Conformity Flashcards
What is conformity
A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
Who studied conformity
Asch
Who were the participants of his study
123 American males who were tested individually with a group between 6 and 8 confederates
What are confederate
Fake participants in a study
What was the procedure of Aschs research
On the first few trials confederates gave correct answers but then all selected the same wrong answers. Each participant completed 18 trials. On 12 ‘critical trial’, confederates gave the wrong answer
What were the finding of Aschs research
● There were considerable individual differences.
● Most participants conformed to avoid rejection (NSI) and continued to
privately trust their own opinions (compliance)
● Naive participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time (the proportion of critical trials when participants agreed with confederates wrong answers - high conformity level
What did do his further research on
determine which factors influenced how and when people conform
What was the procedure for finding the variables effecting conformity
Group size:
- The number of confederates varied between 1 and 15.
Unanimity:
- Introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate who was dissenting but inaccurate.
Task difficulty:
- Made line judge task harder by making stimulus line and the comparison lines much similar in length.
What were the 3 variables Asch studied
Group size, unanimity and task difficulty
What what were the findings and conclusions of Aschs study for group size
With two confederates, conformity to the wrong answer was 13.6% - with three it rose to 31.8%.
What were the finding for Aschs study on unanimity
- The presence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity, whether the dissenter was giving the right of wrong answer (25% wrong answers). Having a dissenter enabled a naive participant to behave more independently.
What were the finding for Aschs study on task difficulty
- Conformity increased when the task was more difficult. So informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. Compared to the original study where normative social influence played a role.
- The situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and assume they are right
What is the limitation of aschs research in terms of artificial situation task
-Participants knew they were in an experiment and may have simply gone along with the demands of the situation (demand characteristics)
- The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore was really no reason not to conform. Also , although the naive participants were part of a ‘group’, it did not really ressemble groups that we are part of everyday life.
- This means that the findings do not generalise to everyday situations
What is the limitation of aschs research based on culture and gender
Only men, women may have different conformity levels.
Only American, cultural bias, individualistic counties have higher conformity levels
What is the limitation of Aschs study based on ethical sues
naive participants were deceived because they thought that the other people involved in the procedure (the confederates) were also genuine participants like themselves
