Conformity Flashcards
What is social influence
Process by which or thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by other people
What is conformity
When a person changes their behaviours, attitudes and/or values due to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ group pressure
What did Asch study
He investigated the extent in which social pressure from a majority group could effect a person to conform
What was the procedure of Asch study
123 male American undergraduates were tested. It was a lab experiment. Asch put one naïve participant in a room with 7 confederates (actors) who had agreed their wrong answers in advance.
They were all shown a standard line and 3 comparison lines of different lengths they were then asked to state which comparison line was the same length as the standard line. the correct answer was always obvious (unambiguous situation).
The naïve participant have their answer last after the 7 confederates gave the wrong answer
What was the results of Asch experiment
On average one third (32%) of the participants in each trial conformed to the incorrect majority
Three quarters (75%) conformed on at least one trial
When interviewed after most said they did not believe their conforming answers but did not want to be ridiculed or thought of as peculiar by the group. Some said they believed the rest of the group must have been right
What are the variables/factors affecting conformity
Group size
The unanimity of the majority
The difficulty of the task
How does group size effect conformity
Conformity increases as the size of the group increases. Found little conformity when the majority was 1 or 2 confederated (3-12.8%)
However there is little change in conformity once the group size reaches 4-5 confederates (32%)
How does the unanimity of the majority affect conformity
When one other person in the group gave a different answer from the others conformity dropped
Asch found the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity by as much as 80%
How does difficulty of the task affect conformity
When the comparison lines were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased
When we are uncertain we often look at others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity
How does historical context and Culture effect conformity
Historical - Perrin and Spencer replicated Asch study 30 years later and overall conformity was almost non existent (0.25%)
Culture - In a meta-analysis on conformity rates on critical trials
Fiji - 58% conformity rate
Belgium - 14% conformity rate
What would you use to evaluate Asch’s research on conformity
- Artificial situation and task
- Limited application
- Research support
How would you evaluate Asch’s research on conformity
(Artificial situation and task)
Limitation was the task and situation were artificial. Participants knew they were apart of a study has may have (Demand characteristics) and simply gone along with what was expected e.g. to conform.
Also naïve participants were apart of a group. According to Fiske (2014) ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’ meaning it didn’t resemble the groups we are apart of in daily life
Lacks generalisability to everyday situations
How would you evaluate Asch’s research on conformity
(limited application)
Only men were tested by Asch’s but other research suggests women may be more conformist due to them caring more about social relationships than men are. Also Asch only studied Americans who are part of an individualist culture (more concerned about themselves rather than social groups) but in similar studies in China a collectivist culture (social group more important than self) conformity rates were higher
Shows Asch’s study didn’t take gender or culture into account and conformity levels can be much higher than what he found.
How would you evaluate Asch’s research on conformity
(Research support)
One strength is other studies prove variables such as effects of difficulty. For example Lucas et al asked participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems. Participants were given 3 answers from other students (not real). It shown that participants conformed to the wrong answers more when the task was harder.
However, This study also shown conformity is more complex than Asch has shown. It shown that participants with high confidence of their maths skills conformed less on hard tasks. Showing an individual-level factor can influence conformity which Asch didn’t research
