Define social influence
Process by which a persons attitude, beliefs or behaviour are modified by the presence or actions of others
Define conformity
Result of social influence, where people adopt the behaviours, attitudes and values of the majority members of a group.
What are the three types of conformity?
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
Define compliance
Individual publicly conforms to the norms or expectations of a group while privately maintaining their own beliefs. This form of conformity is temporary and situational, as the individual’s behavior changes only in the **presence of the group **to gain aprproval or avoid disapproval. For example an employee follows workplace rules and protocols while at work but may not fully utilise these behaviours or values outside of the workplace
Define identification
Publicly and privately adopts the beliefs, values, and behaviors of a group. Aligning one’s personal attitudes and beliefs with those of the group. This form of conformity can be temporary or long-lasting, depending on the individual’s association and identification with the group. For instance, a person who joins a sports team may adopt the team’s values, dress code, and language both during practices/games and outside of those settings.
Define internalisation
When an individual privately accepts beliefs, values and behaviours because the content of the induced behavior is** intrinsically rewarding. It can be long-lasting or permanent**. They adopt the induced behavior because it is congruent (consistent) with their value system e.g. joining a religious group and wholeheartedly integrating the group’s teachings and practices into their own personal beliefs and daily life
Man (1969) identified an additional type of conformity:
Ingratiational
What does it mean?
This is when a person conforms to impress or gain favor/acceptance from other people. An example of ingratiational conformity can be when someone praises and agrees with their boss’s opinions in a meeting to be perceived as likable and enhance their chances of a promotion.
3 factors to consider when comparing the 3 types of conformity
- Public vs private
- Permanent/ temporary/ long-lasting etc.
- In presence of group or not
1955
What are the two explanations of conformity? Mention the dual process dependency model
The dual process dependency model argues that conformity is determined by two cognitive processes: normative influence and informational influence. This model was first proposed by Deutsch and Gerard in 1955
What is normative social influence? Who investigated this? What type of conformity is often involved?
- Yielding to group pressure because a person wants to** fit in** with the group.
- E.g., Asch Line Study.
- Conforming because the person is scared of being rejected by the group.
- This type of conformity usually involves compliance – where a person publicly accepts the views of a group but privately rejects them.
What is informational social influence? Who investigated this? What type of conformity is often involved?
- This usually occurs when a person lacks knowledge and looks to the group for guidance.
- Or when a person is in an ambiguous situation and socially compares their behavior with the group.
- E.g., Sherif’s Study.
- This type of conformity usually involves internalisation – where a person accepts the views of the groups and adopts them as an individual.
6 MARKS DONT LEARN THIS YET SKIP IT!!!!
Outline Sherif’s study. What was he investigating? What methodology was used? Are there prominent statistics? How do the findings link to conformity?
AIM
Sherif (1935) conducted an experiment with the aim of demonstrating that people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambiguous (i.e., unclear) situation.
METHOD
- 123 male ppts
- Lab experiment
- Autokinetic effect – this is where a small spot of light (projected onto a screen) in a dark room will appear to move even though it is still (i.e., it is a visual illusion).
- Participants were put in groups with between 7 and 9 confederates
- In the 12 critical trials, the confederates would all give the same wrong answer – the participant was always asked to give their answer last (or second to last) so as to hear the group’s answers first.
- The control group for this experiment consisted of 36 participants. In the control trials, participants were asked the same question as above – but this time alone
RESULTS
- When participants were individually tested, their estimates varied considerably (e.g., from 20cm to 80cm). Over numerous estimates (trials) of the movement of light, the group converged to a common estimate.
- Across all critical trials, participants conformed to the incorrect group consensus 32% of the time.
75% of participants conformed to at least one incorrect answer
5% of participants conformed to every incorrect answer
CONCLUSION
The results show that when in an ambiguous situation (such as the autokinetic effect), a person will look to others (who know more / better) for guidance (i.e., adopt the group norm). They want to do the right thing but may lack the appropriate information. Observing others can provide this information. This is known as informational conformity.
Asch
Outline the 3 factors that impact conformity
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
Asch’s findings on group size
- With one confederate in the group conformity was 3%, with two it increased to 13% and with three 32% until conformity no longer further increased
- Results concluded that the bigger the majority group, the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.
- Conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four, so this is considered the optimal group size where is plateaus
Asch’s findings on unanimity
- When confederates gave the same incorrect response conformity was as high as 33%
- When another confederate was placed 2nd to last before the real participant gave a right answer, the conformity dropped to 5.5%
- If the confederate went against both the majority and the participant, conformity still dropped to 9%.
- Asch concluded that breaking unanimity was enough to reduce conformity regardless of whether they supported the real participant or not
Outline Asch’s original study
- In Asch’s study of conformity, he recruited 50 male students to take part in a lab experiment, which he told them was investigating visual discrimination. However, the true purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a group’s behaviour on an individual.
- Had to match the length of a “standard” line to 3 other lines of differing lengths and then give their answer out-loud in a group setting with the true participant always answering second to last.
- However, the confederates were instructed to give the wrong answer on 12 out of the 18 trials.
- Asch found that on the 12 critical trials the average conformity rate was 32% compared to a control condition where mistakes were made only 1% of the time.
- 74% of the participants conformed on at least one critical trial
3 MARKS
Outline Milgram’s experiment/ research into obedience
What is the aim and method? Where there specific prods? How many variations?
AIM AND PROCEDURE 1963
- Milgram wanted to see whether people would obey a legitimate authority figure when given instructions to harm another human being.
- *Advertised in an American newspaper for volunteers & paid$4.50 per hour.
*Carried out the research at Yale University.
*40 male participants took the part of either ‘teacher’ or ‘learner
- between 20 to 50 yrs old
- Lab experiment in which two participants were assigned either the role of a teacher (this was always given to the true participant) or learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace).
- Learners were instructed to learn a series of word pairs (eg., blue-sky).
*Teacher presented word pair and four possible responses.
*Correct response made by pressing a button – learners were instructed to make mistakes.
*Teachers administered shock – severity increased 15 volts with each mistake.
- These shocks increased every time the learner gave a wrong answer, from 15 – 450 volts.
- Prod 1: please continue.
Prod 2: the experiment requires you to continue.
Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
Prod 4: you have no other choice but to continue
- 18 variations
- 100% of ppts went to 300 volts and 65% went to 450 volts.
- 84% said they were glad to have taken part
3 marks
Outline Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment (method) / conformity to social roles/ research into conformity
Procedure
* To investigate conformity of social roles stimulating prison life- Zimbardo (1973)
* 24 male students were selected from a total of 75 participants for their mental stability and lack of antisocial tendencies. Randomly assigned the role of either “prisoner” or “guard”
* Basement of Stanford university was a prison
* Prisoners wore smocks, rubber flip-flops and a light chain around the ankle-prisoners were taken to prison and were stripped
* Experiment ran for 2 weeks
- Guards were issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses
- no physical violence was permitted
- prisoners were referred to by only their numbers, not names
Outline Zimbardo’s findings
Findings
* The environment had a huge and almost instantaneous effect on the behaviour of the guards and prisoners.
* Guards became highly sadistic e.g. as punishments the prisoners had to sleep on concrete floor instead of matresses
* After only a day symptoms of stress began to show in some of the prisoners
* Within the first 4 days, 4 prisoners had to be released with signs of distress.
* The guards and the prisoners conformed to the social roles they were expected to play.
* Prisoner 8612 had a mental breakdown
* lasted 6 days instead of 2 weeks
* The conclusion that the experiment supports a situational hypothesis over a dispositional one means that the participants’ actions, such as displaying sadistic behavior, were more a result of the roles they were assigned (guards or prisoners) and the circumstances of the experiment rather than their underlying personalities. This implies that anyone, under similar circumstances, could have acted similarly regardless of their usual tendencies or traits outside of that specific situation.
What is meant by situational factors impacting obedience? What are they, shown by Milgram’s research?
Situational explanations for obedience focus on external factors that affect the likelihood that someone will obey orders. Examples of situational factors in Milgram’s research are proximity, location and uniform.
Proximity meaning
- Proximity of authority figure = how close the authority figure is to the person obeying orders
- That the closer the authority figure is to the person, the more likely the person is to obey
Location meaning
- People would be more likely to obey to orders given in a more legitimate location.
Uniform meaning
- The uniform of an authority figure may help to determine whether their authority is perceived as legitimate
- If the authority figure is wearing a uniform that indicates power and authority, you’re more likely to obey
MILGRAM VARIATION - PROXIMTY
When the teacher and learner were no longer in adjoining rooms, what % did the obedience rate drop to?
65% to 40%
