock prison. To add to the realism of the study, the prisoners were arrested at their homes by the local police, taken to the ‘prison’, stripped and deloused. They were dehumanised by wearing a loose fitting smock, a nylon stocking cap (to emulate a shaven head) and were referred to by number rather than name. Guards were deindividuated by wearing a uniform, reflective sunglasses and being referred to only as ‘Mr. Correctional Officer’

 The guards were told to keep the prisoners in line, but other than that, no specific instructions were given about how each group should behave. No physical violence was allowed. The study was scheduled to last for two weeks

Findings:

 Within a day the prisoners had rebelled and ripped off their numbers. The guards responded by locking them in their cells and taking away their blankets

 As the study progressed, the guards became increasingly sadistic. Prisoners were humiliated, deprived of sleep, made to carry out demeaning tasks (such as cleaning the toilets with their bare hands).

 The prisoners became depressed and submissive.

Some showed signs of serious stress. One prisoner

was released after 36 hours due to fits of crying and

rage. Three more were released with similar symptoms during the next few days.

 The study was called to a halt after six days due to the unforeseen effects on the prisoners

Conclusions:

 The study supports the situational hypothesis, rather than the dispositional hypothesis. This is because participants adopted the behaviour associated with the role they were assigned, even though those roles were randomly determined, and no psychological abnormality was found to be present in the participants before the study began

 Conforming to social roles leads people to behave differently to how they normally would

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles

Evaluation point 1

P: Zimbardo’s research does not fully support the situational hypothesis

E: This is because it fails to explain why not all of the guards behaved equally aggressively towards the prisoners.

E: Some were reluctant to exercise their authority, whereas one guard in particular was seen as the ringleader. This suggests that individual differences play a part in the way someone responds to role expectations.

L: Therefore Zimbardo’s assertion that situations cause people to behaviour in a particular way cannot be regarded as a stand-alone explanation without taking into account additional contributory factors such as biological predisposition to aggression or past experience, which combined with the situation may trigger the aggressive behaviour

Evaluation point 2

The research lacks reliability as others have failed to replicate Zimbardo’s original findings. Reicher & Haslam replicated Zimbardo’s study in 2002, and this replication was broadcast by the BBC. The findings were very different to Zimbardo’s. The guards were unwilling to impose authority over the prisoners, who rapidly took charge of the prison. Following the breakdown of authority in the prison, both groups attempted to establish a fair and equal social system. When this failed, a small group of prisoners took control and the study was called off. This could suggest that Zimbardo’s findings may have been a ‘one off’, and caused by flaws in the methodology of the original study. It could also suggest that Zimbardo’s study

lacks temporal validity and that people are now less likely to conform to the demands of a role if it leads to a negative outcome for others. It may also be that social roles are less rigidly defined now than they were in the past.

Evaluation point 3

There are many ethical issues with the way Zimbardo carried out his research. He has been criticised for not accurately assessing the potential impact on his participants, and failing to call a halt to the procedure soon enough when it became clear that some of those taking part were experiencing psychological harm. Partly this was due to Zimbardo taking on the role of

prison superintendent, and therefore not creating

enough distance from the procedure to be able to

maintain professionalism in his role as psychologist.

This means that Zimbardo failed in his duty to protect

the welfare of his participants. Furthermore,

Zimbardo’s involvement in the study could have had an

influence on the behaviour of the participants. He

could have unknowingly cued them to behave in a

particular way (investigator effects). The artificiality of

the situation could have led to a change in behaviour

due to demand characteristics, making the results of the study invalid