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AQA Psychology Social Influence Notes
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Comprehensive and detailed notes covering all of the AS Psychology topic 'Social Influence'.
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Social Influence-FoundationsConformity-types and explanations
Conformity-A tendency to change our behaviour or attitudes (what we think) in order to fit in with other people.
Key Terms (Types):
Compliance-A superficial type of conformity in which people conform publicly but privately disagree.
Compliance is the shallowest form of conformity. E.g. Sam agrees with his friends that “X-Men” was
excellent when with them, but secretly he doesn’t think it was that good.
Identification-A type of conformity in which people change their beliefs to fit in with a group, but the change
may only be temporary as we don’t necessarily agree with everything the majority believes. E.g. Jane joins
the army and whilst she is with that group her views change, but when not with them her views are
different.
Internalisation-A deep type of conformity, also known as conversion, where we take on the majority view as
we accept it to be correct. It leads to far reaching and permanent change in behaviour, even when the group
is absent. Some of these views are taken at a deep and personal level and become part of the persons
cognitive systems. E.g. Pete becomes vegan for a week because he is staying with his vegan friend, after the
week Pete continues to be vegan for the rest of his life.
Key Terms (Explanation):
Informational Social Influence (ISI)-An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the
majority because we believe it to be correct. We accept it because we want to be correct too. This may lead
to internalisation.
Normative social influence (NSI)-An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the
majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked. This may lead to compliance.
Why do people conform
Normative social influence and Informational social influence,
The dual-process dependency model (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955) identified two reasons for conformity: the desire
to be accepted and the desire to be right. This model views conformity as a cognitive process in which the person
weighs up the information given to them and their need for group approval:
Normative social influence: the person conforms because of their need to be accepted by, and belong to, the group.
This may be because belonging to the group is rewarding (e.g. groups at school) and groups have the power to
punish or exclude those who do not fit in and toe the line. They may personally or privately disagree but conform on
the surface. This is most likely to occur when conformance is shallow (compliance). Normative social influence was
the reason given for conforming by Asch’s participants.
Research support for NSI-In the Asch study, he asked the participants their reason for conforming (giving the wrong
answer on the matching line task), participants said they felt ‘self-conscious and were afraid of disapproval’. This
shows NSI as they conformed to gain approval and not be rejected. When subjects could write their answers down
(be anonymous) conformity rates fell to 12.5%. This shows that when there is no pressure to be judged by a group,
people are less likely to conform, therefore, conformity is based on being accepted by a group.
Individual difference in NSI-Research shows that NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For
example, those who are less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care about being
liked. These people who have the need to be liked or have a greater need to be in a relationship with other people
are known as affiliators. McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students with higher need of affiliation were more
likely to conform. This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others.
Therefore, there are individual differences in the way people conform, suggesting NSI is too simplistic.
, Informational social influence: in some social situations, people may be unsure of how to behave, or unclear as to
what they think or feel about an issue. In this case they conform and copy other people because they do not know
what to do or say. In this case, the drive for conformity is based on the need to do the right thing. Conformity is a
sensible option as the group is likely to be right- and if they are not, the individual will still blend in with the crowd
rather than standing out and feeling embarrassed. In Asch’s experiment a small minority of people doubted their
own eyes and thus agreed with the confederates.
Research support for ISI-Lucas et al (2006) asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy
or difficult. Conformity was greater when the answers were difficult rather when they were easy. This was true for
most students who rated their mathematical ability as poor. This shows that people conform in situations where
they don’t feel they know the answer. This is what ISI predicts, we will look to other people and assume they know
better than us and it must be right.
Individual difference in ISI-However, Asch found that students were less conformist than other types of participants.
Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch’s study with science and engineering students and found low levels of conformity.
This may be because they are more concerned with being accurate than belonging to a group. This shows that
individual differences in people will affect conformity, suggesting ISI is too simplistic.
ISI and NSI work together-Deutsch and Gerrard’s two-way process explains conformity in either NSI or ISI. However,
more often than not, both are involved. For example, conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting
participant in the Asch study. The dissenter reduces the power of NSI because they provide social support or may
reduce the power of ISI as there is an alternative source of information.
This shows that it isn’t always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work. This is the case in lab studies but is
even truer in real life conformity situations outside of the lab. This casts doubt over the view that ISI and NSI are two
processes that operate independently.
Deutsch and Gerard’s model has been criticised as it does not acknowledge the importance of a sense of belonging
to a group. Many studies have shown how conformity to group norms can persist long after the group no longer
exists. As the participants in Asch’s group had never met, it was unlikely that they would fear exclusion, implying that
factors other than dependency on the group may be important. An experiment using ‘virtual’ social pressure carried
out by Allan, Midford, Palli and Gabbert (2011) implies that people make careful judgements about whether to
conform based on the likelihood of their own view being accurate.
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