A* revision notes for social influence, a compulsory topic for both AS and A level AQA Psychology, containing all necessary and detailed definitions, explanations and case studies. Best results when used alongside Exampro Exam Questions for social influence that are available free of charge online...
Social Influence
Social influence is the process by which an individual’s attitude, belief or
behaviour is modified by the presence or actions of others.
🏖️Conformity : Types and Explanations:
AO1:
Conformity occurs when an individual has a change in beliefs and behaviour
in response to real or imagined social pressure. It is also known as majority
influence.
Types of conformity:
★ Compliance is a type of conformity which occurs when a person agrees
with the beliefs and behaviour of a group in public to fit in but privately
disagrees with them.
★ Identification is a type of conformity which occurs when a person
agrees with the beliefs and behaviour of a group because they value
and want to be a part of it but may not necessarily agree with them.
★ Internalisation is the deepest form of conformity where a person has
both a private and public change of beliefs and behaviour due to the
influence of a majority.
Explanations for conformity:
★ Normative social influence (NSI) is an explanation of conformity which
suggests we conform to gain social approval and avoid being disliked.
★ Informational social influence (ISI) is an explanation of conformity
which suggests we conform because we believe the views of a group
are correct and they have more information.
, AO3:
+ One strength of the NSI explanation is that evidence from other studies
supports it as an explanation of conformity. For example, Asch (1951)
found that when participants wrote down their answers in the line
study, conformity dropped from 74% to 12.5%. This is because giving
answers privately meant that the participants were not afraid of social
disapproval and did not feel social pressure. Hence, it is clear that at
least some conformity is due to the desire not to be rejected by a group
which supports the NSI explanation.
- However, one limitation of the NSI explanation is that it does not
predict conformity in every case. For example, McGhee and Teevan
(1967) have found that nAffiliators, i.e individuals who are concerned
about being liked by others and want to relate to other people, are
more likely to conform. This means that there are individual differences
in conformity that can not be explained using one theory, meaning that
NSI is an inadequate explanation.
+ Furthermore, one strength of the ISI explanation is that evidence
supports it as an explanation for conformity. For example, Lucas et al.
(2006) found that a larger proportion of participants conformed to
incorrect answers when solving maths questions as their difficulty
increased. This is because the situation became ambiguous, meaning
that the participants believed that the other participants had more
knowledge and information and so relied on their answers. Thus, ISI is a
valid explanation of conformity because the results of the studies
investigating it are what ISI predicts.
🏖️Conformity : Asch’s research
AO1:
Baseline procedure:
Asch (1951) conducted a line study to examine the extent to which social
pressure from a majority could cause a person to conform. Each participant
was placed in a room with six confederates where they had to state which
line was closest in length to the target line. Asch found that 74% of
participants conformed on at least one critical trial and only 26% of the
participants never conformed. This showed that a majority can cause an
individual to conform.
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