A* Psychology Revision: Key Concepts on Conformity and Social Influence
1. RECAP…
• How many marks do you need to get in a 12 mark question to receive an A*?
• What are A01, A02 & A03? (3 marks)
• Where did Wundt open the first school of Psychology? (1 mark for city, 1 mark for
country)
• What year did this happen?
• What was the name of the technique Wundt used to measure cognitive processes?
• The scientific method is made up of 4 components… (4 marks)
…Identify the missing words…
1 2 3 4
2. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Social Psychologists – interested in human behaviour in
social settings
• In this section we will consider the study of conformity
and of obedience – 2 ways in which others may influence
us…
3. LESSON 1: CONFORMITY
• Differentiate between different types of conformity
• Understand different explanations for conformity
• Evaluate these explanations
• Recap Asch (1956) and variables that affect conformity
• Evaluate research into conformity
• Introduction to Conformity to Social Roles
4. CONFORMITY
• A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined
group pressure
5. REAL VS. IMAGINED GROUP PRESSURE…
• Real Group Pressure
• Involves the physical pressence of
others
• Imagined Group Pressure
• Involves the pressure of social
norms and expectations
6. CONFORMITY
• Try and think of as many examples of conformity in your every day
life…
7. 1. A teacher has asked a question to the class. You know the answer,
but no one else has put their hand up. Despite the fact that you know
you are right do you give the answer or not?
2. You arrive at your classroom late and the teacher has not yet turned
up yet. She may be late or she may be absent today. Most of the
class get up and leave, do you follow them?
3. You walk into a lift and notice everyone facing away from the doors.
You know they do not open through to the other side, which way to
you stand?
4. You are taking part in a psychology study and are directed into a
room with 8 other participants to fill out a questionnaire. You notice
smoke appearing under the door, no-one reacts, what do you do?
10. CONFORMITY
• It is not simply acting like others, but
also being effected by how they act.
• You “consciously” act differently from
the way you would act alone.
11. 3 TYPES OF CONFORMITY:
• 1: Compliance
• Going along with a group in order to gain their approval or
avoid their disapproval.
• It does not result in change in the individual’s underlying
attitude: only the views and behaviours expressed in
public
12. 3 TYPES OF CONFORMITY:
• 2: Internalisation
• Going along with a group because of an acceptance of their views
• Likely to occur if the group is trustworthy, knowledgeable about the
subject area or if you have previously gone along with their views
• Leads to acceptance of the groups point of view both publicly and
privately
13. 3 TYPES OF CONFORMITY:
• 3: Identification
• Sole purpose of going along with the group is to fit in and
identify oneself as a group member
• Has elements of both compliance and internalisation
14. There are different types
of conformity:
1. Compliance
2. Identification
3. Internalisation
Shallow Level
Deep Level
17. 1. NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Normative social influence occurs when:
• We go along with a crowd/group in order to be liked or
accepted and to avoid being mocked or ridiculed by
others and to avoid being ‘the odd one out’.
For Example…
That was
amazing!
Um
yeah… it
was
great…
Imagine you just went to the
cinema with your friends to see a
new film everyone’s been talking
about.
They all loved it and are
discussing how amazing it was.
However you didn’t think it was
very good… but in order to not
stand out you just go along with
their opinion on the film
18. 1. NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE
• This is much more likely to occur if:
• the individual feels that they are under surveillance by the
group
• The individual has a desire to fit in with the group
19. 2. INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE
• Occurs when we accept information from others as evidence about
reality.
• We are unsure of the correct response and so look to others for the
answers…
20. INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Informational social influence often occurs most when:
• The situation is ambiguous. We have different choices
but are unsure of which choice to take (such as Asch
discovered when upping the task difficulty).
• When we have little or no time to think and must make
abrupt decisions!
• When we accept others as experts and assume they
must know better than us (such as Asch discovered with
the status of a majority group).
For Example…
Imagine you are dining at a very fancy
restaurant. You have been given a
multitude of different cutlery but aren’t
sure of the proper way to use them…what
do you do?
More often than not you will look around to
others and try to see what they’re doing and
copy them (because we believe they know
better than us)
23. EVALUATION…
• Support for Normative Social Influence
• Schultz et al (2008) found that hotel guests exposed to the message that “75%
of guests reused their towels each day” (rather than requiring fresh towels)
reduced their own towel use by an average of 25%.
• Linken & Perkins (2003) found that adolescents exposed to the simple
message that the majority of their peer group didn’t smoke, were
subsequently less likely to take up smoking
24. EVALUATION…
• Research support for informational social influence
• Wittenbrink & Henley (1996) found that Ppt’s exposed to negative
information about African Americans (which they were led to
believe was the view of the majority) later reported more negative
beliefs about a black individual.
25. EVALUATION…
• Normative Social Influence is under-detected and people largely
dismiss it as being the driving force behind behaviour
change…even if it is!
26. SHERIF (1936)
• People use other peoples behaviour to decide what to do.
