Social Influence

Conformity

What is Social Influence?

The way in which a person or group of people affect the attitudes and behaviour of

an individual(Brody & Dwyer, 2002)

What is conformity?

The tendency to change what we do (behaviour) or think and say in

response to real or imagined group pressure.

Types of Conformity

There are 2 types of conformity…

ComplianceSuperficial and

public.Change in

behaviour not personal views

InternalisationDeep and private.

Change in behaviour AND personal views

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ConformitySocial Norms (Implicit & explicit)ComplianceInternalisation

Research demonstrating compliance

Asch (1951)

Line-judgement task

Compliance –

- Most superficial type of conformity- Individual conforms publically to the group

but privately disagrees- Change in behaviour not personal views

123 American male undergraduates- In each experiment all but one of the

group were confederates

Asch - A01Unambiguous line

judging taskConducted a pilot study –3/720 errors

WHY?!

Confederate ConfederateReal pConfederateConfederate

18 trials in total, 12 were critical -When all confederates gave the same incorrect answer

Findings – A01Mean conformity rate of 37%

Participants agreed with the

incorrect majority answer on over 1/3 of

the trials

Is 37% low?

Not considering

the task was!

Not considering how obvious

(unambiguous) the task was!

There were wide individual differences within the results:

-5% conformed on every trial-25% remained totally independent (never once agreed with the majority when they answered incorrectly)

Conclusions – A01

Asch’s participants explained that one of the reasons they agreed with the majority on an

obviously wrong answer was so as not to stand out from the crowd.

Asch concluded therefore that participants’ actions were a clear example of compliance!

Variations of the experiment

Group size – 1, 2 & 3 stooges1 stooge = 0%, 2 stooges = 12.8%,3 stooges = 37%(more than that – no rise)

Unanimity of stooges (same wrong answer)Unanimous = High level of conformity1 stooge giving right answer = drops to 5%

Ambiguity – how obvious is the wrong answer- As lines become similar in length conformity rises

Evaluation – A02You should be able to think of 4 evaluation

points without anymore information than the research outline

High degree of control over variables

Lack of ecological validity

Ethical issues - lack of informed consent

Lack of population validity (used only men) Androcentric

Additional Evaluation – A02

Asch’s research was conducted in America during the era of McCarthyism

(an era where people were accused, without adequate evidence, of being disloyal to the country and guilty of treason)

Why is this a problem for Asch’s research?What type of validity might Asch’s research

lack?

Lack of Temporal Validity

Extra empirical evaluation – A02• Crutchfield (1956) (repeated Asch’s research

and found a similar conformity rate)

• Eagly & Carli (1981) (women conform more than men in a situation that’s observed but men conform more in an unobserved situation)

• Perrin & Spencer (1980) (repeated Asch’s research and found a lower conformity rate)

Potential questions

Outline research into conformity (6 marks)

Describe and evaluate research into compliance (12 marks)

What is Social Influence?

The way in which a person or group of people affect the attitudes and behaviour of

an individual(Brody & Dwyer, 2002)

What is conformity?

The tendency to change what we do (behaviour) or think and say in response to real or imagined

pressure from a group.

Types of Conformity

There are 2 types of conformity…

ComplianceSuperficial and

public.Change in

behaviour not personal views

InternalisationDeep and private.

Change in behaviour AND personal views

Research demonstrating internalisation

Sherif (1936)

Autokinetic effect.

Internalisation –

- Deepest level of conformity- Individual conforms both publically and

privately to the group- Conversion

Sherif – A01

Group 1• Tested individually

in a darkened room

• Each P made 100 estimates

• Put into groups of 2 or 3

• P’s reached a group norm

Group 2• P’s were tested in

small groups

• P’s developed a group estimate

• P’s tested individually

• P’s estimates reflected the group estimate

Aimed to investigate whether participants would conform and change their own individual prediction about how far a spot of

light moved when the group were no longer there

Sherif divided participants into 2 groups

Sherif - findingsWhen put into groups, participants estimates converged towards a

central mean

Despite not being told to arrive at a group

estimate

After experiencing group influence, individual estimates reflected the group answers – though in interviews after the experiment participant denied

being influence by others

Sherif - conclusion

Sherif suggested that in group 2, participants individual answer reflected the group responses

because the individual participants looking to other

group members for information –ambiguous task

Rohrer et al (1954) replicated Sherif’sstudy and found that when participants were re-tested individually up to a year later they continued to use the group

answer- Showing that p’s had internalised

(taken on) the views of the group and privately changed their beliefs.

Evaluation – A02You should be able to think of 4 evaluation

points without anymore information than the research outline

High degree of control over variables

Lack of ecological validity

Ethical issues – use of deception

Ethical issues – lack of informed consent

Compliance InternalisationChange behaviour

not views

Public

Unambiguous task

Not conversion

Change behaviour and views

Private

Ambiguous task

True conversion

Vs.