Detailed, concise, and yet easy-to-understand notes for the 'social influence' topic in Psychology A-level.
These notes cover everything you need in the topic for the exams and have some extra details to reach the A* grades. They have both AO1 information (explanations) and AO3 (evaluations) a...
Conformity: Types and explanations:
-> A change in person’s behaviour as a result of real/ imagined pressure from a person/ group
- Kelman suggested there are 3 ways on which people conform to opinion of majority:
- 1. Internalisation: Occurs when person accepts group norms
- Results in private and public change of opinions/ behaviour
- Likely to be permanent change as attitudes have been internalised
- Change persists even in absence of group members
- 2. Identification: Conforming because there is something about group we value
- We identify w/ group so want to = part of it
- We publicly change opinions/ behaviour to achieve goal (may privately disagree w/ some things
group stands for)
- 3. Compliance: Going along w/ others in public but privately disagreeing
- Compliance results in superficial change
- Particular opinion/ behaviour stops as soon as group pressure stops
Explanations for conformity:
- Deutsch + Gerrard developed 2-process theory arguing there = 2 main reasons people
conform
- Based on 2 central human needs: the need to be right (ISI) + need to be liked (NSI)
Informational social influence (ISI):
- Often we = uncertain about behaviours/ if beliefs = right or wrong
- Individuals will follow the behaviour of group (majority) because
they want to be right
- ISI = cognitive process because it is to do w/ what you think
- ISI = likely to happen in situations new to person (don’t know
whats right) or when there is ambiguity
- Also typical in crisis situations where decisions need to be made
quickly and when someone in group is regarded as expert
Normative social influence (NSI):
- People don’t like to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval than be rejected by group
- NSI = emotional process rather than cognitive
- Likely to occur in situations w/ strangers when people feel concerned about rejection
- Also occurs w/ people you know as we are most concerned about approval of friends
- May be more pronounced in stressful situations where people have greater need for social
support
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, Social influence notes
Evaluation of types and explanations of conformity:
(+) Research support for ISI:
- Lucas et al asked students to answer maths problems that were easy or more
difficult
- More conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than easy
- Especially true for students who rated mathematical ability as poor
- Shows people conform when they feel they don’t know answer
(-) Individual differences in NSI:
- NSI doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour in same way
- e.g. people who are less concerned about being liked = less affected by NSI
- People who have greater need to be liked = described as nAffiliators
- e.g. McGhee + Teevan found students high in need of affiliation = more likely to conform
(+) Research support for NSI:
- Asch found many ppts went along w/ clearly wrong answers just because others did
- Some of ppts said it was because they felt self-conscious giving correct answer and were
afraid of disapproval
- When Asch got ppts to write answers down, conformity rates fell to 12.5%
(-) Individual differences in ISI:
- As w/ NSI, ISI doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour in same way
- e.g. Asch found students = less conformist (28%) than other ppts (37%)
- Perrin + Spencer did study involving science + engineering students and found
very little conformity
(+) ISI + NSI work together:
- Deutsch + Gerrard’s 2-process approach that behaviour = either due to NSI or ISI = wrong
- Both processes = involved
- e.g. conformity = reduced when there is another dissenting ppt in Asch’e experiment
- This dissenter may reduce power of NSI as dissenter provides social support or may reduce
power of ISI as there is alternative source of information
- Shows it isn’t always possible to know if NSI or ISI is at work especially in real life situations
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, Social influence notes
Asch’s study:
Procedure: - Asch tested conformity by showing ppts 2 large
white cards at a time
- One w/ standard line and other w/ 3 comparison
lines. 1/3 was same length as standard and 2
others = substantially different
- Ppt asked which of 3 lines matched standard
- Ppts used = 123 American male undergrads
- Each naive ppt was tested individually w/ group
(between 6 - 8 confederates)
- On first few trials all confederates gave right
answer but then started making mistakes
- All confederates gave same wrong answer
- Each ppt took part in 18 trials and on 12 critical
trials confederates gave wrong answer
Findings: - Naive ppt gave wrong answer 36.8% of time
- 25% of ppts never conformed
- 75% conformed at least once
- When interviewed after, most said they
conformed to avoid rejection (NSI)
Asch’s variations: Group size - w/ 3 confederates conformity to wrong answer
fell to 31.8%
- Addition of further confederates made little
difference
- Suggests small majority = insufficient for
influence to be exerted
- Also, there is no need for majority larger than 3
Asch’s variations: Unanimity - To test if non-conforming confederate would
affect ppt’s conformity, Asch introduced a
confederate who disagreed w/ others (sometimes
gave correct answer and sometimes wrong)
- Presence of dissenting confederate meant
conformity was reduced by a quarter from when
majority was unanimous
- Presence of dissenter enabled ppt to behave
more independently
Asch’s variations: Task difficulty - Asch made line-judging harder by making
stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in
length
- Conformity increased under these conditions
- Suggests ISI plays greater role when task gets
harder as situ = more ambiguous
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