Summary
Summary Psychology : Social Influence Revision Notes AQA
- Course
- Institution
Psychology : Social Influence Revision Notes AQA
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
isabellabateman
Content preview
𝓼𝓸𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓲𝓷𝓯𝓵𝓾𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮conformity: conformity
Asch’s research
Asch’s baseline procedure
→ 123 men judged line lengths, with confederates giving deliberately wrong
answers.
→ found 75% conformed at least once, 25% never conformed
Asch’s variations
→ group size : varied group size from 2-16. conformity increased up to 3
confederates, then levelled off. conformity increased with group size but only up
to certain point. thus most people are sensitive to views of others
→ unanimity : introduced a confederate who disagreed with other confederate.
found genuine participant conformed less in presence of a dissenter
→ task difficulty : increased difficulty, found conformity increased. this may be
due to informational social influence, assuming others are right & you are wrong
evaluation
- artificial situation & task
→ participants knew this was a study, allowing for presence of demand characteristics as
may have done what they believed was expected
→ findings thus do not generalise to real life situations
- limited application
→ only conducted on American men; an individualist culture. collectivist studies show
conformity to be much higher
→ thus Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women & other cultures
+ research support
→ Lucas : found more conformity when maths questions harder
→ thus supports Asch’s claim that task difficulty affects conformity
, conformity: types & explanations
types
compliance
→ going along with group publicly but not privately
identification
→ change behaviour to be apart of a group we identify with, may privately
change too but only in the presence of the group & is usually short term
internalisation
→ publicly & privately adopting the groups behaviour
explanations
normative social influence
→ conforming with the group to ‘fit in’
informational social influence
→ conforming with the group to be ‘right’ as we assume group knows better
evaluation
+ research support for NSI
→ Asch : when no normative group pressure, ie wrote answers down privately, conformity
dropped to 12.5%
→ thus suggests conformity is done to be accepted
+ research support for ISI
→ Lucas : conformity increased on hard maths questions, most likely because they assumed
other people were right & they were wrong
→ thus suggests conformity is done to be right
- individual differences in NSI
→ McGhee : found students who were nAffiliators (have a strong need for affiliation ie relate
to other people) were more likely to conform
→ thus NSI doesn’t predict conformity in every case, as individual differences can’t be fully
explained by a general theory
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller isabellabateman. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.98. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
83750 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now