Lesson 4 - Variables Affecting Conformity Flashcards
What are the three variables that affect conformity ?
Group size, unanimity of the majority and task difficulty.
How does the group size affect the conformity rates ?
Asch found, when there was 1 confederate the conformity rates were 3%. When there were 2 confederates the conformity rates were 13%. But when there were 3 confederates, the conformity rates rose to 30%. Though it appeared that when there were 4 or more people there was little change to the conformity which means group size only matters up till a point.
How does unanimity of the majority affect conformity rates ?
When the group had unanimity conformity increased. But when one confederate have the correct answer, conformity levels dropped from 33% to 5.5%. If one confederate gave the wrong answer and it was not the same as majority, the rates of conformity dropped to 9%. This shows you only need one break in the unanimous decision for conformity rates to drop.
How does task difficulty affect conformity rates ?
Asch decided to adjust the task difficulty so he made the test lines more similar in length. In this he found that conformity rates increased. This could be because ISI was starting to have an impact. He found that the more difficult the task became, the more there was ISI and conformity.
What are the weaknesses of Asch’s study on the variable affecting conformity ?
This study could be lacking temporal validity. This is because this was conducted in the 1950s. It is possible that people may have been more conformist back then than now. When this experiment was repeated on engineering students in 1980 (Spencer and Perry), they found that only 1 student conformed in 396 trials.
This study is also gender biased because only males were used. The same findings may not apply to women. It is also culturally biased as it was only done on white American men and no other cultures.
Asch research was heavily criticised on ethical ground. The main ethical issue was deception as he used confederates. Deception could lead to psychological harm and lead them to be confused and distressed. There was also a lack of informed consent as participants did not know they were taking part in a conformity study.
