Conformity
- Created by: meghampton
- Created on: 30-05-16 13:08
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- Conformity
- Conformity - a change in a person's behaviour or opinion as the result of group pressure
- why do we conform?
- Normative social influence - we want to be like by other people and feel accepted by them
- informational social influence - we use the behaviour of people around us for information when we are in ambiguous situations
- Social Roles - the part people play as members of a social group. in each social role you adapt + your behaviour changes to fit expectations of that role
- Sherif 1935
- asked participants to estimate how far a spot of light moved in a dark room
- the light didn't move - it was an optical illusion
- he found that a participant on their own gave a variety of estimates
- when put into groups of 3 estimates became very similar
- concluded - people's opinions help us form judgements in ambiguous situations
- Evaluation
- Asch 1951
- argued - Sherif's study the situation was ambiguous - light moved wasnt known so doesn't show social conformity
- 50 students participated in a 'vision' test
- paced a new student with others. others knew responses but the new student did not
- 3 lines - asked which was longest/shortest, answer was always obvious
- carried out 18 trials - on 12 trials the wrong answer was given
- both experiments were conducted in laboratories - not a natural situation therefore the results could be invalid
- use of confederates could suggest ethical issues
- lots of control so you can target specific factors e.g. group size
- Asch 1951
- Asch 1951
- argued - Sherif's study the situation was ambiguous - light moved wasnt known so doesn't show social conformity
- 50 students participated in a 'vision' test
- paced a new student with others. others knew responses but the new student did not
- 3 lines - asked which was longest/shortest, answer was always obvious
- carried out 18 trials - on 12 trials the wrong answer was given
- Zimbardo 1973
- aim - to investigate how far people would go to conform to roles of guard/prison in a simulated prison life exercise
- interested in whether bad treatment was due to personalities or the prison environment
- 24 male volunteers were paid $15 per day
- randomly assigned to prisoner or guard
- prisoners were treated like criminals - stripped, shaved hair, prison clothes, referred to by number
- guards dressed in identical khaki uniform, wore special sunglasses - reflective/blacked out
- instructed to do whatever they thought necessary to maintain law + order
- Results
- within a very short time they adapted to their new roles
- guards began to harass prisoners
- prisoners told tales on each other
- one prisoner was released after 36 hours - in the early stages of a deep depession
- terminated on 6th day - ethical issues
- Conclusion
- people will readily conform to social roles especially if strongly stereotyped
- de-individuation may explain behaviour
- Evaluation
- cannot be generalized to real life/females/countries
- evidence shows participants reacted to situation being real
- ethical issues - lacked fully informed consent/unprotected from psychological harm
- went through debriefing sessions - no lasting effects
- benefits gained about our understanding of human behaviour + how we can improve society
- De-individuation - the state of losing our sense of individuality and becoming less aware of our own responsibility for our actions
- Milgram 1963
- obedience - following an order, instruction or command which is given by a figure of authority
- wanted to see how far people would obey unreasonable offers
- 40 male volunteers - believed experiment was on learning
- believed they were giving an electric shock when learner got an answer wrong
- went from 15 to 450V
- told to keep going when they heard learner was in pain
- all delivered 300V, 65% administered 450V
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