What the Board expects you to know:
- Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance.
- Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
- Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
- Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity, location and uniform, as investigated by Milgram.
- Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.
- Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
- Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
- The role of social influence processes in social change.
Conformity and obedience
This area of the course on social influence, covers one of the most interesting and controversial areas in Psychology. Hence the critical issue is the ethics of using human participants in Psychological research.
What the board expects you to know:
This area of the course on social influence, covers one of the most interesting and controversial areas in Psychology. Hence the critical issue is the ethics of using human participants in Psychological research.
What the board expects you to know:
Conformity
Informational Social Influence (ISI)
This happens when there is no obvious right answer so we look to others for information in order to be right.
Examples of Psychological research:
Informational Social Influence (ISI)
This happens when there is no obvious right answer so we look to others for information in order to be right.
Examples of Psychological research:
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Jenness (1932): ‘Beans.’
A basic study in which Jenness gave a jar of beans to individuals and got them to estimate the number of beans inside. He then grouped the same participants together and got them to discuss the contents. Later when they were separated and asked their opinions Jenness found that the estimates had converged around a central figure. Conclusion: when we are unsure of an answer we look to others for help assuming that a majority figure will be more reliable. |
Sherif (1935): ‘Autokinetic effect’
Participants sit in a darkened room and stare at a pinpoint of light that appears to move, (try it sometime). They are asked to estimate the distance it moves. Since the movement is only apparent the correct answer is it doesn’t, but Sherif’s participants were obviously not aware of this. Again, when put in rooms with others their guesses converge towards a group norm.
In a follow up experiment Sherif started the participants in groups were they agree on an approximate answer. When individuals are taken from this group and do the experiment on their own they stick to the answer agreed earlier.
Findings of this sort of research
Clearly there is conformity when people are unsure of the answer since group norms emerge.
Evaluation
Both studies are very artificial so lack ecological validity. Can we generalise from this to real life situations?
Other examples of ISI
Participants listened to US presidential debates and were given information on how other viewers were rating the different candidates. This information was faked! Participants tended to favour the candidates favoured by the made up observers and their opinions swung back and forth as their apparent popularity rose and fell.
Normative Social Influence (NSI)
This happens when we go along with the crowd because we want to be accepted or liked or because we want to avoid embarrassment or being ridiculed.
Real life examples: smoking because others in your peer group smoke, dressing like your friends in order to fit in or avoid bullying.
Examples of Psychological research
Participants sit in a darkened room and stare at a pinpoint of light that appears to move, (try it sometime). They are asked to estimate the distance it moves. Since the movement is only apparent the correct answer is it doesn’t, but Sherif’s participants were obviously not aware of this. Again, when put in rooms with others their guesses converge towards a group norm.
In a follow up experiment Sherif started the participants in groups were they agree on an approximate answer. When individuals are taken from this group and do the experiment on their own they stick to the answer agreed earlier.
Findings of this sort of research
Clearly there is conformity when people are unsure of the answer since group norms emerge.
Evaluation
Both studies are very artificial so lack ecological validity. Can we generalise from this to real life situations?
Other examples of ISI
Participants listened to US presidential debates and were given information on how other viewers were rating the different candidates. This information was faked! Participants tended to favour the candidates favoured by the made up observers and their opinions swung back and forth as their apparent popularity rose and fell.
Normative Social Influence (NSI)
This happens when we go along with the crowd because we want to be accepted or liked or because we want to avoid embarrassment or being ridiculed.
Real life examples: smoking because others in your peer group smoke, dressing like your friends in order to fit in or avoid bullying.
Examples of Psychological research
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Again, you are all aware of the procedure. Briefly stated: participants are deceived
into taking part in a study on visual perception. They are seated at a desk with others that
they believe to be fellow participants but who in reality are in league with
the researchers (stooges or confederates).
Lines are presented on a screen and participants simply have to say
which line (out of 3 possibilities, is the same length as the target line). The stooges get the right answer on the first
two trials but then start to make deliberate mistakes.
Conformity is measured by counting the number of times the real participant conforms when stooges give the wrong answer. |
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Possible questions:
‘Describe the procedure.’ Easy peasie, describe the experiment as above. You could mention some of the variations.
