Conformity

Conformity

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people

Asch (1951)

123 American Men judged line lengths, and confederates gave wrong answers

Asch (1955)

Asch extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead to an increase or decrease in conformity

Group size

Asch varied group size from 1 to 15 and found conformity increased to 31.8% up to a group size of three then levelled off

Unanimity

with social support, conformity was reduced to 1/4 of the original rates, even if the non-conforming confederate gave a wrong answer

Task difficulty

the closer the lines were together in length, and the harder the task, the more conformity

Artificial situation and task

Tasks were artificial and participants knew they were in a research study and could have gone along with demand characteristics

Fiske (2014)

Concluded Aschs groups didn't resemble those found in everyday life

Limited Application

Aschs participants were American men whereas other research suggests women may be more conformist

Research Support

Lucas et al (2006) found participants conformed more when the maths problems were more difficult and utilised the three "answers" given more when the questions were difficult

Ethical Issues

The participants were deceived because they thought the other people were involved were also genuine