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5 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Context 1
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An individual is said to conform if they choose a course of action that is favoured by the majority of other group members or is considered socially acceptable. Because the individual is clearly influenced by how the majority of people think or behave, this form of social influence is sometimes referred to as majority influence.
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Context 2
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The fact that an individual goes along with the majority in public, does not, however, indicate that they have changed their private attitudes or beliefs. Therefore most majority influence is characterised by public compliance rather than private acceptance.
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What did Jenness do? What was the limitation with the study?
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Jenness (1932) asked students to guess how many beans there were in a jar. They could discuss their estimates and then were asked individually to give their estimates again. Jenness found that individual estimates tended to converge to a group norm. The task in this study concerned an ambiguous situation where one looks to others to get some ideas about a reasonable answer. One limitation of this study was that Asch specifically
asked participants to produce a group estimate, rather than just observing whether they would produce similar estimates (i.e. conform). |
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What did Sherif investigate? What was a limitation of his study?
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Sherif (1935) investigated responses to an ambiguous stimulus using the autokinetic
effect. Sherif told participants he was going to move the light, and asked them to estimate by how far the spot of light had moved. All participants were initially tested individually, and were then asked to work with three others who had given quite different estimates of movement. After their discussion, each was asked to provide individual answers again. These had become quite similar to those of the others in their group, demonstrating a tendency to establish and conform to group norms, however, Sherif did not specifically inform participants that they had to produce a group estimate; participants arrived at a group norm under their own volition. |
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What was the aim of Asch's study?
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Asch aimed to investigate the effects of group pressure on individuals in an unambiguous situation. He wanted to find out if, when confronted with an obviously incorrect answer, individuals would give an answer that perpetuated this error (i.e. conformed) or would give an independent response.
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