Variables Affecting Conformity

Question 1

What was the aim of Asch’s study?

Answer 1

Asch (1951) wanted to examine the extent to which social pressure from a majority could affect a person to conform

Question 2

Describe the procedure of Asch’s study

Answer 2

• Participants (123 American male undergraduates) were shown 2 large white cards at a time. 1 card had a ‘standard line’ and on the other card there were 3 ‘comparison lines’. One of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard line and the other 2 were substantially different. Participants was asked which of the 3 lines matched the standard
• Each naïve participant was tested individually with a group of between 6 and 8 confederates, participants was not aware that the others were confederates
• On the first few trials, confederates gave the right answers but then they started making errors. All confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer. Each participants took part in 18 trials and on 12 ‘critical trials’, confederates gave the wrong answers.

Question 3

Describe the findings of Asch’s study

Answer 3

• Naïve participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time. Overall, 25% of the participants didn’t conform on any trial, while 75% conformed at least once. ‘Asch effect’ has been used to describe this result - the extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous
• After interviewing participants Asch found they conformed for 1 of 3 reasons: distortion of perception (a small of number of participants came to see the lines in the same way as the majority, distortion of judgement ( they were doubtful of their own judgement), distortion of action (most continued to privately think differently from the group but changed their public answer to avoid disapproval)

Question 4

Describe group size as a variable affecting conformity

Answer 4

• Asch found little conformity when the majority consisted of 1 or 2 confederates. However, with a majority of 3 confederates conforming responses jumped up to 30%. Further increases in the size of the majority didn’t increase this level of conformity substantially, indicating that the size of majority is important but only up to a point.
• Campbell and Fairey (1989) suggest that group size may have a different effect depending on the type of judgement being made and the motivation of the individual. When there’s no objectively right answer and the individual is concerned with ‘fitting in’, then the larger the group the more likely they are to be swayed. However, when there is a correct answer and the individuals is concerned about being correct then the views of 1 or 2 will usually be sufficient.

Question 5

Describe the unanimity of the majority as a variable affecting conformity

Answer 5

• In Asch original study, confederates unanimously gave the same wrong answer. But when the real participants was given the support of another participant or confederate instructed to give the right answer, conformity levels dropped, reducing the % of wrong answers from 33% to just 5.5%
• In the condition where the lone ‘dissenter’ gave different answer from the majority and the true answer, conformity rates dropped to 9%, nearly as great a fall as when the dissenter provided support for the real participants by giving the same answer

Question 6

Describe the difficulty of the task as a variable affecting conformity

Answer 6

• In a variation, Asch made the differences between the line lengths much smaller, so the answer was less obvious, in this condition the level of conformity increased.
• Lucas et al (2006) found that the influence of the task difficulty is moderated by the self-efficacy of the individual. When exposed to maths problems in an Asch-type task, high self-efficacy participants (confident in their ability) remained more independent than low self-efficacy participants, even under high task difficulty.
• Shows that situation differences (task difficulty) and individual differences (self-efficacy) are both important in determining conformity.

Question 7

Give evaluation for variables affecting conformity (historical validity)

Answer 7

• Asch’s study took place when, in US history, when conformity was more important which means it may lack historical validity. 1956 was a strong anti-communist period where people were scared to not conform.
• Years later, Perrin and Spencer (1980) tried to repeat Asch’s study in the UK. In their initial study, there was 1 conforming answer out of 396 trials. However, where youths on probation were participants and probation officers as confederates, there were similar levels of conformity to Asch’s study.
• This confirms that conformity is more likely if the perceived costs of not conforming are high, which would’ve been the case during the McCarthy era in the US.

Question 8

Give evaluation for variables affecting conformity (effect of group size)

Answer 8

-.Bond (2005) suggests conformity studies have used only a limited range of majority.
- Asch concluded that a majority size of 3 was a sufficient number for maximal influence and therefore subsequent studies using the Asch procedure have used 3 as the majority size. Bond points out that no studies other than Asch have used a majority size greater than 9, and in other studies the majority was usually between 2 and 4.
- Suggests we know little about the effect of larger majority sizes on conformity

Question 9

Give evaluation for variables affecting conformity (independent behaviour)

Answer 9

• It may be independent behaviour rather than conformity being showed in Asch’s study.
• In Asch’s study, in two-thirds of the trials the participants stuck to their original judgement despite the overwhelming majority expressing a totally different view.
• Asch believed that, rather than showing humans to be overly conformists, his study showed a commendable tendency for participants to stick to what they believed to be the correct answer, their independent behaviour

Question 10

Give evaluation for variables affecting conformity (confederates)

Answer 10

• A problem was the confederates in Asch’s study that could’ve acted unconvincingly when giving wrong answer, posing a problem for the validity of the study
• Mori and Arai (2010) made participants wear glasses with polarising filters to overcome this. 3 wore identical glasses and 1 wore one with a different filter. This meant only 1 participants saw the stimuli differently causing them to judge a different comparison line match to the standard line. For females, results closely matched those of original study.
• Suggests that the confederates in the original study had acted convincingly, reinforcing the validity of Asch’s findings