‘Describe the findings.’ This one is more likely and also more troublesome. What you must avoid doing is wasting time by describing the procedure.
To answer this one, first of all mention Asch’s initial findings:
‘Describe the procedure.’ Easy peasie, describe the experiment as above. You could mention some of the variations.
‘Describe the findings.’ This one is more likely and also more troublesome. What you must avoid doing is wasting time by describing the procedure.
To answer this one, first of all mention Asch’s initial findings:
- Overall conformity rate was 37%. This means that participants conformed on 37% of all trials.
- However, within this there were substantial individual differences:
- Nobody conformed on 100% of trials
- 13 out of the original 50 never conformed at all
- Highest rate of conformity was a participant who conformed on 11 out of 12 trials 75% conformed at least once.
- Also mention what Asch found in his variations
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Factor
Size of group Supporter Difficulty of task Familiarity of task |
Description and conformity
One stooge (3%), two stooges (14%), three stooges (32%). Further increases in group size do not increase conformity. With very large groups conformity actually begins to fall! If one of stooges also disagrees with others conformity drops sharply (5%) As task becomes more difficult conformity increases We are less likely to conform when we are confident in our ability, e.g. men are less likely to conform to incorrectly named tools than they are to incorrectly named kitchen utensils. Clearly research of the 1950s! |
Evaluation of Asch’s Paradigm (as it is often called)
The method
The procedure is very artificial (it lacks ecological validity) in that participants are being asked to conform when there is clearly a different and obviously correct answer. In everyday life disagreements occur over politics, religion, tastes etc., when correct answers are not obvious, except we all agree that Kylie is lush!
Results do not appear to be consistent over time. Later studies such as Perrin and Spencer’s in Britain in the 1980s found much lower levels of conformity. It has been suggested that Asch’s original was post war when America was very wary of Communist take over when US citizens were worried about being seen to be different for fear of incrimination. Levels of conformity did fall in the late 60s when it was popular for students in particular to protest against the Vietnam War, showing low levels of conformity.
The study is androcentric. Only male participants took part and worse still, only male students. As a result we can hardly generalise to other groups of people. In fact when Eagly and Carli (1981) carried out a meta-analysis of research into conformity they found that women were more likely to conform than men. However, they also report some bias in studies. When the researchers were male they tended to choose test material that would be more familiar to men than it would be to women, perhaps explaining some of the differences.
The ethics
Participants were deceived so were unable to give their informed consent. Note: whenever stooges are used there is always deception.
Participants were clearly stressed and some must have been embarrassed by the procedure and suffered some loss of self esteem once they had been informed that it had all been a big con. This all constitutes ‘psychological harm.’
Crutchfield (1955): ‘The question booth.’
Crutchfield thought Asch’s experiment was far too expensive, time consuming and inefficient. Lots of stooges were required to test each participant. So he devised a method of testing lots of participants quickly and cheaply. They were sat in cubicles and questions projected onto a screen. In one corner were the answers given by other participants. In fact these were made up and often wrong. Conformity was measured by the number of times participants would go along with these incorrect answers.
Example of question used: ‘The life expectancy of the average US male is 25.’
Participants answer true or false. Since the screen indicates that the majority have answered ‘true’ many of the real participants do the same. In fact Crutchfield found about the same level of conformity as Asch; 30%.
Also worth mentioning in an essay question is the information Crutchfield found out about the personalities of conformist individuals by administering a personality test after the procedure. According to this, conformist people tend to be: ‘intellectually less effective’, submissive, inhibited, have feelings of inferiority and have less mature social relationships.
Although Crutchfield found similar levels of overall conformity to Asch the reasons underlying this might be different. Because the participant is not being directly observed there is less pressure to comply with others. However, some of the tasks are more difficult than the Asch lines and some even involve general knowledge. It is therefore possible that some of the conformity Crutchfield found was due to Informational Social Influence rather than Asch’s pure NSI.
Bringing Asch up to date
Asch's findings were confounded by the fact that some confederates will be more convincing than others. To solve these problems Mori and Arai adapted the MORI technique (Manipulation of Overlapping Rivalrous Images by polarizing filters), used previously in eye-witness research. By donning filter glasses similar to those used for watching 3-D movies, participants can view the same display and yet see different things.
