Summary
Summary Social Influence Lesson Notes
- Module
- Social Influence
- Institution
- AQA
A* NOTES!!!!! Notes summarised from textbook. detailed A01 and clear and concise A03 following PEA structure to gain full marks.
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Social Influence -Types of Conformity – a change in a person’s behaviour or opinion because of real or
conformity imagined pressure from a person or group.
Compliance –
Most basic, going along in public but in private doesn’t change OP/BEH.
Superficial.
Stops as soon as group pressure stops.
Identification –
Conforming because they value the group, identify with it and want to be a
part. Will change OP/BEH publicly and privately but when they move onto a
now group, OP/BEH will change again.
Internalisation –
Genuinely accepting the group norm, private change in OP/BEH which will
permanent. Will persist even when group is absent.
Explanations Two process theory by Deutsch and Gerard 1955
for Informational social influence – the need to be right.
conformity Basic need to feel confident that their ideas and beliefs are correct.
When uncertain, will look at OP/BEH of others who know what they
are doing.
Normative social influence – the need to be liked.
Need to be liked, respected and accepted.
Observe social norms and follow to gain social approval, not
rejection.
Often showing compliance to fit in, even if don’t agree.
Supporting P Support for ISI
research Supporting evidence conforming in situations where they do not
know the answer – looking to others for the answer.
Lucas et al., 2006 – group of students were provided with
mathematical problems varying in difficulty and asked to give their
answers. They found higher levels of conformity to incorrect answers
(when the rest of the group gave the wrong answer) if the questions
were hard rather than easy, particularly for students who reported
being bad at maths.
P Support for ISI
Evidence supporting people do not want to be seen as foolish infant
of others or be rejected by them
Asch 1951 in his seminal study, many of the participants
Problems Individual differences for NSI, research shoes that not everyone is
with NSI and affected by NSI in the same way.
ISI Some people are less concerned about being liked by other people
than others.
Those with strong need: nAffiliators.
McGhee and Teevan 1967 found students in high need of affiliation
were more likely to conform.
Suggests that the explanation may apply to some more than others,
weakening the idea that this may be universal.
Individual differences for ISI, it will not affect everyone in the same way.
Asch famous study supports the idea that NSI and ISI is affecting our
behaviour.
Perrin and Spencer 1980 replicated the study, found engineering
students were not influenced by others at all, no matter how difficult
the task.
Suggests the level of expertise could have an effect on how likely
someone is to be influenced by ISI. May not be a universal opinion.
They can work together
Deutsch and Gerrard said that the two were mutually exclusive.
They are both often involved, may conform because we want to fit in
, and do the right thing.
Casts doubt over the two-process model and specifically the idea it
can only be one of them.
Asch’s Asch 1951 – a study into conformity and the variables affecting this.
research on Participants:
conformity. 123 American male undergraduates.
Naïve participants (unaware of aim of study)
Confederates (those who were told to give certain wrong answers on
certain trials)
Procedure:
P’s shown two white cards. One with one line and one with three
lines.
P’s were asked to identify which line matched the single one on the
card. It was made deliberately easy to see if they would conform.
Each participant was tested alongside 6-8 confederates, they were
unaware of this and after the first few trials of confederates giving
the correct answers, more and more began answering incorrectly.
Findings:
Naïve P’s conformed with the wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
75% conformed at least once, 25% never conformed.
Shoed they conformed even when the answer was obvious.
Follow up interview – they were conforming to avoid rejection NSI.
Asch wanted to know what conditions could increase or decrease this
conformity using variations of his original procedure.
1. Group size – changed the number of confederates in the room to
determine the strength of conformity when the numbers changed.
o Three confederates caused a conformity level of 31.8% but
adding more confederates resulted in a plateau, but less than
three had no effect.
2. Task difficulty – made the line-judging task more difficult, making the
differences between the lines harder to notice.
o Conformity increased, suggesting that the role of ISI as the
ambiguity of the situation made them look for other who knew
the answers.
3. Unanimity – added a non-conforming participant, will go against the
majority.
o Presence of a dissenter allowed some social support, allowing
the naïve participant to act independently, reducing
conformity.
Limitations Lack of temporal validity:
of Asch’s Temporal validity – ability of findings to be generalised across time
research (still finding the same results decades on.)
Perrin and Spencer 1980 – replication of Asch’s paradigm, using
engineering students in the UK with 396 trials. Only one student
conformed.
o Could be that engineering students are more confident with
their answers and therefore were lest conformist.
o Could be that the 1950’s were a come conformist time
compared to the 1980’s, society has changed within the time.
Asch’s findings are not consistent across situations, cultures and
time.
Artificial nature of the situation and task used:
In a study where confederates are giving the wrong answer where
the correct answer is unambiguous, the participants may have
sussed out the aim of the experiment and conformed as a result of
, demand characteristics.
Using such a trivial task, there was no reason not to conform. There
were no implications to the participant conforming.
Findings are unlikely to generalise to everyday situations, specifically
those where consequences are important and group dynamics are
stringer.
o Low ecological validity.
Biased sample = limited application of findings:
Androcentric – all male sample meaning the findings may not
generalise to women who could vary in their levels of conformity.
Cultural bias – only studies men in the UK, an individualistic culture,
where people are more concerned about themselves than the
group0. Collectivist cultures are more concerned about the group
and demonstrate higher conformity rates. (Bond and Smith 1996) so
the findings cannot generalise across cultures.
Asch failed to take into account gender and culture in his study.
Ethical issues:
The naïve participant in the experiment was deceived as they were
unaware that the others in the room were confederates – could not
give full informed consent as they did not have all the information
about the procedure and the consequences that could occur.
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