Lecture notes
A-Level Psychology Social Influence Notes
- Module
- Social Influence
- Institution
- AQA
A* notes for A-Level Psychology, all content covered.
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Social influence = ways in which individuals change their behaviour to meet demands of asocial environment
Conformity = a change in a person’s behaviour as a result of real or imagined pressure from a
person or a group of people
Types of conformity =
Changing both public Agree publicly but not Changing beliefs, behaviour, and attitudes to
AND private beliefs privately fit in with the group because being a member
of the group is desirable (even if they don’t
privately agree with everything the group
stands for)
Explanations for conformity =
(1955) developed a two-process theory, argued
that there two main reasons people conform to groups:
- when a person conforms because of the - when we conform because we have a desire
‘desire to be right’ to be liked
=
Aim = to investigate if people will conform to a group when there is clearly a right and wrong answer
and the majority if the group are giving the wrong answer
Method =
- Groups of 6-9 people
- Only one was a naïve participant (true participant), rest confederates.
- Told that he was testing visual perception, showed groups of lines of different lengths.
- Participants had to state which of the ABC lines match the length of the test line.
- Asch showed 50 test lines and 50 ABC lines.
- Each gave their answer, naïve participant being last/second to last.
- Confederates were told sometimes they should all give the same, wrong answer = trial
- 12/50 ’rounds’ confederates gave same wrong answer.
- N.B. there had been a control group in which participants did this alone.
Results = 32% conformity rate when trials occurred, 75% of participants conformed at least once on
the 12 trials
,Conclusion = people will conform to a group’s wrong answer even though it is clearly wrong
Evaluation =
Limitation = situation Participants knew Participants may have Therefore, cannot
and task were they were in a study figured out the aim of generalise.
artificial so may have the study due to task
responded to demand being repeated 50 times
characteristics and changed their
behaviour to please or
displease the researcher
Limitation = findings Asch only tested men. All participants were also Conformity may be
only apply to certain Women are more from USA – higher than what
groups likely to conform, as individualistic culture – Asch found
they are more Smith and Bond suggests
concerned about collectivist cultures are
social relationships more likely to conform
Limitation = ethical Participants were But ethical cost should Benefits of study
issues associated deceived throughout be weighed against the outweigh ethical
with Asch’s research the study and no benefits of the study costs
informed consent was
gained
Variables affecting conformity =
- Group size = Asch found that there when there was one naïve participant and one
confederate, conformity was 0&. One naïve, 2 confederates, conformity was 14%. One
naïve, 3-4 confederates, mean conformity was 32%. However, after this it stayed the same,
no matter how many people in the group.
= conformity is more likely if the group has more people in it than if there was 2/3 people in
the group.
‘the bigger the group the higher the conformity rate’ = WRONG!
- Unanimity = (the extent to which all members agree). Asch introduced a confederate that
disagreed with the others = led to decrease in conformity of up to 25%.
= if someone else in the group agrees with you/disagrees with the group, you are less likely
to conform to majority
Mean conformity reduced to 6% when Asch included that confederate, even when the
confederate’s answer was a different wrong answer than the group’s.
= influence of majority depends on group being unanimous
- Task difficulty = if task/decision is easy, we are less likely to look to others in the group for
guidance = conformity less likely. If more difficult = more likely.
, Asch tested this by making the test lines and ABC lines more similar in length, so it was
harder to tell = more people conformed
Conformity to social roles = person changing their behaviour to fit in with what Is expected within
their position in society.
Philip Zimbardo’s prison stimulation study = investigated the extent to which people will conform to
the roles of prisoners and prison guards in role playing stimulation of prison life:
Aim = to investigate the extent to which people would conform to role of prison guard and prisoner
in a role-playing stimulation of a prison
Method =
- Set up a mock prison in the basement of psychology department of Stanford university.
- Advertised research to students willing to volunteer, picked those deemed ‘emotionally
stable’ after psychological testing.
- Students randomly assigned to roles of guards/prisoners.
- Prisoners were arrested in their homes by local police then carried to ‘prison’ to heighten
realism of study.
- Prisoners were blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused, and issued a uniform and a number.
- Prisoners’ routines heavily regulated, had to follow 16 rules strictly, enforced by guards.
- Guards had their own uniform, wooden club, handcuffs, keys, and mirror shades.
- Guards were told that they had complete power over prisoners.
Results =
- Guards were brutal, aggressive, issued punishments.
- Prisoners were compliant, subdued, depressed, anxious.
Conclusion = This suggests that guards and prisoners all conformed to their social roles in the
experiment.
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