Mori and Arai replicated Asch's line comparison task with 104 participants tested in groups of four at a time (on successive trials participants said aloud which of three comparison lines matched a single target line). In each group, three participants wore identical glasses, with one participant wearing a different set, thereby causing them to observe that a different comparison line matched the target line. As in Asch's studies, the participants stated their answers publicly, with the minority participant always going third.
Whereas Asch used male participants only, the new study involved both men and women. For women only, the new findings closely matched the seminal research, with the minority participant being swayed by the majority on an average of 4.41 times out of 12 key trials (compared with 3.44 times in the original). However, the male participants in the new study were not swayed by the majority view.
Evaluation and Asch comparisons
There are many possible reasons why men in the new study were not swayed by the majority as they were in Asch's studies, including cultural differences (the current study was conducted in Japan) and generational changes. Mori and Arai highlighted another reason - the fact that the minority and majority participants in their study knew each other, whereas participants in Asch's study did not know the confederates.
The researchers argue that this is a strength of their new approach: 'Conforming behaviour among acquaintances is more important as a psychological research topic than conforming among strangers,' they said. 'Conformity generally takes place among acquainted persons, such as family members, friends or colleagues, and in daily life we seldom experience a situation like the Asch experiment in which we make decisions among total strangers.'
Other factors that may affect conformity
Changes over time
The original study by Asch was carried out in 1950s USA. America was a very paranoid society, fearful of Communist take over and under the grip of McCartyism in which the government and other institutions in positions of influence were being purged of possible ‘Commies.’ People were afraid of appearing different or stepping out of line, so it is not surprising that Asch found such high levels of conformity.
Later studies by Perrin & Spencer have found much lower levels of conformity. However, some of these studies were on engineering students at a British University. Since they were experts on accurate measurement of length it isn’t surprising that they failed to conform. Out of several hundred trials Perrin & Spencer found only one incidence of conformity, despite the students being ‘very puzzled’ by the stooges’ bizarre answers!
When the study was carried out on young men on probation the rate of conformity was similar to those reported by Asch.
Cultural differences
If we consider culture in broader terms rather than narrow nationalistic ways, we can break societies into two broad kinds:
Bond and Smith (1996) found the following levels of conformity on Asch-like tasks:
Kim and Markus (1999) suggest that failing to conform is seen as a strength in Western society whereas collectivist societies see it as deviant behaviour.
It is always worth pointing out that cultures are not homogenous (i.e. the people within them are not all the same). Cultures are made up of individuals and there are big individual differences in conformity, as Asch highlighted. Cultures also contain sub-cultures such as different ethnic groupings and social classes.
Gender issue
Many studies have a found a sex difference with women generally being more conformist. Eagley (1978) however noticed that the tasks tend to favour masculine characteristics, for example spatial tasks such as Asch’s lines. Maslach et al (1987) gave women tasks based on more traditional feminine characteristics and found women to be no more compliant than men!
Types of Conformity
According to Kelman (1958) there are three types of conformity:
Compliance: you go along with the crowd and publicly agree with them. However, internally you maintain your original views. Paraphrasing Kelman, conformity occurs to gain specific reward or approval or to avoid punishment or disapproval. Importantly when the group pressure disappears the conformity stops too.
Internalisation: occurs when people take on the views of others both publicly and privately. According to kelman the person adopts the induced behaviour because it is consistent with their own value system. Usually with internalisation the content of the message is important and as a result the person considers the new information carefully before making the change in opinion.
Identification: occurs when a person conforms to the role that society expects them to play. As with compliance there does not have to be change in private opinion. The classic example here obviously is Zimbardo (see later notes)
Research distinguishing compliance and internalisation
Kelman (1958)
Black American students were given talks persuading them that some black-only colleges were essential for maintaining black culture. An idea that most of the students did not agree with at the outset.
Two conditions:
The method
The procedure is very artificial (it lacks ecological validity) in that participants are being asked to conform when there is clearly a different and obviously correct answer. In everyday life disagreements occur over politics, religion, tastes etc., when correct answers are not obvious, except we all agree that Kylie is lush!
