conformity (asch)

• Asch baseline procedure

  • "to measure the extent that people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation when the others' answers were clearly wrong"
  • 123 American male pps were tested individually (sitting last or next-to-last in a group of 6-8 confederates
  • they were shown 2 large cards - on one was a 'standard line' on the other were 3 comparison lines (one line being the same length as standard line)
  • each group member stated which of the 3 lines matched the standard
  • 18 'trials', on 12 of them the confederates all gave the clearly wrong answer
• Asch baseline procedure findings

  • naive pps conformed 36.8% of time (high level of conformity when situation is unambiguous
  • 25% of pps never gave wrong answer (never conformed)
  • 75% conformed at least once
• variables investigated by Asch

  • group size
  • unanimity
  • task difficulty
• group size variable

  • procedure = varied the number of confederates in each group between 1-15 (total group size between 2-16)
  • relationship between group size and level of conformity was curvilinear
  • 2 confederates = conformity to wrong answer was 13.6%
  • 3 confederates = conformity rose to 31.8%
  • adding more than 3 made little difference
  • explanation = people very sensitive to opinions of others, just one confederate was enough to sway opinion
• unanimity variable

  • procedure = introduced a dissenting confederate - sometimes they gave the correct answer and sometimes a different wrong answer (but always disagreed with majority)
  • in the presence of a dissenter = conformity reduced on average to less that 1/4 of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
  • conformity reduced if dissenter gave wrong or right answer
  • explanation = having a dissenter enabled the naive pp to behave more independenty
• task difficulty variable

  • procedure = made the line-judging task harder by making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length (=> difficult to see differences between lines)
  • conformity increased
  • explanation = situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and to assume they are right and we are wrong (ISI)
• limitation = situation+task were artificial

  • pps knew they were in a research study (demand characteristics). the task was trivial and there was no reason not to conform
  • also = Fiske argued 'Asch's groups were not very groupy' (not like real-life groups)
  • =>findings don’t generalise to everyday life (especially those situations where the consequences of conformity are more important)
• limitation = findings have little application

  • only American men were tested - Neto suggested that women might be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships (and being accepted)
  • also = US is an individualist culture and studies in collectivist cultures (like china) have found higher conformity rates
  • => Asch's findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures
• strength = supporting evidence

  • Lucas et al = asked pps to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths problems.
  • pps were given answers that (falsely) claimed to be from 3 other students
  • pps conformed more often (agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder
  • => asch was correct that task difficulty is one variable affecting conformity
• counterpoint to strength with supporting evidence

  • conformity more complex than Asch thought
  • Lucas et al's study found that conformity was related to confidence (high confidence = less conformity)
  • shows that individual-level factors interact with situational ones (but Asch didn't investigate individual factors)
• ethical issues (extra evaluation)

  • pps were deceived and therefore couldn't give informed consent to take part => may have a negative experience
  • BUT might still argue that the research was justified because there are a wide range of potential applications and the stress caused was minimal