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Why do we Conform?
Homework
Questions 1 and 2
p184 Exploring
Psychology
BATs
• AO1 –Distinguish between Normative
and Informational Social Influence as
ways of explaining conformity
• AO2 – Cite evidence that supports NSI
and ISI
• AO1 – Use the work of Moscovici to
outline conformity to Minority Influence
Why do we conform?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW2
GvYbD-t4 jury
Real World Applications of Conformity
• Asch’s research would suggest that many
jurors do not want to appear deviant to the
perceived attitudes of their fellow jurors.
• Pressure to conform to the majority is
particularly strong.
• Tanford and Penrod (86) – 95% of cases first
vote of the jury determines their final decision
• This suggests conformity pressure is a major
issue in jury decision-making
Conformity Processes
• Informational Influence
• Motivated by desire to be correct
• Normative Influence
• Leading to:
• Compliance
• Internalisation
psychlotron.org.uk
• Motivated by need to fit in with group
Conformity Processes
• Informational
influence
• Motivated by a
desire to be correct
Need for certainty
Subjective
uncertainty
Private beliefs are likely
to change along with
public behaviour
Refer to social
group
Internalisation
psychlotron.org.uk
Need for
information
Real World Application
• Research suggests people conform to
informational influence when the situation is
both ambiguous and a crisis.
• Many people in the Twin Towers didn’t get out
in time because they didn’t know what to do
and followed others who carried on
working/weren’t trying to escape.
Conformity Processes
Public behaviour is
likely to diverge
from private beliefs
Need for
acceptance or
approval
Power of social
group to reward or
punish
Conflict between
self & group
opinion/behaviour
Compliance
psychlotron.org.uk
• Normative
influence
• Motivated by a
desire to be
accepted
Real World Applications
• Dramatic example of Normative Social
influence –
Massacre of the population of Nanking in China
by Japanese troops in 1937.
In 6 weeks over 250,000 murdered and many
others raped or mutilated.
Japanese contempt for Chinese an established
norm in Japanese society
They acted to support this norm.
Over to you…
• Use the ‘Analysing Conformity’ sheet.
• Discuss each scenario in your group for
5 mins
• Write a couple of sentences about each
scenario, explaining your views and
reasoning.
Over to you…
Normative – wanting to be part of the group
- compliance
2. Informational – internalised
3. Informational – weighing up the situation
4. Asch – Normative – wanted to be
accepted/save face
Sherif -Informational – gathering info before
making a decision
Jenness – Informational – ambiguous situation
people look to others to get some ideas
about a reasonable answer
1.
Plenary
• Try the activity ‘Problem Solver’ p 162
of Exploring Psychology
Minority influence
• Can a minority influence the majority?
• What determines whether they will
succeed?
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Conformity research suggests that the
majority exerts an important influence
• However, if the majority always wins,
how does society ever change?
Studies of minority influence
• A study of minority influence
• Similar to the Asch study, but with a
minority of confederates trying to influence
a majority of real participants
• All women!!
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Moscovici et al (1969)
Studies of minority influence
• Smaller effect than majority influence
• Requires consistency
• Affects private attitudes (internalisation) not
just public behaviour (compliance)
• Key process is informational influence
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Moscovici et al (1969)
• Minority influence is possible but:
Conversion Theory – Moscovici (80)
• The majority have to be convinced to change
the way they think about something –
(internalisation)
• Moscovici called this type of social change
attitude conversion (1969)
• An individual exposed to an argument
different to majority produces conflict.
• To reduce conflict they examine the minority’s
argument to see why they have different
opinions to the majority.
Factors in minority influence
• Size of minority
• Spencer & Perrin (1998)
• Moscovici (1971), Wood et al (94) – meta
analysis
• Confidence of minority
• Nemeth (1973)
•
Persuasiveness – sufficiently convincing to
persuade people to defect from the majority
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Consistency of minority
Minorities are successful if…
• They share common ground with the
majority
• ‘One of us’ is more influential than ‘one of
them’
• Their beliefs must appear strong
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• They are consistent and confident
Minorities are successful if…
• They are non-dogmatic
• They work to draw attention to their
viewpoint
• If the majority can ignore them, they will
ignore them
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Reasonable/flexible people are more
influential
Minority influence processes
• Social Conflict
• Minority dissent produces conflict in society
• People move towards the minority to reduce
conflict
• As some individuals adopt the minority view they
start to influence a greater number of people
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• Snowballing
Minority influence processes
• Social Cryptamnesia (Perez et al 95)
www.psychlotron.org.uk
• By the time the minority view has become
the majority, people have forgotten it was
ever a minority view.
Real Life examples of Minority Influence
• Can you think of any examples where
the influence of a minority has led the
majority to internalise the minority
position.
• Suffragette movement
• Rise of trade unionism (Tolpuddle
martyrs)
• Equal rights for gays/lesbians
• Social change in South Africa
Over to you …
• Choose one of the examples of Minority
Influence to research.
• Search for the events surrounding
social change.
• Identify how the features discussed
(e.g. consistency, exposure, confidence)
were present as this minority exerted its
influence.
Social Impact Theory – Latane (1881)
• AO2 – Discuss how social impact theory
can explain both majority and minority
influence.
• Relate the above to real life situations
Social Impact Theory
How does this theory explain both
Majority and Minority Influence?
Latane (81) developed this theory to
explain why people conform in some
situations and not others.
Suggested several principles …
Social Impact Theory
The amount of influence a person has in a
social situation depends on …
• Number – the more people present
the more influence they will have on an
individual. (Asch only up to 3 or 4,
above that little difference)
Social Impact Theory
Strength – the more important the
people are to the individual the more
influence they will have.
• e,.g Perrin and Spencer (80) – when
probation officers were the majority over
a person on probation in a recreation of
the Asch expt, conformity rates were
high
• Mullen et al (90) – jaywalking reduced
when high status non-jaywalkers nearby
Social Impact Theory
• Immediacy – each individual can
influence others, but the more people
present, the less influence any one
individual will have.
• More likely to listen to a speaker
attentively in a small group than large.
• Crutchfield (56) – reducing immediacy
by putting people into booths reduced
conformity
Support for Social Impact theory
• Sedikides and Jackson (90) – found
high strength and high immediacy
exerted more impact (i.e. more
conformity) than low strength and low
immediacy sources.
Support for Social Impact theory
• Latane revised his theory into the
Dynamic Social Impact theory
1. Consolidation – over time the
majority grows in size and minority
decreases, so resisting conformity
becomes even more difficult.
Support for Social Impact theory
2. Clustering – people more influenced
by closest neighbours, so clusters of
group members of similar opinions
emerge (e.g. cliques)
Support for Social Impact theory
3. Correlation – Over time group
members’ opinions converge so their
opinions on a variety of matters become
similar.
Support for Social Impact theory
4. Continuing Diversity – Because of
clustering, members of minorities can
be shielded from the attempts by the
majority to influence them.
Their non-normative beliefs are
maintained in the group.
To what extent does Social Impact
Theory explain both Majority and Minority
influence?
• Use the sheet to show how the theory
can explain each type of influence.
• Evaluate how well it explains each
theory.
• Homework
• Questions 1 and 2 p184 Exploring
Psychology
• How valid are the Asch and
Moscovici studies? (see p 70
Revision guide)
Question 1 c asks you to highlight one
ethical issue relating to conformity research
See p70 Revision guide to help you