This a full document of all the necessary content for AQA A-level Psychology Topic 1 - Social Influence. It also contains detailed 16 mark essay plans that can be easily memorised to ace the 16 mark exam questions.
·
Definition of Conformity : A change in behaviour or opinions as a result of
real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people .
Asch's experiment (1995) - conformity
AIM : To investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to a
majority who gave obviously wrong answers
male Student volunteers
participants
: 123 American
I
Method Findings
7 The students were told that the test percentage that conformed :
was a study of visual perception . > 75 % conformed at least once .
37 to a in each group 5% conformed every time .
> I8trials ,
12 critical trials 25 % didn't conform
> Asked to say which line was the same as -
when confederates gave wrong answer
,
A , B or C
. the naive participant went along with it
> Those who didn't know were either . 2%
3 of the time .
placed last or last but one after them
.
/
Methodological issues Ethical issues
Procedure
· was uneconomical and time--Involved deceit as he told Ps it was a study
consuming. of visual perception
. >
-
However at end of
· situation was unrealistic and so lacked the test they were debriefed -
told what it was
Mundane realism Would be unusual .
to about .
be in a situation where you would · Also involved psychological harm with
disagree so much with others. participants under stress through
· lab based-Demand characteristics disagreeing with others.
↳ Strength
-
can replicate it so reliable
-
Also high-level of control
· Social Desirability
· ps-can't generalise to anyone other
than American male Student volunteers.
Doesn't snow what anyone else <
would do.
, Situational variables affecting conformity
size of the group EVIDENCE
conformity rates increases as · One realp and one confederate
the size of a majority influence -
conformity was low .
increases ,
but comes a point where 13 % with 2 confederates
further increases in the size of a 32 % with 3 Confederates
majority doesn't lead to further ·
Adding extra Confederates (up to 15)
increases in conformity. ↓ad no further effect on overall
conformity rate
.
unanimity EVIDENCE
conformity rates have been Asch found that if there was one
found to decline when majority confederate who went against the
influence is not unanimous . other confederates ,
conformity dropped
the important factor would seem from around 32 % to 3 . 3 %, but if
to be reduction in majority's the 'rebel' went against both,
agreement ,
rather than an confederates and the rebel p
,
individual being given support conformity dropped to 9 %.
for their opinions.
Task Difficulty EVIDENCE
Greater conformity rates are Asch increased task difficulty by
seen when +ask difficulty making the comparison lines similar
increases ,
as the right answer to each other , finding that when he
becomes less obvious .
this means did so participants were more likely
that individuals will look to to conform to wrong answers , thus
others more for guidance as demonstrating the effect of task
to what the correct response is, difficulty on conformity.
suggesting that ISI is the
dominant force . 3 Information a
Influence
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