Social influence (variables affecting conformity) Flashcards
Asch (1956) line test
Asked male student volunteers to participate in a visual discrimination task. all but one were confederates and the aim was to see how the individual reacted to the answers of the other confederates.
Asch procedure - (1956)
In total 123 male US undergraduates were tested. Participants were seated and asked to observe lines with different length. Taking turns to call out the answer which they believed was the same as the standard line out of either A,B or C. The real participants always answered second to last.
-12 critical trials
-The confederates were asked to give the same incorrect answer, Asch wondered whether they would conform or not based on pressure from the other group.
Asch findings - (1956)
On the 12 critical trials the conformity rate was 33% where the participants agreed with the incorrect answer from the confederates, with individual differences with individuals, with 25% out of any of the critical trials conforming. Asch interviewed the participants after and mainly found out they had stuck with their private of giving the correct answer but changed their public view giving the wrong answer to avoid disapproval and therefore showed compliance.
Asch after the original study - (what were the 3 variables affecting conformity)
Asch went on to perform many 3 different variations of his original study changing each one b one of the three factors to see which one was the most significant on conformity size. The 3 variables were: Group size, unanimity and task difficulty.
Group size -
Under pressure of 3 confederates the conformity jumped to 30%, further increase of size did not influence findings further, suggested that group size may have a different effect depending on type of judgement.
Unanimity -
When there was more than 1 person giving a different answer to the confederates that gave the wrong answer. Conformity rate dropped to 5.5%, in a condition of choosing a wrong but different answer, it went to 9%
Task difficulty -
Line of lengths were much smaller making it difficult to distinguish between the 3 the level of conformity increased. Lucas investigated a little further people that were confident in their own ability produced even under conditions of high task difficulty showing situational and individual differences play a significant role in conformity rates.
Independent behaviour rather than conformity -
Limitation
Asch’s study showed one-third of people to conform whereas the remaining 66% stuck true to their own beliefs and judgement without conforming, Asch believed rather than showing humans being conformist they presented their own individual behaviour.
Problems with group size - limitation
Bond (2005) suggested that conformity studies have a limited range of majority sizes, Asch procedure involved 3 as the majority size, Bond suggests that out all studies show not a lot of the effect of high majority sizes on conformity for example plus 9.