• Autokinetic effect – an optical illusion
• Participants were put in a darkened room, with no visible objects
and asked to focus on a single spot of light.
• They were asked how far the light had moved and in what
direction
27. SHERIF (1936)
• No correct answer as light does NOT move
• Dramatic variation in response
• Repeated experiment in groups of 3
• Sherif found that individuals changed their individual views and
converged or agreed with with others within the group.
• Group norm was formed
29. ASCH (1956)
• A true participant was seated in a row among confederates.
• The participant was seated 6th in a row of 7 people.
• The goal of the study was to examine perceptual judgments & the participants
were instructed to pick which of 3 lines “matched” a standard line.
The true participant could see that one of the lines was obviously a match, the
others obviously wrong.
30. ASCH (1956)
• There were 12 critical trials
using stimuli similar to that
shown opposite…
31.
32. THE RESULTS OF ASCH’S EXPERIMENT
32%
68%
Conformed didn't conform
On average about one third
of participants went along
and conformed with the
incorrect majority during
the critical trials.
75%
25%
Over the course of the 12
critical trails around 75% of
participants conformed at
least once and 25% didn’t
conform at all.
1%
99%
In the group with no given
pressure to conform less
than 1% of participants
gave the wrong answer.
33. CONCLUSION
Why do we conform so willingly?
After the trials had been completed the participants
were interviewed. The majority of participants said
that they didn’t believe the answers they were giving
to be true but had gone along with the views of the
group in fear of being mocked or seeming “peculiar”.
some however actually believed the answers they
were giving to be correct.
It was concluded that people conform for
two main reasons: because they want to
fit in (normative influence) and because
they believe others are better informed
than they are (informational influence).
Which one
matches the
first?
Clearly
this one!?
34. EVALUATION OF ASCH (1956) …
• Gender Bias
• Ethics?
• Just a sign of the times?
• Ethnocentric
• Lacks Ecological Validity
• Demand Characteristics?
35. PERRIN & SPENCER (1980)
• Repeated Asch’s experiment in the UK in 1980 using
students who were studying engineering and
science.
• They found 1 conforming response out of a total of
396 trials where the majority gave the incorrect
answer…
36. PERRIN & SPENCER (1980)
• Perrin & Spencer then repeated this study again but this time
using youths on probation as the participants and probation
officers as confederates.
• The results showed 29% of participants conformed at least once –
a result comparable to Asch’s 1956 study
37. FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
Status of Majority Group
People are often likely to conform if they are
around someone they consider to be of high
status. For example…
ABOSS OR ATEACHER
We find these sorts of people more
influential or knowledgeable and so will
conform to their opinions more (e.g.
informational influence).
Therefore the higher the status
of the group the higher the level
of conformity.
38. OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
Group size and answering privately
This is a participant in Asch’s trial. The participant was asked to do Asch’s experiment in private where he could answer alone.
Because the participant was allowed to answer in private (so the rest of the
group didn’t know their response) conformity decreased. This is because
there was less group pressure and normative influence was not as powerful as
there is no fear of rejection from the group.
However, conformity tends to increase
as the size of the group increases
Now that there is a group of two
(one of which is a confederate) the
likelihood of conformity is now
3%
Now that there is a group of
three(two of which are
confederates) the likelihood of
conformity is now
13%
Now that there is a group of
four(three of which are confederates)
the likelihood of conformity is now
32%
However, once the group
reaches around 4-5
people there is very little
change in the levels of
conformity. Because of
this, it is considered the
optimal group size.
39. CAMPBELL & FAIREY (1989)
• Group size has a different effect depending on the type of judgement being made and
the motivation of the individual
• If the motivation is to fit in (NSI) and there is no objectively correct answer, a larger group
size is required to elicit a change in behaviour
• If the motivation is to be correct and there is a right or wrong answer, the individual is
concerned with being correct and the views of just 1 or 2 others is sufficient
40. OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
Difficulty of task
A B C
Steve has now been given another task. However this task is much harder
than the previous ones as the lines are all of similar size.
When we are unsure, we often look to others for confirmation or
reassurance. The harder the task the greater the conformity.
?
It’s B!
Yeah…
that’s uh…
what I was
thinking
too
41. LUCAS ET AL (2006)
• Difficulty of task effected ppt’s low in ‘self –
efficacy’
(belief in ones confidence in completing a task)
43. OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
Social Support
It’s
B!
It’s
B!
It’s
B!
It’s
A!
It’s
C!?
When one other person in the group gave an
answer different from the others and the
group answer was not unanimous,
conformity dropped.
Asch found that even the presence of just one
confederate that goes against the majority
choice can reduce conformity as much as
80%
This suggests that people conform
because they worry about what others
will think of them (i.e. normative
influence).
44. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN CONFORMITY?
• Smith et al (2006) conducted a meta-analysis of Asch-type studies across
different cultures
• Results showed an average of 25% conformity rates across individualist
cultures
• Whereas in collectivist cultures, results averaged 37%!
