are you a conformist of course you're not but most other people are right damn sheep people they always act and dress the same way and believe the same things as everyone around them never truly thinking for themselves but why is this why is it so hard to go against the crowd which of these lines is longer it's B right okay of course it's a but is there any situation where you would feel like you had to say B just to fit in with a bunch of strangers well in Ash's research he managed to get three quars of his participants to at least once give into Conformity and give an obviously wrong response so we'll review that research and a few ways Ash modified his study to increase and decrease the social pressure to can fall the psych boost app now has three features flashcards multiple choice quizes and see if you can work out the key term from it definition with the key term taster try paper one for free right now and Patron supporters can watch boost videos ad free learn from over 17 hours of exclusive exam tutorial videos and access hundreds of digital and printable resources including my Maps quiz sheets worksheets teaching slides and more types of Conformity a commonly accepted definition of conformity is given by Aronson Conformity is a change in Behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure so an individual changing what they do or how they think because of what they consider to be pressure coming from a larger group I think the point about the imagin pressure is interesting I think we can all think of a time when we felt the need to change how we behaved to fit in with a group and likely that group actually didn't care or even notice keep in mind when it comes to Conformity we're not talking about the individual altering their behavior due to taking a direct order the members of these groups are likely to be groups of peers they're not authority figures obedience is obeying the direct orders of an authority figure obedience is a separate form of social influence that we'll discuss later on in this unit but I do find students new to the social influence unit often get the two confused Helman claims there are three types of Conformity these are compliance identification and internalization in order these range from a shallow level of Conformity to the deepest level of Conformity let's clearly Define each of them compliance is a type of Conformity where in response to pressure from others individuals change their behavior or what they outwardly claim to be their beliefs but their private beliefs were change the primary motivation behind compliance is the desire to get a positive reaction from others either avoiding disapproval or punishment compliance is often driven by normative social influence which is an explanation for Conformity that suggests we conform to be liked or accepted by others I'll say more about this explanation in the next section the changes in Behavior due to compliance are superficial this means that they're only on the surface and are temporary only lasting as long as the external pressure is present one once the social pressure is removed so they're not in the presence of the group individuals will go back to their original beliefs or behaviors and everyday example of compliance is when someone participates in a social media Trend not because they find them meaningful or enjoyable but because they want to fit in with their peers or online communities they may use hashtags without fully understanding the cause or idea behind them or take part in viral challenges they know are dangerous the identification type of Conformity is seen as an inter immediate level of Conformity the individual takes on the behaviors attitudes or values of a group because they want to be associated with a group unlike compliance which is Conformity to avoid rejection identification is about the individual aligning with a group to create or strengthen a social identity so with identification the individual conforms not necessarily because they believe the behaviors or values are correct but they do want to feel connected with the group to be seen as a member and maintain a relationship with a group this is clear when we look at behaviors in workplaces Social Clubs religious organizations and even smaller units like friendship groups these groups have a certain culture and people will adapt what they do and say to match ultimately to feel like they belong for example a person might start listening to a particular genre of music or dress in a certain way because they identify with a social group that values those things even if they don't actually prefer that type of music or style the key aspect of identification is the individual's behavior is influenced more by relationship with the group and the value of that relationship rather than some deep agreement with the group's Norms or even a fear of rejection internalization is a type of Conformity where individuals truly adopt the beliefs values or Norms of a group so this deepest level of Conformity results in a private and Lasting change in beliefs and behaviors because the individual truly accepts the group's Norms as their own internalization happens when the individual perceives the group's Norms or values as matching their own values or when they believe accepting these Norms is morally right or beneficial so the motivation behind internalization is driven by the individual's desire for correctness they conform because they see the group's Norms as correct or Superior to their previous beliefs or behaviors for this reason the matching explanation for Conformity is informational social influence a key feature of internalization is the changes or beliefs and behaviors remain even when there's no longer any external pressures to conform so when the individuals from the group this is because the individual has permanently integrated the group's beliefs or Norms into their own value system an example of internalization might be a person who starts Recycling and campaigning for environmental causes after being exposed to