Week 5 - Factors Affecting Conformity

We need to understand how individual, situational and cultural factors can affect conformity. As you work through the information here, think about how these factors might also relate to the types of conformity and the types of social influence

Situational factors – Things that change from one situation to another
Individual factors – The differences between people/individuals, the things that make each of us unique people
Cultural factors – Where we’re from can have a big impact on our tendency to conform

INDIVIDUAL FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY

When we talk about individual factors we're talking about things specific to the individual experiencing social pressure to conform. We're dealing with things like age, gender, personal characteristics like confidence and self-esteem.

Have a think about...

Do you think there is a certain age where people are more willing to conform? Do you think we get more or less likely to conform as we get older? Is a teenager more likely to conform to social influence than an older adult? Why?

Do you think that men or women are more likely to conform when faced with social pressure? Think about stereotypical gender roles, do the findings align with these roles?

Does self confidence and a belief in one's own abilities have an impact on our likelihood of conforming? Would someone with high self-esteem be more or less likely to conform than someone with very low self-esteem?

Age

Conformity increases until adolescence and then decreases into adulthood. (Constanzo and Shaw, 1966). Conformity with same–age peers is thought to be at its strongest at about age 14/15, when adolescents are most concerned with being popular and not being ridiculed (Berndt, 1979). As adults get older, it may be that they feel less pressure to agree with others, although some degree of conformity pressure remains through the life span.

TLDR: Conformity peaks at 10-14/15 years old

Gender

Some studies (e.g., Mori & Arai, 2010) have found that women are more conformist than men .This may be because the stereotypical female gender role is more concerned with social relationships than men. When they are taking part in experiments, they are more concerned with group harmony than men and therefore conform more.

As females take greater responsibility for maintaining social relationships the conformity may be created more by normative social influence than informational social influence.

TLDR: Evidence suggests women are more conformist than men

Self-Esteem

People with low self-esteem conform more than people with high self-esteem (Asch, 1951, Stang, 1972). People with low self-esteem may not have the personal confidence necessary to resist group pressure. Snyder and Ickes (1985) found that those who perceived themselves as having a greater need for social approval were more likely to display normative conformity.

TLDR: Lower self-esteem = higher conformity

SITUATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY

When we talk about situational factors we're looking at the context in which the social influence, and pressure to conform, is being generated. Things like how difficult is the task? How obvious is the 'right' thing to do? How big is the majority group and how in agreement is the group as a whole? Do we have to report our answer publicly or is it private?

Have a think about...

What happens to conformity as 'task difficulty' increases. For example, you're asked as a group which is bigger 'a cat or a mouse', the answer is obvious so how much will you rely on the group for your answer? Now the question becomes which is bigger 'a cat or a capybara'? Faced with a more difficult task, as you more or less likely to look to the group for the right answer?

It's the final question on who wants to be a millionaire - you've used your 50/50 and now you ask the audience. What would you do in:

a scenario where 45% of the audience select answer A and 55% select answer B

a scenario where 99% of the audience selects and A and 1% select answer B

Group Size

Asch (1955), in a rerun of his original study found group size had a huge impact on results of his study.

The critical number for confederates having a conformity effect on participants was three.

With only two confederates, conformity dropped considerably.

With only one confederate, there was almost no conformity.

Unanimity

Unanimity refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another, and was identified by Asch as a variable that affects conformity.

He found that if one of the confederates dissented and gave the correct answer, then conformity levels dropped from 32% to 5%.

TLDR: The more internal agreement there is in a majority group, the more likely we are to conform.

You could also view this as the presence of an 'ally'. When we have 'backup', we're more likely to stick to our guns... why do you think this is?

Task Difficulty

Asch identified task difficulty as a variable that affects conformity. He found that when he made the line judgement task more difficult, conformity levels increased, as the participant was more likely to believe that the confederates were right.

TLDR: As task difficulty increases, we are more likely to look to 'the group' for guidance

CULTURAL FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY

Attempts to replicate the findings Asch’s study have encountered problems, which researchers such as Mori and Arai (2010) suggest can be explained by cultural differences across the world. Different countries have unique cultural norms. 50’s America was considered very highly conformist.

Perrin and Spencer (1981) re-ran the original Asch study with British University students studying engineering. The culture of universities is much more encouraging of independent thought. They found very little conformity effect. Culture can refer to that of an organisation, not just that of a country.

ACTIVITY

Complete assignment 'Conformity Five - Factors Affecting Conformity' on Google Classroom

Explanations of Conformity (1).pdf

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