Variables affecting conformity Flashcards
Who did a key study of conformity in 1956? What was his aim
Asch. Aim: to investigate the influence of the majority on an individual’s depictions
What was the procedure used by Asch?
He used 123 male students and seated round a table. they were all shown a standard line. They were then asked to choose one of three lines that matched the standard line. All but one of the participants were confederates and they were instructed to give the wrong answer on 12/18 trials (the right answer was obvious). These were called critical trials. Asch was interested in seeing if the real participants stuck with the right answer or conformed to the majority.
What did Asch find?
In the critical trials, 33% of responses made by the real participants were incorrect; they had conformed. Half of the p’s conformed on 6 or more of the critical trials and 1 in 20 p’s conformed every critical trial.
Asch also conducted a control condition with no confederates, p’s made mistakes 1% of the time.
When interviewed after, the real participants said they changed their answers to avoid disapproval from the others but continued to trust their own judgement: compliance
What are the 3 variables affecting conformity?
- Group size
- Unanimity of majority
- Difficulty of task
How does group size affect conformity?
With a majority of 3 confederates, there was a 30% conformity rate. When there was no objectively correct answer and the individual is concerned with ‘fitting in’, the larger the majority the more likely the individual will change their view. However if there is an objectively correct answer and the individual is concerned with being correct the views of 1-2 others will suffice.
How does unanimity of majority affect conformity?
In Asch’s original study, all confederates unanimously gave the same answer. If a participant was supported by another p/p or a confederate giving the right answer, conformity dropped from 33% -> 5.5%. If the lone dissenter gave a different answer from the majority and from the truth, conformity rates dropped to 9%. This lead Asch to concluding that the majority factor in conformity reduction is breaking the unanimous position.
How does difficulty of task affect conformity?
In one variation, Asch made the task more difficult by making the line lengths smaller. This increased the levels of conformity. Lucas et al found that the influence of the task difficulty is moderated by the self efficacy of the individual. (Confidence in own ability). It was shown that situational differences (task difficulty) and individual differences are both important in determining conformity
What is a criticism of Asch? (Perrin+Spencer) (perceived costs)
Asch’s study was conducted at a time of McCarthyism in the US (a strong anti communist period where people were scared to go against the majority). Perrin and Spencer repeated the study in the UK in the 1980’s using science and engineering students. There was only 1 conforming response out of 396 trails; this shows that the results of Asch’s study are unreliable as conformity is likely to be higher when perceived costs of not conforming are high.
What is a criticism of Asch? (Mori+Arai) glasses
A problem with Asch’s study is that it would have been difficult for the confederates to act convincingly when giving the wrong answer. Mori and Arai overcame this problem by using a technique where p’s wore glasses with special polarising filters. 3 p’s wore indenticle glasses and 1 p wore a different set. All but 1 p viewed the same stimuli and 1p believed a different comparison line matched the standard line. (No confederates). They found that in females there was the same conformity levels as Asch’s study and in men, it was slightly less.
What is a limitation of Asch? (Cultural differences)
Smith et al analysed the results of Asch type studies conducted across a number of different cultures. The average conformity rate across different cultures was 31%. In individualist cultures, the average was 25%, and in collectivist cultures the average was 37%. This decreases the ecological validity as you cant generalise to different cultures.
What are 2 general criticisms of Asch?
- In his study, 2/3 of p’s didn’t conform/remained independent
- After conclusions of Asch’s study, researchers tend to use a majority of 3 and so we don’t know much about conformity above these levels
