Conformity

• ao3: one limitation is that the situation and task were artificial

  • Participants knew they were in a research study (demand characteristics). The task was trivial and there was no reason not to conform.
  • Also, Fiske (2014) argued 'Asch's groups were not very groupy' (not like real-life groups).
  • This means the findings do not generalise to everyday life (especially those situations where the consequences of conformity are important)
• ao3: another limitation is that Asch’s findings have little application

  • Only American men were tested by Asch.
  • Neto (1995) suggested that women might be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships (and being accepted).
  • Also the US is an individualist culture and studies in collectivist cultures (e.g. China) have found higher conformity rates (Bond and Smith 1996).
  • This means Asch's findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures
• ao3:One strength is other evidence to support Asch's findings.

  • Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve 'easy' and 'hard' maths problems. Participants were given answers that (falsely) claimed to be from three other students.
  • The participants conformed more often (agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder.
  • This shows Asch was correct that task difficulty is one variable affecting conformity.
• ao3: counterpoint to strength

  • Conformity is more complex than Asch thought. Lucas et al.'s study showed that conformity was related to confidence (high confidence = less conformity).
  • This shows that individual-level factors interact with situational ones.
  • But Asch did not investigate individual factors.
• ao1: baseline procedure + findings

  • aim- to measure extent that people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the others’ answers were wrong
  • procedure- 123 American male participants tested individually in a line length judging task where they compared 3 lines to a standard line. In groups id 6-8 confederates and participant always sat last or 2nd to last
  • Findings- naïve participants conformed 36.8% showing high level of conformity when situation is unambiguous. 25% never conformed. 75% conformed at least once
• ao1: variable 1 group size

  • procedure- varied no. of confederates between 1 and 15
  • findings- curvilinear relationship between group size + conformity rate. 2 confederates= 13.6% 3 confederates=31.8%. Conformity rate levelled off after 3 confederates
  • Suggests most people are sensitive to views of others because 1 or 2 confederates were enough to sway opinion
• ao1: variable 2 unanimity

  • procedure- brought in a dissenter
  • Findings- conformity rate decreased on average to 1/4 of the level it was when the majority was unanimous.
  • suggests having a dissenter enables the naïve participant to behave more independently
• ao1: variable 3 task difficulty

  • Procedure - Asch made the line-judging task harder by making stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length. So it was difficult to see differences between the lines.
  • Finding-conformity increased.
  • Explanation - the 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. This is informational social influence - it plays a greater role when the task becomes harder.