Social Psychology UNIT 2

Social Psychology Topics:  Social Influence: 1.Types of conformity - Internalisation - Compliance 2. Why do people conform? - Informational social influence and normative social influence - Outline and evaluate research into conformity (Asch and Zimbardo) 3. Obedience - Outline and evaluate Milgram’s study - Two explanations of why people obey  Social Influence in everyday life: 1. Explanations of independent behaviour - How people resist pressures to conform - How people resist pressures to obey 2. Social Change - The role of minority influence in social change

What is social influence?  The process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are changed by the presence or action of others.

What is conformity?  A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure OR  A tendency for people to adopt the behaviours and attitudes of other members of a valued group

What social norms do you conform to? Social Norms Personal space – don’t stand too close to strangers

Types of conformity  Compliance – publicly conforming to the behaviour or views of others in a group but privately maintaining one’s own views.  Identification – Adopting the behaviours of a group both publicly and privately because you value membership of that group. Often temporary and not maintained when leave that group.  Internalisation – True change both publicly and privately to match those of the group. The new attitudes become part of their values – not dependent on presence of group.

Why do people conform?  Normative social influence  Informational social influence  Read the hand-outs and provide your own summary of the two types of social influence  What type of conformity will these lead to??? (internalisation or compliance)

Assessment Task 1  Which girl’s behaviour is being influenced by normative social influence  Which girl’s behaviour is being influenced by informational social influence ?  Justify both choices  (6 marks)

Mark scheme  Josie = Normative Social Influence, changing behaviour but not personal attitude: she is doing something (laughing at jokes) just to fit in and be accepted by the group, even though she doesn’t find the jokes funny.  Hana = Informational Social Influence, changing behaviour in order to be correct and using group as reference: she wants to be right and is using her colleagues as a source of information.  Caitlyn is not experiencing any social influence.