convincing arguments and evidence about climate change from a group they respect at first they may not have had strong feelings about environmental issues over time as they learn more they generally come to believe in the importance of these actions for ethical reasons and this belief influence their behavior even when they're not around the group explanations for Conformity as I've just mentioned there are two explanations for Conformity if asked to explain the reasons why people conform you should write about informational social influence and normative social influence let's start with normative social influence this explanation suggests that the need for social acceptance is a powerful motivator for human behavior and individuals will conform because they fear being socially rejected or becoming an outcut Conformity driven by normative social influence results in compliance individuals publicly agreeing with the group Norms or behaviors but not changing their private beliefs this is superficial lasting only as long as the group's influence is present we can say NSI is emotionally driven people want to feel connected supported and valued by their peers making them more likely to conform to avoid negative feelings associated with rejection the typical example of NSI is peer pressure teenagers often behave in ways they know might be risky or against their values such as smoking drinking and drug use and often this is driven by the fear of being excluded or mocked by their friends informational social influence happens when individuals assume the group has more knowledge or information about a situation this form of influence is particularly powerful in situations where there's ambiguity or uncertainty and individuals look to others as a source of information to guide their decisions unlike normative social social influence which is driven by the desire for social approval and acceptance isi is driven by the desire to make correct choices or to understand the appropriate way to behave in a given context as an example in an emergency situation like a fire in a public building individuals will often look to see how others are responding if a majority of people start moving towards one exit others are likely to follow assuming these individuals know the best or safest way out even though there are no clear signs indicating that this is true this this can actually lead to disasters with people being crushed in crowds or in this video from Brazil a group of CrossFit Runners causes confusion with some people assuming they're actually running away from danger they start running in the same direction causing a chain reaction everyone assumes the group has more information than they do and they need to run too another good example is when starting a new job there's likely a range of basic information you need to know like where to hang your coat and how long to take for a break you don't want to ask about every single piece of information so new employees will observe and copy the behavior of more experienced staff in the same way when visiting a new culture people observe locals for cues on how to behave appropriately if you travel to Japan you might notice that people bow when greeting each other and begin to do the same before I move on asking you to write about types of Conformity or explanations of a Conformity sound like similar questions and you've likely guessed that in the real exam students often get confused and write about the wrong terminology keep this in mind during your revision it's an easy mistake to make and actually one of the reasons I added a key term Checker to my app another Shameless plug but it is true now we might need to evaluate what we've covered so far but before doing that I want to tell you about a classic study of Conformity by Solomon Ash that's because we need to know about this study anyway and we can use the findings of the study to have value away explanations of Conformity the ash experiment in Ash's classic study of Conformity he used groups of male students St but unknown to one real participant all the other men around the table were actors working on behalf of the experimenter we'll call these people Confederates the real participant was told the task was about visual perception and they had to Simply identify the correct comparison line the one that matched the standard line you can see an example here and you likely have no difficulty identifying b as the correct answer in Ash's study there are 18 cards like this 18 trials each around the table took it in turns to say their response with the real participant being sat in the second to last place and at first each Confederate gave the correct answer in the final 12 critical trials something strange happened the Confederates all gave the same incorrect answer you might want to consider what you'd be feeling in this situation you know for sure what the right answer is but everyone else is disagreeing with you now at first you might be able to disagree with the group but as this goes goes on for round after round you're going to feel more and more uncomfortable you may even feel that to save yourself feeling embarrassed from having to disagree with this group again and again it may just be easier to repeat the same wrong answer in the study while conforming on every single critical trial was rare only 5% of participants never existed once the majority 75% of participant gave into group pressure and conformed at least once if we look at all of the critical Tri we can see that there was a mean Conformity rate of 32% Ash's findings are a support of normative social influence and if we're asked to write about NSI we can use the study as an evaluation the participants can form for social approval on what was an obvious so an unambiguous task variables affecting Conformity as investigated by Ash you can see here the main findings of Ash's original research in the exam your more likely to have to write about the variations of Ash's experiment than the original experiment itself but we'll want to compare the