Social influence intro asch & sherif
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Transcript of Social influence intro asch & sherif
Social Influence
Conformity
What is Social Influence?
The way in which a person or group of people affect the attitudes and behaviour of
an individual(Brody & Dwyer, 2002)
What is conformity?
The tendency to change what we do (behaviour) or think and say in
response to real or imagined group pressure.
Types of Conformity
There are 2 types of conformity…
ComplianceSuperficial and
public.Change in
behaviour not personal views
InternalisationDeep and private.
Change in behaviour AND personal views
Without notes...
Without your notes complete your Glossary of Terms for
ConformitySocial Norms (Implicit & explicit)ComplianceInternalisation
Research demonstrating compliance
Asch (1951)
Line-judgement task
Compliance –
- Most superficial type of conformity- Individual conforms publically to the group
but privately disagrees- Change in behaviour not personal views
123 American male undergraduates- In each experiment all but one of the
group were confederates
Asch - A01Unambiguous line
judging taskConducted a pilot study –3/720 errors
WHY?!
Confederate ConfederateReal pConfederateConfederate
18 trials in total, 12 were critical -When all confederates gave the same incorrect answer
Findings – A01Mean conformity rate of 37%
Participants agreed with the
incorrect majority answer on over 1/3 of
the trials
Is 37% low?
Not considering
the task was!
Not considering how obvious
(unambiguous) the task was!
There were wide individual differences within the results:
-5% conformed on every trial-25% remained totally independent (never once agreed with the majority when they answered incorrectly)
Conclusions – A01
Asch’s participants explained that one of the reasons they agreed with the majority on an
obviously wrong answer was so as not to stand out from the crowd.
Asch concluded therefore that participants’ actions were a clear example of compliance!
Variations of the experiment
Group size – 1, 2 & 3 stooges1 stooge = 0%, 2 stooges = 12.8%,3 stooges = 37%(more than that – no rise)
Unanimity of stooges (same wrong answer)Unanimous = High level of conformity1 stooge giving right answer = drops to 5%
Ambiguity – how obvious is the wrong answer- As lines become similar in length conformity rises
Evaluation – A02You should be able to think of 4 evaluation
points without anymore information than the research outline
High degree of control over variables
Lack of ecological validity
Ethical issues - lack of informed consent
Lack of population validity (used only men) Androcentric
Additional Evaluation – A02
Asch’s research was conducted in America during the era of McCarthyism
(an era where people were accused, without adequate evidence, of being disloyal to the country and guilty of treason)
Why is this a problem for Asch’s research?What type of validity might Asch’s research
lack?
Lack of Temporal Validity
Extra empirical evaluation – A02• Crutchfield (1956) (repeated Asch’s research
and found a similar conformity rate)
• Eagly & Carli (1981) (women conform more than men in a situation that’s observed but men conform more in an unobserved situation)
• Perrin & Spencer (1980) (repeated Asch’s research and found a lower conformity rate)
Potential questions
Outline research into conformity (6 marks)
Describe and evaluate research into compliance (12 marks)
What is Social Influence?
The way in which a person or group of people affect the attitudes and behaviour of
an individual(Brody & Dwyer, 2002)
What is conformity?
The tendency to change what we do (behaviour) or think and say in response to real or imagined
pressure from a group.
Types of Conformity
There are 2 types of conformity…
ComplianceSuperficial and
public.Change in
behaviour not personal views
InternalisationDeep and private.
Change in behaviour AND personal views
Research demonstrating internalisation
Sherif (1936)
Autokinetic effect.
Internalisation –
- Deepest level of conformity- Individual conforms both publically and
privately to the group- Conversion
Sherif – A01
Group 1• Tested individually
in a darkened room
• Each P made 100 estimates
• Put into groups of 2 or 3
• P’s reached a group norm
Group 2• P’s were tested in
small groups
• P’s developed a group estimate
• P’s tested individually
• P’s estimates reflected the group estimate
Aimed to investigate whether participants would conform and change their own individual prediction about how far a spot of
light moved when the group were no longer there
Sherif divided participants into 2 groups
Sherif - findingsWhen put into groups, participants estimates converged towards a
central mean
Despite not being told to arrive at a group
estimate
After experiencing group influence, individual estimates reflected the group answers – though in interviews after the experiment participant denied
being influence by others
Sherif - conclusion
Sherif suggested that in group 2, participants individual answer reflected the group responses
because the individual participants looking to other
group members for information –ambiguous task
Rohrer et al (1954) replicated Sherif’sstudy and found that when participants were re-tested individually up to a year later they continued to use the group
answer- Showing that p’s had internalised
(taken on) the views of the group and privately changed their beliefs.
Evaluation – A02You should be able to think of 4 evaluation
points without anymore information than the research outline
High degree of control over variables
Lack of ecological validity
Ethical issues – use of deception
Ethical issues – lack of informed consent
Compliance InternalisationChange behaviour
not views
Public
Unambiguous task
Not conversion
Change behaviour and views
Private
Ambiguous task
True conversion
Vs.