The Complete Companions for AQA A Level Psychology 5th Edition
A summary of the whole of the Social Influence chapter including both description (AO1) and evaluation (AO3). These are great to revise from but can also help find evaluation points as the book often makes them harder to understand. Highlighting and reviewing these notes helped me get an A* in each...
Social Influence
=>TYPES OF CONFORMITY AND EXPLANATIONS
Conformity : Yielding to group pressure. Changing your behaviour in response to group
pressure with no direct request to comply
Types of conformity
- Compliance: when an individual accepts influence because they hope to get a
favourable reaction (NSI)
- Publicly agrees but privately disagrees
- Identification: A form of influence where an individual adopts an attitude/
behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular person/ group so
it is not long lasting; they depend on admiring the social role
- Internalisation: Adapting views of a larger more trustworthy group with
acceptance of group view. (ISI)
- Publicly and privately agrees
Explanations for conformity:
- Normative social influence - a change in belief/behaviour so to be closer to that
of the group (most likely only in public)
- To gain approval and avoid disapproval
STRENGTH:
- Asch’s study of conformity : 78% conformed and in debrief explained it was
to fit in : supports people changing to fit in
- Hotels put sign saying most of our guests don’t return their towels after 1
use: more people conformed to that
WEAKNESS:
- When asked “Who influenced their energy conservation the most” the
least likely answer was the neighbours which in fact showed they were
the strongest : NSI can be undetected
- Informational Social Influence - an increase in information which leads to a
change in belief/ behaviour (public and private)
STRENGTH:
- Jenness asked participants to guess no. of beans in a jar - after seeing
others results people changed their guess: range was much smaller -
people changed their value as they gained information
WEAKNESS:
- Can be dangerous : internalising extremist views eg terrorist views
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