AO1 - Asch (1955) Variations

• Group Size: Conformity increases with the size of the majority, reaching its highest level with three confederates.
• In a variation when there was one confederate, the real participants conformed on just 3% of the critical trials. When the group size increased to two confederates, the real participants conformed on 12.8% of the critical trials.
• In a variation when there were three confederates, the real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials, the same as in Asch’s baseline experiment.
• Unanimity: Conformity decreases when there is support for the participant's belief or when the group's unanimous position is broken.
• In a variation, one of the confederates was instructed to give the correct answer throughout. In this variation the rate of conformity dropped to 5%.
• In a variation, one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer to the majority. In this experiment conformity dropped to 9%.
• Task Difficulty: Conformity increases when the task becomes more difficult, possibly due to informational social influence (ISI).
• In one variation the task was made more difficult, by making the difference between the line lengths significantly smaller. The rate of conformity subsequently increased.