Variables affecting conformity: Asch (1951)

What study did Asch set up?

A study to investigate to what extent people will conform to the opinions of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain (i.e. unambiguous).

What is the baseline procedure of Asch’s study?

123 American male participants

• Each participant was in a group with other apparent participants. They were shown two large white cards on each trial.

• Line X is the standard line and lines A, B, C are three comparison lines.

• One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length as X, the other two are substantially different (i.e. clearly wrong).

• On each trial the participant had to say (out loud) which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line.

What was the physical arrangement of the participants in Asch’s baseline study?

The participants were tested in groups of 6-8.

• Only one was a genuine/naïve participant (not aware of the true aim of the study), always seated either last or next to last in the group.

• The others were all confederates of Asch (someone working with the researcher) - that is, they all gave the same (incorrect) scripted answers each time.

• The genuine participant did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants.

What were the findings of Asch’s baseline study?

On average, the genuine participants agreed with the confederates incorrect answers 36.8% of the time (i.e. they conformed about a third of the time). There were individual differences, but 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (i.e. never conformed) - so 75% of participants conformed at least once.

What variables did Asch study to investigate what might lead to an increase or decrease of conformity?

• Group size

• Unanimity

• Task difficulty

What did Asch do to investigate the effect of group size on conformity?

Asch varied the number of confederates from between 1 to 15 (so the total group size was from 2 to 16). Asch rarely found a curvilinear (a curved line) relationship between group size and conformity. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point.

• With one confederate, conformity dropped to just 3%

• With two confederates, conformity was 12.8%

• With three confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%

- As the number of confederates increased, the presence of them made little difference - the conformity rate levelled off.

This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the view of others because two or three confederates was enough to sway opinion.

What did Asch do to investigate the effect of unanimity on conformity?

Refers to the extent of agreement or consensus across a group; Asch asked one of the confederates to give the correct answer (i.e. the non-conforming answer) throughout.

• This resulted in conformity dropping to 5% - this finding shows that support from another person makes it easier to resist to conform to the majority

- In another variation, one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer to the majority, resulting in conformity dropping to 9% - disrupting group unanimity is therefore one way to reduce conformity.

What did Asch do to investigate the effect of task difficulty on conformity?

Asch made the task more difficult by minimising the difference between the length of the lines, i.e. it was not as easy to detect which line was longer or shorter - task was made more ambiguous

• Asch found that the rate of conformity increased when the task was more difficult

- When a task is difficult (ambiguous) and people conform to the incorrect answer, it can be explained by ISI (assuming they’re right and you’re wrong; looking to others for guidance)

- When a task is easy (unambiguous) and people conform to the incorrect answer, it can be explained by NSI (realising the answer is wrong but they won't risk rejection by going against the group; the need to be liked)

What are the strengths of Asch’s study on conformity?

There's support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty on conformity

• Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems. Participants were given answers from three other students (not actually real). The participants conformed more often (i.e. agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder - shows that Asch was correct in claiming task difficulty affects conformity levels

What is a counterpoint to Lucas et al. (2006) study on conformity?

Lucas et al. study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested. Participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence. This shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables (e.g. task difficulty). But Asch didn’t research the role of individual factors.

What are the strengths of Asch’s study having a standardised procedure on conformity?

E.g., same group number per trial, same number of trials, same question asked means that the study can be replicated many times over - repeated replications should show consistent results, which equals high reliability.

Why is Asch’s study being artificial a limitation?

Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what they thought was expected of them (demand characteristics). The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial (unimportant) and therefore there was no real reason not to conform. Also, according to Fiske (2014), Asch’s group were not ‘very groupy’, i.e. they didn’t really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.

Why is all of Asch’s participants being American men a limitation?

• Other research suggests that women may be more conformist than men, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted (Neto, 1995)

• Furthermore, the USA is an individualist culture (i.e. where people are concerned about themselves rather than their social group)

- Similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (such as China where the social group is more important than the individual) have found that conformity rates are higher (Bond and Smith, 1996)

This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from different cultures.