Introducing a comprehensive and detailed set of digital notes tailored specifically for the AQA A-Level Psychology Social Influence topic. These notes are meticulously crafted to cover all key areas of the Social Influence unit, ensuring you have a deep understanding of the concepts and theories es...
1. Types and explanations of conformity
Conformity – a change in a person's behaviour or opinions because of real/imagines pressure from a
person or group
Types of conformity
Internalisation is when an individual internalises the ideas of a group; both private beliefs and public
behaviour change.
Identification is when an individual identifies withing a group; they adopt both public behaviours
and private beliefs.
Compliance is when an individual complies with the group; their public behaviour changes but
private thoughts stay the same.
Explanations for conformity
Informational social influence (ISI) is the tendency to conform because you believe the other person
is right and you are wrong. Most likely to happen in situations where there is ambiguity, so the
situation is not clear.
Normative social influence (NSI) is the tendency to conform to be accepted and belong to a group.
Most likely to occur in situations where you are with strangers, and you feel concerned about
rejection.
Evaluation: A strength of ISI is that there is research support from Lucas et al (2006). He asked
participants to give answer to maths questions that were easy and got more difficult. There was
greater conformity to incorrect answers. This shows people conform is situations where they do
not/are not sure of an answer, which supports this explanation.
A weakness of ISI is that there are also people who might not be affected by it in the same way as
everyone else. Asch found that students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%).
Perrin and Spencer conducted a study involving science and engineering and found little conformity.
A strength of NSI is how Asch found that many of his participants went along with the wrong answer
just because everyone else did. Asch asked why they did this, and it was mainly because they were
self-conscious and afraid of disapproval. When Asch asked participants to write their answers down
instead of saying them aloud conformity fell to 12.5%.
A weakness/limitation of NSI is that it does not affect everyone's behaviour in the same way. People
who are less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI. nAffiliators are people who have a
greater need for social relationships. McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students who were
nAffiliators were more likely to conform. The desire to be liked underlies conformity for some
people more than others.
, TOPIC 1: SOCIAL INFLUENCE
2. Asch’s research into conformity
Asch (1955) tested conformity by showing American male undergraduates a white card with one
‘standard’ line and ‘comparison’ line. One of the 3 lines were the same length as the standard line
and participants were asked which one it was. On the first few trials all confederates gave the right
answer. On some trials confederates were instructed to give wrong answers. There were 18 trials, 12
were critical trials where the confederates gave the wrong answer from the participant.
Asch found that the naïve participant gave a wrong answer 37% of the time. Overall, 25% of
participants did not conform on any trials, 75% conformed at least once.
Variations:
1. Group size – with 3 confederates conformity rose too 31.8%, adding more confederates
made minor difference. This suggests a small majority is not enough for influence to be
exerted.
2. Unanimity (the extent to which all members of a group agree) - he introduced an “ally”
that disagreed with the other confederates by giving the right answer, lower than 10%
conformity
3. Task Difficulty – Asch made the comparison and standard lines similar in length to make the
task harder. Conformity increased. This suggests ISI plays a greater role when the task is
harder
Evaluation: A weakness/limitation of this study found by Perrin and Spencer (1980); they repeated
Asch’s study with engineering students in the UK (United Kingdom). Only one student conformed in
a total of 396 trials. Society has changed, people are less conformist today. This means that Asch
research is not consistent across situations and may not be consistent across time, therefore is not a
fundamental feature of human behaviour.
Another weakness/limitation of Asch research is he used a biased sample of 50 male students from
America. Therefore, we cannot generalise the results to other populations, for example female
students, and we are unable to conclude if female students would have conformed in a comparable
way to male students. As a result, Asch’s sample lacks population validity.
3. Zimbardo’s Standford Prison Experiment
Zimbardo (1971) set up a mock prison experiment in the basement of Standford University. Students
decided to volunteer after seeing a newspaper advert. They were randomly assigned the role of
either guard or prisoner. To make it realistic ‘prisoners’ were arrested from their homes, blindfolded,
strip searched, deloused, and were issued a uniform and a number. Guards had their own uniform,
handcuffs, keys, mirror shades. They were told to have complete power over the prisoners.
Within 2 days prisoners rebelled against the harsh treatment by ripping uniforms, shouting, and
swearing at guards etc. One prisoner was released on the first day and 2 more were released on the
fourth day due to psychological harm. One prisoner went on a hunger strike and was put in the hole
by guards, instead of being considered a hero he was shunned by other prisoners. Some guards
appeared to enjoy the power they had over prisoners.
Guards, prisoners, and researchers all conformed to their roles within the prison.
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