AQA A Level Psychology Social Influence
Get a hint
State the definition of conformity - Ans-An individual is said to be conforming if they choose a course
of action that is favoured by the majority of the group members.
State and explain the three types of conformity - Ans-Compliance - Individuals follow what the group
is doing in order to be accepted or to fit in, even if there personal views may differ to the one they
are portraying. This will not chance their underlying attitude towards something. (Asch)
Internalisation - This involves both public and private attitudes and is where the individual may
believe that the groups view, after close inspection, is correct and theirs is wrong. This leads them to
changing their public and private view towards something in order to be correct. This is the deepest
level of conformity and becomes a permanent attitude. (Sherif's Autokinetic)
Identification - The individuals attitudes both private and publicly will change but in this case only for
a temporary amount of time and also is in order to fit in and be liked, essentially it is a mix of
compliance and internalisation. (Zimbardo)
There are two explanations for conformity, outline and explain them - Ans-Normative Social
Influence - This is where people go along with a majority in order to feel that they fit in and not be
ridiculed for having a different opinion to everyone else.
Informational Social Influence - Occurs when an individual accepts information from the majority as
they see them as experts or someone with more understanding of a particular subject. This is done
in order to be correct.
Outline and evaluate a study into informational social influence - Ans-Jenness setup an ambiguous
situation where participants were asked individually to estimate how many beans were in a glass
bottle they were shown. This was recorded and participants were then put in a room with a group of
people and asked as a group to come to an estimate. Again they were asked individually if they
would like to change their original estimate, and nearly all of them decided they would like to
change. This shows that most of them went through informational social influence where they
conformed with a group in order to be correct.
:) - Unlike other research into conformity there is no deceiving so it is ethically sound
, :( - Doesn't give us any insight into non ambiguous situations where conformity occurs
Outline and evaluate a study into Normative social influence - Ans-Asch conducted a lab experiment
where 50 male students where individually the participants were put in a room with 7 confederates
and took part in a 'vision test'. The confederates were told before hand to answer wrongly for every
task. They were shown a line and then followed 3 lines on a separate card, named A, B and C. They
had to match which from A, B and C matched with the original line they were shown. Asch measure
the times that participants conformed with the majority and found that around 1/3rd conformed.
Over the 12 critical trials 75% conformed at least once, compared to less than 1% in the control
group. When interviewed after and asked why they conformed they stated that they wanted to fit in
and not be ridiculed by the group.
:( - Asch used a biased sample of only males, of which all were students, meaning it lacks population
validity and in turn the findings into normative social influence cant be easily generalised to the
population
:( - Asch used a task where the participants had to judge line lengths but realistically when do we
naturally come across a situation like this. This means that the study lacks ecological validity and
cannot be generalised to other situations
State and explain each factor that affects levels of conformity - Ans-Asch conducted his research
with many different variations and found which affected conformity.
Group Size - Asch found that when the majority consisted of just one or two confederates then there
was very little conformity. However when there was three then the conforming responses jumped
up to around 30%. Further increases did not make a difference in levels of conformity, thus Campbell
suggested that group size may have a different effect based on what type of conformity is occurring.
For example if there is no correct answer and the individual wants to fit in then the larger the
majority the more likely to be swayed whereas when there is a correct answer and the individual
wants to be correct than just one or two will be sufficient.
Unanimity - When one confederate was told to give the right answer Asch found that conformity
dropped considerably from 30% t0 5.5%. Even when one confederate was told to give a different
wrong answer to the majority, breaking unanimity, the conformity dropped from 30% down to 9%.
Difficulty - Asch found that when making the lines a much more similar size that conformity
increased a large amount as many people had less confidence in the answer they thought was
correct.
Get a hint
State the definition of conformity - Ans-An individual is said to be conforming if they choose a course
of action that is favoured by the majority of the group members.
State and explain the three types of conformity - Ans-Compliance - Individuals follow what the group
is doing in order to be accepted or to fit in, even if there personal views may differ to the one they
are portraying. This will not chance their underlying attitude towards something. (Asch)
Internalisation - This involves both public and private attitudes and is where the individual may
believe that the groups view, after close inspection, is correct and theirs is wrong. This leads them to
changing their public and private view towards something in order to be correct. This is the deepest
level of conformity and becomes a permanent attitude. (Sherif's Autokinetic)
Identification - The individuals attitudes both private and publicly will change but in this case only for
a temporary amount of time and also is in order to fit in and be liked, essentially it is a mix of
compliance and internalisation. (Zimbardo)
There are two explanations for conformity, outline and explain them - Ans-Normative Social
Influence - This is where people go along with a majority in order to feel that they fit in and not be
ridiculed for having a different opinion to everyone else.
Informational Social Influence - Occurs when an individual accepts information from the majority as
they see them as experts or someone with more understanding of a particular subject. This is done
in order to be correct.
Outline and evaluate a study into informational social influence - Ans-Jenness setup an ambiguous
situation where participants were asked individually to estimate how many beans were in a glass
bottle they were shown. This was recorded and participants were then put in a room with a group of
people and asked as a group to come to an estimate. Again they were asked individually if they
would like to change their original estimate, and nearly all of them decided they would like to
change. This shows that most of them went through informational social influence where they
conformed with a group in order to be correct.
:) - Unlike other research into conformity there is no deceiving so it is ethically sound
, :( - Doesn't give us any insight into non ambiguous situations where conformity occurs
Outline and evaluate a study into Normative social influence - Ans-Asch conducted a lab experiment
where 50 male students where individually the participants were put in a room with 7 confederates
and took part in a 'vision test'. The confederates were told before hand to answer wrongly for every
task. They were shown a line and then followed 3 lines on a separate card, named A, B and C. They
had to match which from A, B and C matched with the original line they were shown. Asch measure
the times that participants conformed with the majority and found that around 1/3rd conformed.
Over the 12 critical trials 75% conformed at least once, compared to less than 1% in the control
group. When interviewed after and asked why they conformed they stated that they wanted to fit in
and not be ridiculed by the group.
:( - Asch used a biased sample of only males, of which all were students, meaning it lacks population
validity and in turn the findings into normative social influence cant be easily generalised to the
population
:( - Asch used a task where the participants had to judge line lengths but realistically when do we
naturally come across a situation like this. This means that the study lacks ecological validity and
cannot be generalised to other situations
State and explain each factor that affects levels of conformity - Ans-Asch conducted his research
with many different variations and found which affected conformity.
Group Size - Asch found that when the majority consisted of just one or two confederates then there
was very little conformity. However when there was three then the conforming responses jumped
up to around 30%. Further increases did not make a difference in levels of conformity, thus Campbell
suggested that group size may have a different effect based on what type of conformity is occurring.
For example if there is no correct answer and the individual wants to fit in then the larger the
majority the more likely to be swayed whereas when there is a correct answer and the individual
wants to be correct than just one or two will be sufficient.
Unanimity - When one confederate was told to give the right answer Asch found that conformity
dropped considerably from 30% t0 5.5%. Even when one confederate was told to give a different
wrong answer to the majority, breaking unanimity, the conformity dropped from 30% down to 9%.
Difficulty - Asch found that when making the lines a much more similar size that conformity
increased a large amount as many people had less confidence in the answer they thought was
correct.