Results do not appear to be consistent over time. Later studies such as Perrin and Spencer’s in Britain in the 1980s found much lower levels of conformity. It has been suggested that Asch’s original was post war when America was very wary of Communist take over when US citizens were worried about being seen to be different for fear of incrimination. Levels of conformity did fall in the late 60s when it was popular for students in particular to protest against the Vietnam War, showing low levels of conformity.
The study is androcentric. Only male participants took part and worse still, only male students. As a result we can hardly generalise to other groups of people. In fact when Eagly and Carli (1981) carried out a meta-analysis of research into conformity they found that women were more likely to conform than men. However, they also report some bias in studies. When the researchers were male they tended to choose test material that would be more familiar to men than it would be to women, perhaps explaining some of the differences.
The ethics
Participants were deceived so were unable to give their informed consent. Note: whenever stooges are used there is always deception.
Participants were clearly stressed and some must have been embarrassed by the procedure and suffered some loss of self esteem once they had been informed that it had all been a big con. This all constitutes ‘psychological harm.’
Crutchfield (1955): ‘The question booth.’
Crutchfield thought Asch’s experiment was far too expensive, time consuming and inefficient. Lots of stooges were required to test each participant. So he devised a method of testing lots of participants quickly and cheaply. They were sat in cubicles and questions projected onto a screen. In one corner were the answers given by other participants. In fact these were made up and often wrong. Conformity was measured by the number of times participants would go along with these incorrect answers.
Example of question used: ‘The life expectancy of the average US male is 25.’
Participants answer true or false. Since the screen indicates that the majority have answered ‘true’ many of the real participants do the same. In fact Crutchfield found about the same level of conformity as Asch; 30%.
Also worth mentioning in an essay question is the information Crutchfield found out about the personalities of conformist individuals by administering a personality test after the procedure. According to this, conformist people tend to be: ‘intellectually less effective’, submissive, inhibited, have feelings of inferiority and have less mature social relationships.
Although Crutchfield found similar levels of overall conformity to Asch the reasons underlying this might be different. Because the participant is not being directly observed there is less pressure to comply with others. However, some of the tasks are more difficult than the Asch lines and some even involve general knowledge. It is therefore possible that some of the conformity Crutchfield found was due to Informational Social Influence rather than Asch’s pure NSI.
Bringing Asch up to date
Asch's findings were confounded by the fact that some confederates will be more convincing than others. To solve these problems Mori and Arai adapted the MORI technique (Manipulation of Overlapping Rivalrous Images by polarizing filters), used previously in eye-witness research. By donning filter glasses similar to those used for watching 3-D movies, participants can view the same display and yet see different things.
Mori and Arai replicated Asch's line comparison task with 104 participants tested in groups of four at a time (on successive trials participants said aloud which of three comparison lines matched a single target line). In each group, three participants wore identical glasses, with one participant wearing a different set, thereby causing them to observe that a different comparison line matched the target line. As in Asch's studies, the participants stated their answers publicly, with the minority participant always going third.
Whereas Asch used male participants only, the new study involved both men and women. For women only, the new findings closely matched the seminal research, with the minority participant being swayed by the majority on an average of 4.41 times out of 12 key trials (compared with 3.44 times in the original). However, the male participants in the new study were not swayed by the majority view.
Evaluation and Asch comparisons
There are many possible reasons why men in the new study were not swayed by the majority as they were in Asch's studies, including cultural differences (the current study was conducted in Japan) and generational changes. Mori and Arai highlighted another reason - the fact that the minority and majority participants in their study knew each other, whereas participants in Asch's study did not know the confederates.
The researchers argue that this is a strength of their new approach: 'Conforming behaviour among acquaintances is more important as a psychological research topic than conforming among strangers,' they said. 'Conformity generally takes place among acquainted persons, such as family members, friends or colleagues, and in daily life we seldom experience a situation like the Asch experiment in which we make decisions among total strangers.'
Other factors that may affect conformity
Changes over time
The original study by Asch was carried out in 1950s USA. America was a very paranoid society, fearful of Communist take over and under the grip of McCartyism in which the government and other institutions in positions of influence were being purged of possible ‘Commies.’ People were afraid of appearing different or stepping out of line, so it is not surprising that Asch found such high levels of conformity.