results of each variation to the original experiment to explain how the variation Alters conformity in Ash's group size variation Ash exactly replicated the original setup with 1 2 3 4 8 and 16 Confederates this is the original table from Ash's paper I've added the Conformity rate and a graph of the results you should be able to see an interesting pattern here with one or two Confederates the Conformity rate is low it seems to be easy to resist an individual or a couple however when there are free Confederates the Conformity rate Rises dramatically but then levels off and seems to decrease a little at 16 Confederates so if you're able to resist a small group you're able to resist a large group don't feel you need to memorize all of these figures but you should be able to outline the Al pattern of results in Ash's unanimity variation he instructed one of the Confederates answering before the participant to act as an ally this denter gave the correct answer providing social support for the true participant this made it easier to resist the power of the group so the Conformity rate dropped to 5.5% in the final task difficulty variation Ash increased the difficulty of the task by making the comparison lines closer in length to The Standard Line This increased the ambiguity of the task and while Ash didn't report exact figures he did say this significantly increase the rate of Conformity and we can suggest the reason for this increase is due to the addition of informational social influence participants being less sure of the correct answer so looking to the group for guidance so they can be correct evaluating Ash's experiment one of the positives of Ash's original study and variations is that as a lab study it used standardized procedures that had a high level of control over variables this control means each participant had the same experience they all viewed the same lines and experienced the same level of normative social influence from the Confederates which means Ash's study has internal validy perin and Spencer criticize the generalizability of Ash's work to modern society suggesting it lacks temporal validity and the study is over 70 years old in their replication with of a more modern British student sample in 396 critical trials there was only one example of Conformity they argued that the extreme conformity in Ash's work reflected the mindset of Cold War Americans who were afraid of standing out from the crowd the researchers argue that people are now more willing to resist normative social influence another generalizability issue for Ash is the All American sample this potential for cultural bias was investigated during a met analysis by Bond 133 studies across 17 countries were included finding General support for Ash's original findings but significant differences between collectivist societies that value group Harmony and individualistic societies who value personal freedom perhaps unsurprisingly collectivist societies were more conformist this suggests that normative social influence is not Universal we're experienced differently depending on cultural background you've likely never experienced a situation like Ash's Conformity study for this reason we could say his task lacks mundane realism people do conform in real life however it's usually around people they know personally and on work tasks or to their friends opinions while socializing we don't often find ourselves in a room full of strangers judging line lamps so as's work May tell us little about real life Conformity evaluating explanations for Conformity now we're familiar with Ash's research we can evaluate the explanations for Conformity with Ash so the original study supports normative social influence the task was obvious and unambiguous which means the reason why the participants conformed was to avoid being socially rejected by the group in another variation we didn't mention participants could write down their responses in secret eliminating the fear of rejection which resulted in a significant reduction in Conformity the task difficulty variation of Ash can be used as supporting research for informational social influence in increasing the difficulty of the task made it more ambiguous leading to the participants questioning their judgment this would explain why the Conformity rates increased with the participants relying more on the judgments of the Confederates to make the correct decision so far we've talked about situational factors that influence Conformity but there's good reason to believe that some people have a personality that makes them more or less likely to conform to others these dispositional explanations include an affiliator people who have are stronger than normal need to be liked by others leading to increased Conformity whereas people with high confidence are less likely to conform as well as people with what is known as an internal locus of control we'll cover locus of control in the Resistance video but basically they're people who feel they are person in control of and responsible for their actions our final evaluation is the fact it can be quite difficult to work out if Conformity and participants is due to isi or NSI it may be that even the person conforming isn't fully aware of their motivations this is even more true in real life examples of Conformity we often don't have a full understanding of a situation or issue and we usually want social approval so most cases of real world Conformity are likely to be a combination of both explanations I want to thank everyone over on patreon for supporting the channel because of you I've been able to teach part-time and I can make Psy boost on YouTube for everyone and a special thank you to azy Taylor for supporting at the developer level I do have extra resources that are exclusive to my patrons so if you do decide to sign up you can grab those over my website these include over 100 exam question tutorial videos of course including questions on the social influence unit I hope this was helpful and I will see you in the next psych Boost video