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10 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the definition of social influence? |
Social influence is the way in which external social factors alter our behaviour. |
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What is the definition if conformity? |
Conformity is a type of social influence where we choose to go along with the majority. |
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Informational social influence explains why people conform. Explain what ISI is and what it leads to. |
ISI is when a person is unsure of what the correct answer is so they follow the majority. For example, in a classroom when asked a question, many students who are unaware of the correct answer will give the answer that the majority of the class gives. ISI is likely in situations which require a quick response or have some ambiguity. ISI leads to internalisation in which the individual changes their internal and external belief because they believe that the beliefs of others are correct and their beliefs are wrong. |
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Normative social influence is a reason for individuals to conform. Explain thag NSI is and what it leads to. |
NSI is when a person conforms in order to fit onto the group and be accepted. They adopt the group norms because they prefere to be socially accepted rather than rejected. Normative social influence leads to compliance which is when the persons internal views remain the same but their external views change. They think and act in a way that suits the group norms but their opinion or behaviour stops as soon as the group pressure stops. |
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Explain what Deutsch and Gerrard came up with in 1955. |
Deutch and Gerrard identified two reasons for people to conform. They suggested that conformity is based on two needs - the need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI). |
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What is identification. |
Identification is when a peraon conforms and internalises the beliefs and behaviour of others. They may do this because they want to establish a relationship with the person or group. They accept what they are doing is right (ISI) and the purpose of them doing it is to fit in (NSI) |
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Outline Jenness (1932) study of conformity |
Jenness (1932) study was one of the earliest experiments examining conformity. He aimed to investigate whether informational social influence plays a role in conformity. Jennes individually asked 101 psychology students to estimate how many beans they thought were in a blass bottle. The bottle contained 118 white beans. After jenness recorded their individual estimate, he divided all the participants into groups of 3 and asked them to provide a group estimate. Jenness then interviewed each participant again, individually, and asked them whether they wanted to change their estimate. Almost all of the participants changed their estimate after their group discussion about how many beans were in the blass bottle. The results show the power of conformity in an ambitious situation and that the change in participants answers was due to informational social influence. The participants changed their answers because they thought the group estimant was more accurate than their own. |
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Outline ASCH'S (1951) experiment into conformity |
ASCH'S laboratory experiment was one of the most famous experiments investigating conformity. His aim was to find out the extent to which social pressure from a majority will cause a person to conform even when the answer is clearly correct or incorrect. Asch's sample consisted of 50 male students from a college in America. They were told that they was taking part in a vision test. ASCH used a line judgement task, where he placed one real participent in a room with seven confederates (actors), who had decided on their answers prior to the test. The real participant was decieved and told that the seven confederates were also real participants. The real participent always sat second to last and in turn, each participant had to say aloud which lines out of A, B or C, they thought best matched the target line in length. Unlike Jenness experiment, the correct answer was very clear because Asch wanted to see if the real participant conformed to the majority ity even though the majority was incorrect. When confederates gave the same wrong answer, the concordance rate was 36.8%. 25% of the participants didn't conform but 75% conformed at least once. After the experiment, Asch interviewed the participents and asked them why they knowingly gave the incorrect answer. They responded that they didn't want to say the correct answer because they wanted to fit in and not be ridiculed by the group. This suggests that the pwrticipents conformed due to NSI and the desire to fit in. |
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Outline strengths to ASCH's 1951 experiment |
- laboratory experiment so its results are reliable - because it has standardised procedures - which menas that in all recreations of the experiment, all the participants experience the same conditions - this makes it replicable and therefore reliable. - laboratory experiments have control of extraneous variables. For example, the seat that the participants sat on was always the same. A high control on extraneous variables means that we can establish cause and effect. |
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Give weaknesses of Aschs 1951 experiment |
- lacks ecological validity - laboratory experiment - the participants were exposed to artificial stimuli, matching the lines to the target line. This does not reflect real life experiences or tasks and the answer isn't as clear aswell. Therefore the experiment lacks ecological validity and cannot be generalised to other real life situations of conformity. - lacks population validity because the results cannot be generalised to females or other age groups. |
