Extremely detailed set of essay plans for the whole of the AQA A-Level Psychology social influence topic. Contains high level AO1 and AO3 content. The majority of my essays have been marked and checked by my teacher so fit into the top band of the mark scheme and I have consistently been achieving ...
Outline and evaluate types and explanations of conformity (8 marks)
There are 3 types of conformity
Compliance is the weakest form of conformity and is when you go along with group
behaviour publicly even if you don’t share their beliefs privately.
Usually due to NSI.
Identification is a temporary form of conformity when we change our behaviour because
we value group acceptance. Although we may not privately agree with what the group
believes.
Usually result of NSI.
Internalisation is the strongest and permanent form of conformity when we change our
behaviour and beliefs in public and in private, as you genuinely believe in the groups views.
Usually due to ISI.
There are 2 explanations for conformity
Informational social influence (ISI) states that we conform because we desire to be correct.
This is more likely to occur in ambiguous situations (when the way to behave is unclear)
And is likely to result in internalisation
Normative social influence (NSI) states that we conform because we desire to be liked,
and change our behaviour based on apparent social norms.
And is likely to result in compliance.
,One strength of NSI is evidence supporting it as an explanation of conformity.
For example, after Asch conducted his line study, he interviewed his ppts and some said that
they conformed because they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and were afraid
of disapproval from the group.
When ppts had to write their answers down instead of saying them out loud, conformity
decreased. Because as they were answering privately there was no normative group
pressure.
Therefore, this proves that some conformity is due to fear of rejection from the group and
so NSI.
A strength of ISI is evidence supporting it as an explanation for conformity.
For example, in a study where ppts were given easier maths questions they knew the
answer was correct.
However, when given harder questions, ppts were more likely to conform to incorrect
answers because they did not want to be wrong.
Therefore, this shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity.
A limitation of both explanations of conformity is that they do not consider situations
where both are used to explain conformity and not just either alone.
Therefore, this shows that NSI and ISI are not fully understood.
, Discuss variables affecting conformity as investigated by Asch (16 marks)
Asch conducted a laboratory experiment with 123 male American naive ppts.
Ppts had to match one of three lines to a standard line.
Naïve ppts gave their answers last or second to last after confederates had given
deliberately wrong answers.
It was found that naïve ppts conformed a third of the time.
25% of the naïve ppts never gave incorrect answers.
75% of all naïve ppts conformed at least once.
After the experiment the naïve ppts were interviewed asking why they had conformed.
Some said that they wanted to please the experimenter, thinking that they wanted them to
conform.
Some did not want disapproval from the group or avoid rejection (NSI) displaying
compliance as they changed their behaviour in public, but their private beliefs remained
unchanged.
Asch then altered his baseline study to investigate different variables affecting conformity.
One variation was group size, in which Asch manipulated the number of confederates
between 1 and 15 as the majority.
It was found that when there were only 2 confederates conformity decreased, suggesting
that smaller majorities are easier to resist.
However, conformity did not continue to increase as the number of confederates increased.
Another factor was unanimity, where Asch introduced a confederate that gave the correct
answer, or a different incorrect answer to the majority.
This found to decrease conformity as the naïve ppt had an ally breaking the unanimity of the
group.
The last variation was task difficulty, where Asch manipulated the lines to look more similar
in length making the task harder.
This found that conformity increased as the task became more difficult, due to ISI and the
desire to give the correct answer in an ambiguous situation.
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