Conformity

What does conformity mean?

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions because of real + imagined pressure from person / group of people

what was Asch's baseline procedure used to assess?

To what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even when the answer is obvious

What were the 3 variables investigated by Asch?

- group size

- Unamity

-task difficulty

What happened when group size increased?

more confederates were added to the group

conformity increased with group size up to a point

What does it mean when conformity rose to a point with group size?

- with 3 confederates, conformity to wrong answer = 31.8%

- more confederates made little difference

- shows people sensitive to views of others as 3 people enough to change opinion

What does unanimity mean?

Extent to which all members of group agree

What happened when unanimity changed?

unanimity decreased when a non conforming confederate was introduced

conformity decreased as participant behaved more independent

happened even when dissenter disagreed with the particpant

shows influence of majority depends on ut being unanimous

How was the task made more difficult ?

making the stimulus line and the comparison line more similar

What happened when task difficulty increased?

conformity increased because participants assume majority is right

example of informational social influence

Explain Asch's baseline procedure briefly

• 123 american males tested

• Line X is stimulus line on the left

• 3 comparison lines on the right

• one comparison line is same as Line X

• participant says which line is the same in room of confederates

What percentage of participants conformed?

36.8%

what were 3 limitations of Asch's study

Artificial task -> participants knew they were in a study so go along with expectations & trivial task so no reason not to conform-demand Characteristics

American -> USA is individualist culture (more concerned about themselves). Similar study in collectivist cultures (china) show higher conformity rates

All men -> women may be more conformist because more concerned about social relationships & acceptance

Tells us little about conformity in women & people in some cultures

What did Susan Fiske think about Asch's groups?

not very groupy -> don't resemble groups in everyday life - not generalisable to real word scenarios, especially those where consequences of conformity might be important

what is a strength of Asch's research?

- Support from other Studies

- Todd Lucas asked participants to solve easy & hard maths. Participants conformed more when task was harder -> proves Asch's variable about task difficulty

How did Lucas show that conformity is more complex ?

Participants with confidence in math abilities conformed less than those with less confidence.

shows that an individual level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables →but Asch didn’t research roles of individual factors

What are ethical issues of Asch's studies ?

Naive participants deceived -> thought confederates were real participants

Ethical cost should be weighed up against benefits