Social Influence-Variables Affecting Conformity Flashcards

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1
Q

How many people (Easy as 🅰🅱C..) were tested and gender? 👫

A

➡️123 male US graduates

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2
Q

Asch (1956)

What was the nature of the task?

A

➡️Student volunteers asked to take part in a visual discrimination task.

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2
Q

What was the purpose of the study? 🔬

A

➡️ to see how the lone ppt would react to the behaviour of the confederates

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3
Q

Asch (1956)- Procedure

How were groups arranged?

A

➡️groups of 7 (1 Naive ppt & 6 Confederates)

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4
Q

What were participants asked to do? 🏷🏷🏷

A

➡️ppts were seated around a table

➡️asked to look at different line lengths ‼️
(1 Standard line and 3 comparison lines)

➡️took turns to call out which of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard line

➡️Real ppt always gives answer second to last

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5
Q

How many trials were there in total and how many of these were critical trials*?

(*what happens in critical trials

A

➡️18 trials in total

➡️12 out of 18 = Critical Trials
↪️Confederates instructed to give the same incorrect answer 🚫📢

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6
Q

What did Asch observe? 👀

A

➡️Asch observed whether the “real” ppts. would stick to what they believed was right ✅ or cave in to the pressure of the majority ⚠️

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7
Q

Asch (1956) Findings

Conformity rate of the Critical trials? %%% %%%

A

➡️ On the 12 critical trials = Average conformity rate was 3️⃣3️⃣%

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8
Q

Individual differences in terms of conformity? 👫

A

Individual differences:
➡️1/4 of ppts never conformed on any of the critical trials
➡️1/2 conformed on 6 or more of the critical trials
➡️1/20 of ppts conformed on al 12 critical trials

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9
Q

Control Condition?🔬🔬

A

Asch conducted a control condition without the distraction of confederates
↪️in this condition he found ppts. made mistakes about 1% time.
↪️confirmed the stimulus lines were indeed unambiguous

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10
Q

What did the post-experiment interview reveal? ✨

A

➡️Asch interviewed ppts. afterwards
↪️discovered that the majority of ppts who conformed had continued to privately trust their own judgement… But changed public behaviour to avoid disapproval from other group members (I.e. Showing compliance)

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11
Q

Asch-variables affecting conformity (Variations of Asch’s original study)

Group size 👬👫

Conformity with 1-2 confederates?

A

➡️majority consisted of 1 or 2 confederates = very little conformity

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12
Q

How much did conformity increase with a majority of 3 confederates? ⬆️

A

➡️majority of 3 confederates = 3️⃣0️⃣% increase in conforming responses

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13
Q

What happened to conformity levels of the majority size increased?

A

➡️Further increases in the size of the majority did not increase level of conformity substantially

✳️Indicates size of the majority is important but only up to a point

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14
Q

Asch-variables affecting conformity (Variations of Asch’s original study)

The unanimity of the majority 💪🏾

What happened to conformity when a real participants was given support with a person answering correctly?

A

➡️Confomrmity reduced from 3️⃣3️⃣% to 5️⃣.5️⃣%

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15
Q

What happened to conformity when a person gave an answer both different from the majority and different from the trials answer?

What did Asch conclude from this in terms of conformity reduction?

A

➡️Conformity rates dropped to 9️⃣% (Just as influential as a person who answered correctly)

➡️Asch concluded that breaking the groups unanimous position was a major factor in conformity reduction

16
Q

Asch-variables affecting conformity (Variations of Asch’s original study)

Difficulty of the task ⛏

What did Asch do to the lines in this variation?

A

Made the difference between the lines smaller hence making the correct answer more ambiguous ☠

17
Q

What happened to conformity levels?

A

Increased ⬆️

18
Q

What did Lucas et al. (2006) find out about the influence of task difficulty?

A

The influence of task difficulty is moderated by “Self-efficacy” 🌸

19
Q

What happened when Lucas’s participants were exposed to difficult maths problems?

A

High self-efficacy participants remained more independent than low self-efficacy participants

20
Q

What are two important factors determining conformity drawn from Lucas’s study?

A

Situational differences (task difficulty) and individual differences (self-efficacy)

21
Q

Evaluation

Asch’s research may be a “Child of its time” 👶🏼

What was prominent in the US in 1956? 🔴🐻

A

McCarthyism (strong Anti-Communist period)

22
Q

Why was this significant?

A

People were scared to go against the majority = More likely to conform

23
Q

What type of participants did Perrin & Spencer (1980’s) use in their 2 studys?

A

Study 1️⃣: use science and engineering students

Study 2️⃣: youths on probation and probation officers as confederates

24
Q

How many conforming responses did they receive out of a total of 396 trials where a majority unanimously answered incorrectly in the science/engendering students group? 🔬

A

1 out of 396

25
Q

Conformity level found in the probation students?

A

Similar to that of Asch’s study in the 1950’s

26
Q

What did these results confirm?

A

Conformity is more likely if the perceived costs of not conforming are high (the case in the McCarthy era)

27
Q

Problems with determine the effect of group size: Bond (2005)

What did Bond suggest was a limitation of conformity studies?

A

Bond suggests studies used only a limited range of majority sizes

28
Q

How did Asch’s conclusion that a majority size of three was a sufficient number for maximum influence affect subsequent studies?

A

Late studies also used Asch’s majority of three

29
Q

What did Bond find out in regard to subsequent studies majority size?

A

No studies other than Asch used a majority size greater than 9 and other studies used a narrower majority size of 2-4

30
Q

What does this mean in regard to our knowledge of the effect of conformity size?

A

We know very little about the effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels

31
Q

Independent behaviour rather than conformity 💪🏾

A

Only about 1/3 of the trials produced conforming responses… Meaning 2/3 of the trials participants resolutely stuck to their original judgement despite being faced with the overwhelming majority expressing a different view.

32
Q

What did Asch feel this showed about human behaviour?

A

Humans were not necessarily “over-conformist” but humans also showed a tendency to show independent behaviour