Conformity - Asch 1951

What is conformity?

change in a person's beh/opinions bc of real/imagined pressure from group of people

What did Asch want to see?

if individ would publicly conform to obv wrong answer to task when they know correct answer

How did Asch conduct the study?

• set up each ppt second-to-last in a group of 6 confederates

• Asch held up 2 cards, one card had a standard line, other had 3 comparison lines

• one of which was same as standard line

• asks ppts to read out loud in turns which of the comparison lines were same as standard line, repeated for 18 trials

• first two trials, confd gave correct answer (neutral trial) but on third trial all confd gave wrong answer (critical trial)

• there were 11 more critical trials

What did Asch find?

• ppts conformed with confederates' incorrect answers about one third of the time

• 25% never conformed

What did Asch do in his replication study?

carried out replications of his study to investigate the factors that might increase or decrease conformity

What did Asch find in his replication study?

• Group size: conf incr w group size

• Unanimity: conf decr if there was a non conforming confederate in the group, this gave the naïve ppt moral support

• Task difficulty: conf incr as difficulty of task was more ambiguous, less clear to ppt what correct answer is so ppt looks to others for guidance (ISI)

what are the strengths of conformity?

• + RS for conf - Jenness jar of beans, Lucas et al maths prbl

• + PATRL - greater understanding of why ppl conf

what are weaknesses of conformity?

• — LMR, LEV, LHV

• — ppt resp to DC

what research supports conformity?

• Jenness filled jar w beans

• ppts each asked to estim how many beans in jar when asked to give small group estim

• when asked to give 2nd individ estim all ppt changed og answ to be closer to group estim demonstrat conf in ambiguous sit (most likely ISI)

• Lucas et al asked ppt to solve easy + hard maths probl, f ppt conf more when harder probl

T: incr cred of conf theory + supp id ppl more likely to conf when task is difficult

How does Asch’s research suffer from LMR, LEV, LHV?

• LMR: study inv tasks which not meaningful → estim line lengths, unlike tasks perf in everyday life, irl we conf to smth meaningful. Rs shows if task inv moral judgem w conseq, conf much lower

• LEV: study carried out in lab → artif setting → unlike rl → may infl ppt beh in study

• LHV: study carried out in time where conf higher in soc possibly bc it being just after WW2 → more recent rs by Perrin + Spencer rep Asch study, f much lower conf

T: these factors reduce external valid of A findings & mean may not be able to gen A results to conf today

how might ppts be responding to demand characteristics?

• where ppt try guess aim of rs

• beh in way which they think will supp aim rather than beh how they normally would

• in A study, task was trivial w no real conseq, theref no rsn to conf so did not represent conf in everyday life

T: decr internal + ext valid of A results, means A may not have really been testing conf irl

how is Asch’s research practically apllied to real life?

• has led to greater understanding about y ppl conf

• imp as we can use this knowledge to try reduce neg + unwanted beh in society → ‘mob’/gang beh

T: incr val of rs, means ppl can feel safer in society