Read the information below about a study of social behaviour. A museum invited volunteers to rate the quality of a digital poster. Each volunteer viewed rat...
Question 1 Report
Read the information below about a study of social behaviour. A museum invited volunteers to rate the quality of a digital poster. Each volunteer viewed ratings apparently submitted by four earlier visitors, although these ratings were programmed by the researchers. On some trials all four ratings disagreed with the volunteer's first private judgement. The team recorded whether the person changed their public rating.
(a) Identify the behaviour that would indicate conformity in this study. [1]
(b) Describe one social factor in this procedure that could affect conformity. [2]
(c) Evaluate one limitation of using this artificial task to study how group pressure affects people. [3]
Answer Details
(a) Changing the public poster rating to match the apparent group rating despite the person's original/private judgement. [1] (b) Any one social factor described: unanimity, because four agreeing ratings create a unanimous majority and may increase conformity [1]; group size, because the participant sees four other ratings rather than one [1]; lack of an ally, because no earlier visitor gives the same rating as the participant [1]. Award [2] for a relevant factor plus a linked description of its possible effect. (c) Any one developed evaluation: rating a poster has little consequence and may not produce the same mental or social pressure as disagreement in an important real-life health, school or work situation [1]; therefore the results may not generalise to everyday behaviour [1]; this reduces ecological validity of the study's suggestion about conformity [1].
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