Variables affecting Conformity & Asch's experiments

What was the aim of Asch’s line experiment?

Aim : to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.

Explain the procedure of Asch’s experiment.

• Male undergrad students participated in a ‘vision test’.

• One naive participant in a room with 6-8 confederates.

• Confederates each presented the same incorrect answer to the obvious question, naive participant was second last or last to present answer.

Results of Asch’s experiment.

On average, about a third of participants conformed to the clearly wrong majority group. Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once and 25% of participants never conformed.

What are the variables affecting conformity? (3)

• Group size, suggests a small majority isn't sufficient enough for influence to be exerted, but that there is no need for a majority of more than 3.

• Unanimity of the Majority / presence of another non-conforming person, Asch introduced another confederate who sometimes gave the wrong answer and sometimes the right. The presence of the dissenter enabled the real participant to behave more independently.

• Difficulty of the task, when the task was harder conformity increased.