Social & Dispositional Factors in Conformity (AQA GCSE Psychology)

How social factors explain conformity

• Social factors include stimuli and influences from outside of the person. For example:

  • Other people

  • The physical environment

  • The specific characteristics of the situation

• When an individual is part of a group they tend to wish to blend in with and belong to the group

  • This may be an evolutionary mechanism that ensures survival as being a ‘lone wolf’ makes an individual vulnerable to threat (safety in numbers)

• Group membership is, particularly today, more about just survival though

  • People like to be liked; they benefit from a sense of belonging to a community with shared beliefs, goals, and activities

• Conforming to the majority is likely to result in someone being included rather than excluded and socially isolated

• There are specific social factors that explain the extent to which an individual might conform:

  • Group size: the more people that are in the group, the more likely conformity is to occur, however this increase does not go on indefinitely

  • Conformity rates rise swiftly from one to three people but once the group size reaches four people the rate of conformity does not change from its established level e.g. if the conformity rate is 38% with four people it is unlikely to increase (or decrease) much beyond this level

  • Anonymity: it is difficult to voice ideas or opinions that go against the group as this would risk rejection which means that even if people disagree with the group they are unlikely to say so openly

    • When Asch ran a variation of his study in which participants could give their answers anonymously then conformity rates fell

  • Task difficulty: if a task is difficult then people are more likely to conform to answers given by others as they may feel that they lack expertise in the task i.e. conformity is likely to increase

    • When Asch introduced a more difficult line-judging task in another variation, he found that conformity did indeed increase in line with expectations

Conformity diagram

Four is the optimum group size in which conformity occurs

Evaluation of how social factors explain conformity 

Strengths

• Each factor provides a valid explanation for why and how conformity to the majority occurs

Weaknesses 

• Group size: Campbell & Fairey (1989) showed that a larger group size (8-10) determines higher conformity if the topic is based on personal preference e.g. taste in music

• Anonymity: Asch’s experiment used groups of strangers but when Huang & Li (2016) asked groups of friends to express opinions the conformity rate increased under the condition of anonymity 

• Task difficulty: individual differences in ability, skill, knowledge and expertise may mean that some people are not affected by how difficult the task is 

How dispositional factors explain conformity

• Disposition refers to the characteristics and personality traits of an individual. For example, some people are:

  • More outgoing than others

  • More competitive

  • More reserved

• There are specific dispositional factors that explain the extent to which an individual might conform:

  • Personality

    • People with an external Locus of control (LOC) believe that factors outside of their control are what produces outcomes in their life e.g. ‘I failed my driving test because my instructor was rubbish/it was raining/I wasn’t wearing my lucky shirt’

      • An external LOC tends to go alongside higher levels of conformity due to a tendency to look outside of the self for answers or guides as to how to behave e.g. ‘Everyone likes this band, I need to start liking them too’

    • People with an internal LOC believe that factors under their control are what produce outcomes in their life e.g. ‘I failed my driving test because I didn’t drive well enough on the day/I was daydreaming/I didn’t revise for the written test’’

      • An internal LOC tends to go alongside lower levels of conformity due to a tendency to look within the self for answers or guides as to how to behave e.g. ‘Everyone likes this band, but I don’t rate them; I won’t be downloading their music’’

    • Burger & Cooper (1973) found that participants who scored high on an external LOC were more likely to laugh along with a confederate whilst watching cartoons than participants with a high internal LOC

  • Expertise

    • If someone has expertise in a particular subject/field/skill/profession/talent then they are likely to be confident as to their mastery in this area i.e. it is unlikely that they could be persuaded to go against or doubt their knowledge

    • High levels of expertise are linked to lower levels of conformity e.g. a Biology teacher would be less likely to conform the majority (if the majority agree as to an incorrect Biology answer) than non-specialists (i.e. people with little Biology knowledge)

    • Lucas et al. (2006) found that participants who were Maths specialists were less likely to conform to the majority answer to a tricky Maths question than those who lacked confidence in their Maths ability

    • Perrin & Spencer (1980) studied engineering students who showed lower levels of conformity (once in 396 trials) in a replication of Asch’s line study as presumably their expertise in technical drawing meant that they were used to judging line length as part of their professional tasks

Evaluation of how dispositional factors explain conformity

Strengths

• Each factor provides a valid explanation for why and how conformity to the majority occurs

Weaknesses

• Personality: any personality variable is difficult to measure to operationalise and measure, including LOC which means that research on this topic may lack reliability

• Expertise: this explanation is reductionist as it over-simplifies a complex issue e.g. specialists may conform even in situations involving their expertise