Later studies by Perrin & Spencer have found much lower levels of conformity. However, some of these studies were on engineering students at a British University. Since they were experts on accurate measurement of length it isn’t surprising that they failed to conform. Out of several hundred trials Perrin & Spencer found only one incidence of conformity, despite the students being ‘very puzzled’ by the stooges’ bizarre answers!
When the study was carried out on young men on probation the rate of conformity was similar to those reported by Asch.
Cultural differences
If we consider culture in broader terms rather than narrow nationalistic ways, we can break societies into two broad kinds:
- Individualistic: for example Western Societies were the need to be independent and self sufficient is taught as the ideal.
- Collectivistic: for example Asian and some African cultures were the needs of the family and larger social group are seen as more important.
Bond and Smith (1996) found the following levels of conformity on Asch-like tasks:
- Collectivist: 37%
- Individualistic: 25%
Kim and Markus (1999) suggest that failing to conform is seen as a strength in Western society whereas collectivist societies see it as deviant behaviour.
It is always worth pointing out that cultures are not homogenous (i.e. the people within them are not all the same). Cultures are made up of individuals and there are big individual differences in conformity, as Asch highlighted. Cultures also contain sub-cultures such as different ethnic groupings and social classes.
Gender issue
Many studies have a found a sex difference with women generally being more conformist. Eagley (1978) however noticed that the tasks tend to favour masculine characteristics, for example spatial tasks such as Asch’s lines. Maslach et al (1987) gave women tasks based on more traditional feminine characteristics and found women to be no more compliant than men!
Types of Conformity
According to Kelman (1958) there are three types of conformity:
Compliance: you go along with the crowd and publicly agree with them. However, internally you maintain your original views. Paraphrasing Kelman, conformity occurs to gain specific reward or approval or to avoid punishment or disapproval. Importantly when the group pressure disappears the conformity stops too.
Internalisation: occurs when people take on the views of others both publicly and privately. According to kelman the person adopts the induced behaviour because it is consistent with their own value system. Usually with internalisation the content of the message is important and as a result the person considers the new information carefully before making the change in opinion.
Identification: occurs when a person conforms to the role that society expects them to play. As with compliance there does not have to be change in private opinion. The classic example here obviously is Zimbardo (see later notes)
Research distinguishing compliance and internalisation
Kelman (1958)
Black American students were given talks persuading them that some black-only colleges were essential for maintaining black culture. An idea that most of the students did not agree with at the outset.
Two conditions:
- Compliance condition: the message came from an important man who would withdraw funding from the college if they disagreed that black only colleges were not needed.
- Internalisation condition: the message came form an expert on the issue of minority groups and their culture.
- Participants were told that a summary of their questionnaires would be given to the speaker (public)
- Participants were told that the findings would be kept private.
|
Public Private |
Compliance (funding)
Participants conformed with the message Participants retained their independent views |
Internalisation (expert)
Participants conformed with the message Participants conformed with the message |
Conclusion
This shows the difference between compliance and internalisation and how they come about. Compliance is conforming outwardly but having no genuine change in underlying attitude (as caused by the threat of removal of funding). Internalisation however, is having a genuine change in opinion and fully taking on board the views of others.
Allen and Levine (1971)
Again a partial replication of the Asch style study. In this case the participants were faced with one of three conditions. No supporter, a supporter with good eyesight or a supporter with very poor eyesight (which he made obvious). With no support conformity was at 97%. With a valid supporter this dropped to 36%. However, although the invalid supporter reduced conformity it did so significantly less (64%).
It seems that an invalid supporter simply reduces the normative social influence of the stooges. Having a valid supporter reduces the normative influence but also the informational influence so has much greater impact.
This shows the difference between compliance and internalisation and how they come about. Compliance is conforming outwardly but having no genuine change in underlying attitude (as caused by the threat of removal of funding). Internalisation however, is having a genuine change in opinion and fully taking on board the views of others.
Allen and Levine (1971)
Again a partial replication of the Asch style study. In this case the participants were faced with one of three conditions. No supporter, a supporter with good eyesight or a supporter with very poor eyesight (which he made obvious). With no support conformity was at 97%. With a valid supporter this dropped to 36%. However, although the invalid supporter reduced conformity it did so significantly less (64%).
It seems that an invalid supporter simply reduces the normative social influence of the stooges. Having a valid supporter reduces the normative influence but also the informational influence so has much greater impact.
