A concise summary of the social influence chapter, including everything you need to know for the AQA psychology A-level (only source of revision I used for the social influence topic and I achieved an A* in Psychology)
Social influence revision notes
Conformity
Solomon Asch devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the
opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain. Found conformity of 36%
in the baseline procedure of 123 American men (with 6 to 8 confederates).
Asch extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might influence influence
conformity
- Group size - Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity
rate. Conformity increased with group size up to 3 confederates (where conformity
rose to 31.8%) but the presence of any more than this made little difference
(conformity rates levelled off)
- Unanimity - The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a
dissenter. Ther conformity rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was
when the majority was unanimous. The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the
participant to behave more independently, regardless of whether the dissent agreed
with the participant or not. Conformity decreased from 32% to 5%.
- Task difficulty - Asch increased the difficulty of the task by making the stimulus line
and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length. Conformity increased.
It may be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder, it is
hard to tell what the right answer is and so it is natural to look to other people for
guidance (Informational social influence)
Evaluation
Artificial situation and task - The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore
there was really no reason not to conform. ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’. i.e. did not
resemble groups we experience in everyday life. Limited ecological validity, especially where
the consequences of conformity might be important.
Limited application - Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly
because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted. The USA is an
individualistic culture, studies conducted in collectivist cultures such as China have found
higher rates of conformity. Low population validity because it only looks at one group of
people.
Research support - Lucas et al. asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths
problems. Participants were given answers from ‘three other students’. The conformity rate
was higher when the problems were harder. Supporting Ash in claiming task difficulty to be a
variable affecting conformity.
However, individual differences - Lucas et al. found conformity is more complex than Asch
suggested. Participants with higher confidence conformed less on hard tasks than those with
low confidence. This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity.
Ethical issues: deception and protection from harm
, Types and explanations
Types (as suggested by Kelman)
- Internalisation - genuinely accept group norms. Results in private as well as public
change of opinions/behaviour. Opinions/behaviour persists even in the absence of
group
- Identification - The individual accepts what they are adopting temporarily but the
purpose of this is to be accepted by the group. Occurs because there is something
about the group we value
- Compliance - ‘going along with others’ in public, but privately not changing personal
opinions. Results in only a superficial change and the behaviour stops as soon as
group pressure stops.
Explanation of conformity
- Informational social influence - They don’t know what to do or think and so they look
to others for answers. They think the group is genuinely correct and go with that
answer. Most common in situations that are new to a person or where there is some
ambiguity.
- Normative social influence - They want to get approval and avoid disapproval. Want a
reward (praise, popularity) and don’t want to be embarrassed. Temporary change
(conformity)
Evaluation
- Research support for NSI - When Asch interviewed his participants some said they
conformed because they felt self- conscious giving the correct answer and they were
afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote down their answer conformity fell to
12.5% as there was no normative group pressure. Showing at least some conformity
is due to desire not to be rejected by the group
- Research support for ISI - Todd Lucas et al. found higher conformity rates in more
ambiguous/harder tasks, participants did not want to be wrong so they relied on the
answers they were given
However,
- Not always easy to differentiate between ISI and NSI as e.g. in Asch line study the
dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because they provide social support) or they
may reduce the power of ISI (because they provide an alternative source of social
information)
- Individual differences - some people are more susceptible to NSI conformity than
others. These individual differences in conformity cannot be fully explained by one
general theory of situational pressures.
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