Social Influence (P1) Flashcards
Define conformity
Conformity
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
Asch’s research
Describe the sample of Asch’s baseline procedure
Conformity
123 American Males
Asch’s research
Describe the procedure of Asch’s baseline research
Conformity
Each participant in a group with other apparent participants
Each participant saw 2 large white cards on each trial
The line X on the left-hand card is the standard line. The lines A, B, and C are the 3 comparison lines
One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length as X the other 2 are substantially different
On each trial the participants had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same length as X
Asch’s research
Describe the physical arrangement of the particpants in the study
Conformity
Participants were tested in groups of 6-8
Only 1 was a genuine (naive) participant always seated last or next to last in the group
The others were all confederates of Asch that is they all gave the sane (incorrect) scripted answers each time
The genuine participant did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants
Asch’s findings
Describe the baseline findings
Conformity
On average the genuine participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrecct answers 36.8% of the time (i.e they conformed about a third of the time)
There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (i.e never conformed)
What were the variables investigated by Asch?
Conformity
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Task difficulty
How did Asch test Group size?
Conformity
He varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15
total group size was from 2 to 16
What were Asch’s findings of group size?
Conformity
Found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
Conformity increased with group size but only up to a point
With 3 confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
But the presence of more confederates made little difference - conformity rate levelled off
This suggests most are very sensitive to views of others because 1 or 2 confederates were enough to sway opinion
How did Asch test Unanimity?
Conformity
Introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates
In one variation of this study this person gave the correct answer and in another variation he gave a (different) wrong one
What were Asch’s findings of Unanimity?
Conformity
Genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
The rate decreased to less than a quater of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently. This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the genuine participant
This suggests that the influence of the majority depends on it being unanimous and that non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority’s unanimous view
How did Asch test task difficulty?
Conformity
Increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length
This means it became harder for the genuine participants to see the differences between the lines
What were Asch’s findings of task difficulty?
Conformity
Conformity increased
Result of Informational Social Influence (ISI)
What were strengths of Asch’s research?
Conformity
- Research support
- Support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty. Lucas et al (2006) asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ math problems. Participants were given answers from 3 other students (not actually real). The participants conformed more often (i.e agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder. Shows that task difficult affects conformity
COUNTERPOINT
Lucas et al found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested. Participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence. This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables (e.g. task difficulty). But Asch did not research role of individual factors
What were the limitations of Asch’s research?
Conformity
- Artificial situation and task
- Limited application
- Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics). The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform. Asch’s groups did not really resemble groups that would be experienced in everyday life. Findings do not generalise to real-world situations.
- Participants were American men. Other research suggests that women may be more conformist possibly because they’re concerned about social relationships and being accepted. USA is an individualist culture. Conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures found that conformity rates are higher. Asch’s findings cannot be generalised to women and other cultures
