1. Social Influence
Conformity

2. 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)

3. What is conformity?
The tendency to change what we do
(behaviour) or think and say in
response to real or imagined group
pressure.

4. Types of Conformity
There are 2 types of
conformity…
Compliance
Superficial and
public.
Change in
behaviour not
personal views
Internalisation
Deep and private.
Change in
behaviour AND
personal views

5. Without notes...
Without your notes complete your Glossary
of Terms for
Conformity
Social Norms (Implicit & explicit)
Compliance
Internalisation

7. Research demonstrating
compliance
Compliance –
Asch (1951)
- Most superficial type of conformity
- Individual conforms publically to the group
but privately disagrees
Line-judgement task
- Change in behaviour not personal views

9. Asch - A01
Unambiguous line
judging task
Conducted a
pilot study –
3/720 errors
123 American male undergraduates
- In each experiment all but one of the
group were confederates
WHY?!
18 trials in total, 12 were critical -
When all confederates gave the same incorrect answer
Confederate Confederate Confederate Real p Confederate

10. Findings – A01
Mean conformity rate of 37%
There were wide individual differences within the
results:
Participants
agreed with the
Is 37% low?
-5% conformed on every trial
incorrect
-25% Not remained considering
totally independent (majority never answer
once
agreed with how the obvious
majority when they on over 1/3 answered
of
(incorrectly)
unambiguous)
the trials
the task was!

11. 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!

12. Variations of the experiment
Unanimity of stooges (same wrong answer)
Unanimous = High level of conformity
1 stooge giving right answer = drops to 5%
Ambiguity – how
obvious is the wrong
answer
- As lines become
similar in length
conformity rises
Group size – 1, 2 & 3 stooges
1 stooge = 0%, 2 stooges =
12.8%,
3 stooges = 37%
(more than that – no rise)

13. Evaluation – A02
You should be able to think of 4 evaluation
points without anymore information than
the research outline
High degree of control over variables
Lack of population validity (used only men) Androcentric
Lack of ecological validity
Ethical issues - lack of informed consent

14. 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

15. 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)

16. Potential questions
Outline research into conformity (6 marks)
Describe and evaluate research into
compliance (12 marks)

17. 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)

18. 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.

19. Types of Conformity
There are 2 types of
conformity…
Compliance
Superficial and
public.
Change in
behaviour not
personal views
Internalisation
Deep and private.
Change in
behaviour AND
personal views

20. Research demonstrating
internalisation
Internalisation –
Sherif (1936)
- Deepest level of conformity
Autokinetic effect .
- Individual conforms both publically and
privately to the group
- Conversion

21. Sherif – A01
Sherif divided participants into 2 groups
Aimed to investigate whether participants would conform and
change their own individual prediction about how far a spot of
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
light moved when the group were no longer there
• P’s developed a group
estimate
• P’s tested individually
• P’s estimates reflected
the group estimate

22. Sherif - findings
When 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

23. Sherif - conclusion
Sherif suggested that in group 2,
participants individual answer
reflected the group responses
Rohrer et al (1954) replicated Sherif’s
study and found that when participants
were re-tested individually up to a year
later they continued to use the group
because the individual
participants looking to other
group members for information –
ambiguous task
answer
- Showing that p’s had internalised
(taken on) the views of the group and
privately changed their beliefs.

24. Evaluation – A02
You should be able to think of 4 evaluation
points without anymore information than
the research outline
High degree of control over variables
Ethical issues – lack of informed consent
Lack of ecological validity
Ethical issues – use of deception

25. Compliance Internalisation
Change behaviour
not views
Public
Unambiguous task
Not conversion
Change behaviour
and views
Private
Ambiguous task
True conversion
Vs.