3: Variables Affecting Conformity

Question 1

Three variables affecting conformity

Answer 1

• Unaminity
• Group size
• Task difficulty

Question 2

Variables affecting conformity: Description
- Unaminity

Answer 2

Unaminity refers to the extent to which all members of a group agree.
It is argued that the pressure to conform is at its highest when the majority group is unanimous (when they all agree).

In Asch’s OG study, the confederates unanimously gave the incorrect answer. Asch explored what would happen if this wasn’t the case. He gave the real participant a non-conformist ally (‘dissenter’). Sometime the dissenter gave the correct answer and sometimes they gave a different correct answer to the majority. The presence of a dissenting ally meant the conformity rate dropped from 37% to, on average 25%. He concluded that when a groups unanimity is broken, this is a major variable in reducing conformity.

Question 3

Variables affecting conformity: Description
- Group size

Answer 3

Another variable thought to affect conformity is the size of the group.

Asch manipulated this variable and found that when there was a small group of 1 or 2 confederates giving the wrong answer, the conformity rates were low. However, under pressure from 3 confederates, conformity increase to 32%. Further increases in size of majority did not increase conformity a great deal and, beyond 7 confederates, the conformity rate even began to decrease slightly. Asch concluded that the size of majority is important but only up to a point.

Question 4

Variables affecting conformity: Description
- Task difficulty

Answer 4

A third variable thought to affect conformity is the difficulty of the task. It is argues that if a situation is more difficult (more ambiguous), a person is more likely to conform because they are less confident in their own opinion and therefore more likely to look to others to provide guidance on how to behave.

Asch tested this by making the line judgement task more difficult. When he made the standard and the comparison lines more similar, he found the conformity rate increased.

Question 5

Evaluation of Variables affecting conformity:
Strengths

Answer 5

P: Asch’s research was well controlled
E: Controlled setting of laboratory made it easy to control EVs
E: Control lighting and lines to ensure participants could clearly judge length of lines
L: High internal validity, measured what it intended to measure (conformity)

P: Easy to replicate
E: Controlled setting of laboratory made easier to repeat in exact same way, adjusting variables each time to test their influence on conformity
E: Keep everything the same (standardised) but change variables such as the size of the group or task difficulty
L: allowed to test which variables affect conformity the most to gain a better understanding
E: Findings can be easily tested for reliability

Question 6

Evaluation of Variables affecting conformity:
Limitations

Answer 6

P: Evidence against from Perrin & Spencer (1981)
E: Repeated Asch’s study 30 years later in Britain, found only 1 person conformed in 396 trials.
E: Concluded people don’t always conform as much as Asch’s OG study suggests
L: Lacks temporal validity

P: Low ecological validity
E: Although laboratory is controlled, it can be viewed as an artificial setting because it doesn’t represent real life
E: In real life people would usually be able to question why others were giving incorrect answers but Asch didn’t allow ppts to do this
L: Findings may not generalise to real life conformity settings and situations

P: High demand characteristics
E: Participants were aware they were taking part in a study so may have behaved unnaturally
E: May have tried to please Asch by behaving in a way they thought they were intended to by conformity
L: Lowers the study’s internal validity (not measuring what it intends to)

P: Ethical issue of deception
E: Asch’s study can be criticised for deliberately deceiving the participants
E: Asch told ppts that all of the people sat around the table were participants when they were really confederates - many ppts reported feeling embarrassed/foolish after the experiment
L: goes against ethical code of conduct
E: by using deception, also not possible to gain full informed consent until afterwards when they are told the truth in the debrief. Goes against the ethical code of conduct. However in defence of Asch, he wouldn’t have been able to obtain realistic results if he had not used deception