Full consolidation/study notes on the topic of social influence for year 1 A-level Psychology AQA. Talks about conformity, including the definitions and Asch's line study and Zimbardo's prison study. Then also contains obedience, including the factors that affect it and authoritarian personality, a...
Social Influence – Occurs when an Individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by
other people
Conformity – “a change in a person’s behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined
pressure from a person or a group of people” (Aronson)
, Types of Conformity
Compliance
This is when you go along with the crowd and publically agree with them. However,
privately you maintain your original views
This is more temporary
Internalisation
This occurs when people take on the views of others both publically and privately
Lasts longer and is more permanent
Identification
This occurs when an individual adopts the attitudes and behaviours of a group in order to
be accepted as a member of that group.
Has elements of both compliance and internalisation.
(Example: joining a gang and having to carry a knife as a norm to fit in. May internalise and continue to do so
because they believe they need to, or may just be showing compliance and not do so when not around the gang)
Explanations for conformity
Normative Social Influence
“The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by
them,” (Aronson). The desire to be liked and fit in, and not be left out.
Has to do with normative pressure
Ambiguous - open to more than one
Linked to compliance
interpretation; not being obvious and clear
Usually in unambiguous situations
Informational Social Influence
“We conform because we believe that other’s interpretation of an ambiguous situation is
more accurate than ours and will help us choose the appropriate course of action”
(Aronson).
The desire to be right and conforming to fit in with the group because we want to be
correct
Linked to internalisation
, Normative Social Influence Research Support – Asch Line Study
Aim: To find out how people would behave when given an unambiguous task
Method: American male undergraduates were tested and they were asked to match a
series of lines. Given a card with 1 line, and another with 3 lines, and asked to state
which line on the second card matched the line on a card alone. (They were told it was a
vision test.)
Confederates: an actor of the
experimenter who poses as a
participant (but whose
behaviour is rehearsed prior
to the experiment)
This
happened in groups of 7-9 but only one person was a real participant, the others
were confederates of the researcher. The real participant was always required to
give his answer second to last.
Each group completed 18 trails. On 12 of these the confederates gave the same
incorrect answer (these were the critical trials)
Results: The crucial measure was how often participants gave the same wrong answer
as the confederates on the critical trials. This was the measure of conformity
Overall there was an average 33% conformity rate
75% conformed at least once
25% never conformed
Participants appeared to be experiencing a lot of stress (nervous laughter,
fidgeting, etc.)
Results in variations:
Smaller group and there were only 1 or 2 confederates = low conformity rate =
13% conformity rate
Social support- when there was someone else agreeing with the obvious right
answer = conformity reduced = 5.5% conformity rate
, Evaluation of Asch Line Study
Weakness: One weakness of Asch’s line study into normative social influence is that
it lacks population validity
For example, all the participants were male psychology undergraduates
which mean the results may not representative of the entire population.
The sample is also gender biased. This would be an example of beta bias as
the differences in conformity between men and women have been
ignored/minimised. This could lead to women’s behaviour being considered
as abnormal if they conform differently to men.
Therefore, we may not be able to generalise the findings from Asch’s
experiment to the entire population as other groups, such as women,
conform differently.
Weakness: Another weakness of Asch’s study was that it was unethical
For example, the participants were deceived as they were told the task was
assessing vision and not conformity. They were also not protected from harm
(psychologically) as many of the participants were
embarrassed/uncomfortable.
However, if Asch had been told the participants the true aim, they may have
displayed demand characteristics and reduced the validity.
Therefore, although Asch broke some ethical guidelines, this was justified to
observe true conformity behaviour
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