4. Factors that affect conformity

3 factors that affect conformity

• Group size

• Unanimity - agreement by all people involved

• Difficulty of the task

How did Asch manipulate his Study to investigate difficulty of the task?

Made the lengths of the lines more similar so that it was harder to tell the difference between lengths

How did increasing the difficulty of the task impact conformity? What does this suggest?

• Conformity increased

• Suggests that in ambiguous situation people look to the majority for what to do due to informational social influence

How did Asch adjust his study to investigate the effect of the size of the majority?

Asch manipulated the size of the majority to record the effect it had in the participant

Participants tested using 1,2,3,4,8,10 or 15 confederates

How did altering the size of the majority impact Asch’s findings? And what does this suggest?

• 1 confederate- 3%

• 2 confederates- 13%

• 3 confederates- 33%- stayed at this

• 15 confederates - decreased slightly

• NSI- participants feel more pressure to conform in a larger group

How did Asch alter his procedure to investigate the effect of unanimity?

One confederate gave either a different wrong answer or the right answer- the dissented from the majority

What was the affect of altering the unanimity of the majority and what does this suggest?

• One says right answer- 5.5%

• One says different wrong answer- 9%

• Social support for deviating from the majority gives the participant the confidence to do so too, even if they are still the only person giving the correct answer

AO3- task difficulty

P- the observation that conformity increased when the task became more difficult can be explained through informational social influence

E- as the task becomes harder there is greater need to look to others for the right answer. Therefore, informational influence combines with normative influence to increase the conformity rate. This can be useful knowledge for those working in education, as it suggests that when students are working on a difficult assignment being in a group would increase their accuracy in the task.

E- however, the relationship between task difficulty and conformity is not always so straightforward. Research by Lucas found that the influence of task difficulty is moderated by the self-efficacy of the individual. When given maths problems in an Asch-type procedure participants who were confident in their abilities remained more independent than those who were not.

L- whilst understanding how difficulty of the task impacts conformity can be beneficial it is important to consider situational and individual differences.

AO3 - group size

P- Research into group size has useful applications

E- as Asch’s Original Study is thought to support normative social influence, the variations are useful for understanding the optimum group size needed to extent those pressures on the minority. This could be useful in schools - children with problematic behaviour grouped with three others whose behaviour is more desirable in hopes of modifying the problem behaviour

E- however, critics have argued that there is issues with the research into group size- we don’t know very much about the effect of very large group sizes due to lack of research and the fact that participants would become aware of the research aims, therefore affecting their behaviour.

L- whilst group size is definitely a factor impacting conformity there are still issues with using lab research to understand behaviour in real life

AO3- unanimity

P- the observation that majorities need to be unanimous has implications for those wishing to influence minorities in real life as it suggests that is a majority are not unanimous in their messaging they may feel to influence the minority.

E- For example, in a business setting where a management committee are attempting to influence a new member they should be aware of the importance of maintaining the same public opinion, even if some privately disagree

E- it also alerts us to the increased pressure of those subjected to unanimous majorities, for example in a jury situation. It may be particularly difficult for 1 or 2 jury members to express their true opinion if faced with 10 or 11 people who are all in agreement

L- this also has useful implications as if displays the importance of allowing jurors to write down whether or not they believe a suspect is guilty rather than declare it to the group