Topic Summaries

Evaluating conformity

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Social influence > Evaluating conformity
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Addiction

  • 👥 Asch’s (1951) study provides evidence for both normative and informational social influence. The conformity rates increasing in the task difficulty variation show evidence for informational social influence as when people were unsure of the correct answer, they looked for someone they thought were correct to follow. Additionally, it shows evidence for normative social influence as even though people knew the correct answers, they still followed the majority group for fear of not ‘fitting in.’
  • 👥 Lucas et.al.(2006) conducted a study using students and maths tests of varying difficulty. He asked students to give answers to maths questions that were either hard or easy. He found that there was a higher conformity rate for difficult questions than easy ones. This supports informational social influence as it shows that there are higher rates of conformity where people are unsure of their knowledge and not confident in their abilities.
  • Cultural bias: historically, most conformity research took place in individualist cultures. Evidence has shown that in collectivist cultures, such as China, conformity rates are often higher. For example,
    • 👥 Smith and Bond (1996) found higher conformity rates in Japan, which shows that most research into conformity may not be generalisable across cultures.

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