Investigation into Whether Gender Affects Conformity

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Investigation into Whether Gender Affects Conformity

Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Method

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Appendix

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on whether gender affects levels of conformity. A random sample of 100 participants (20 groups of 5) was used and people were allocated to groups according to their gender. This was the only factor considered in the sampling.

All of the groups were tested under the same conditions and were presented with a line drawing. Four of the five participants were confederates and stated that the line was straight and the view of the naive participant (whether they conformed or not) was recorded.

The results were analysed using the Chi test. A calculated value of 5.06 was obtained which was more than the critical values for both p = 0.05 and 0.025 of 2.71 and 3.84 respectively showing that the results for a one tailed test were significant and supporting the hypothesis.

Introduction

Conformity is a type of social influence, which was defined by Zimbardo as a "tendency for people to adopt behaviour, attitudes and values of other members of a reference group".

Although most people think of themselves as autonomous individuals, they nevertheless tend to conform to the social norms that their groups and societies have evolved. The social norms that indicate how we behave may be implicit or explicit.

There have been a number of theories to explain why people conform. The Dual Process model was established by Deutsch and Gerard (1955) and states that there are two powerful psychological needs that lead people to conform to social norms. Normative social influence is underlined by the desire to be liked, therefore we conform because we think that others will approve and accept us.

Informative social influence is formed by the desire to be right. We conform by looking to others whom we believe to be correct, to give us information on how to behave.

The Referential Informative social influence model challenges the Dual Process model. Turner (1991) suggested that the sense of belonging to a group causes us to conform to its social norms. This self-stereotyping is caused by a process called referential informational influence. The first stage is acknowledging the membership of the group, followed by learning the group's norms and then the last stage is behaving according to these norms.

Types of conformity have also been identified. Kelman (1958) identified three different types of conformity. Compliance is when the individual publicly conforms to the behaviour and views of others but privately maintains their own views.

Identification is when the views and attitudes of a group are adopted both publicly and privately. However, these attitudes and beliefs are dependent on the presence of the group and are often temporary.

Turner also identified a third type of conformity, internalisation. This is a true change of views to match those of the group. This type of conformity is not dependent on the presence of the group, as it is a true internal conversion.

However, there are occasions where people do not appear to conform. Independence is one explanation for this type of behaviour, as an individual is simply unaffected by the groups norms and behaves according to their own views and beliefs.

Anticonformity is another explanation for why some people resist conformity to group norms. This occurs when someone consistently opposes the norms of a group. On the other hand, anticonformity is also considered to be a type of conformity as the individual is still affected by the groups norms only they act in the opposite way to the majority.

As conformity and social influence are increasingly popular areas of psychology there have been a number of studies conducted in this area. One significant study was conducted be Asch (1956). In his original study he showed the group two cards, on one card was the test line and on the other three lines of differing lengths. The participants had to state aloud which line on the second card they thought matched the line on the test card. The correct judgements were always obvious to the participants. Only one member of the group was naïve as all of the other participants were confederates of Asch and had been instructed to the wrong answer unanimously on 12 out of 18 trials. The naïve participant was seated so that they gave their opinion second to last out of the whole group.
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The results of Asch's experiment were that on 32% of the critical trials the naïve participant conformed to the unanimous view of the majority even though the correct answer was obvious. Also 75% of the naïve participants conformed at least once. However, 13 out of the 50 participants didn't conform on any of the trials. Some of these participants were confident on their judgement but many experienced tension and doubt before resisting the pressure to conform.

Asch and other psychologists have also performed variations on his original experiment. Morris and Miller (1975) and Asch found that levels ...

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