variables that affect the levels of conformity EVALUATION

Question 1

difficult task

Answer 1

• conformity increases when the task becomes more difficult
• can be explained through informational social influence
• as the task becomes harder, there is a greater need to look to others for the right answer
• useful knowledge for those working in education = when students are working on a difficult assignment, they would benefit from being in a group, thus increasing their accuracy in the task.

Question 2

group size has useful applications

Answer 2

• support the existence of normative social influence
• these variations are useful for understanding the optimum number
  needed in the majority to exert those pressures on the minority.
• used in schools to make sure
  that children with problematic behaviour are grouped with three others whose behaviour is more desirable
  in the hope that the problem behaviour will be modified by the presence of the larger group.
• a larger group of 15 was less influential backs up the idea that large
  majorities are no more influential and possibly less influential than smaller ones.

Question 3

group size CAUTIOUS

Answer 3

• cautious about Asch’s finding as it
  may have been caused by the real participant becoming suspicious that ‘something was going on when the majority is too large.
• This highlights one of the problems of using lab research to understand the influences behind real-life behavior.

Question 4

unanimous IMPLICATIONS

Answer 4

• It also alerts us to the increased pressure of those who are subjected to unanimous
  majorities, for example in a jury situation. It may be particularly
  difficult for one or two jurors to express their true opinion if faced
  with 10 or 11 people who are all in agreement. This also has useful
  applications as it shows the importance of allowing jurors to write
  down whether or not they believe a suspect to be guilty, rather than
  declare it to the group.