Variables affecting conformity

• What was Asch's baseline research into conformity? (1)

  • 123 American men were split into groups of 6 - with 1 genuine (naive) participant and 5 confederates
  • Groups were presented with 1 standard line and 3 comparison lines
  • Participants were asked to state which of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard line
  • Real participant always answered last/second to last
  • Confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12/18 trials
  • On average conformity was about 36.8% but 25% never conformed
• How did Asch investigate group size as a variable affecting conformity?

  • In 1955, he extended his baseline procedure to vary the number of confederates from 1 to 15 and found that conformity increased with group size, but only till a certain point
  • Conformity rose to 31.8% with 3 confederates but the presence of more confederates made little difference
  • Suggests people are very sensitive the views of others' considering just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion
• How did Asch investigate unanimity as a variable affecting conformity?

  • Introduced a confederate who disagreed with other confederates, giving a correct and incorrect answer in different variations
  • Conformity decreased in the presence of this dissenter, appearing to free the genuine ppt. to behave more independently, even when giving the incorrect answer
  • Suggests influence of the majority depends on unanimity - non-conformity is more likely when there are cracks in the majority view
• How did Asch investigate task difficulty as a variable affecting conformity?

  • Increased the difficulty of the task by making the standard and comparison lines more similar to each other in length
  • Conformity increased - when the task becomes harder, the situation becomes more ambiguous
  • Participants look to others for guidance when they are unclear what the right answer is (informational social influence)
• What is one strength of Asch's research into conformity?

  • Research support for task difficulty: Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve easy and hard maths problems, and were given answers by 3 other students that were incorrect
  • Conformity increased as the problems got harder, as ppts. did not want to be wrong so relied on the answers that were given
  • Supports Asch's claim that task difficulty is a variable that affects conformity
• What is one limitation of Asch's research into conformity?

  • Artificial stimuli and task: participants were aware they were in a study and could've adhered to demand characteristics
  • Task of identifying lines was relatively trivial meaning participants had no reason not to conform
  • Means findings cannot be generalised to real-world situations, especially where the consequences of conformity may be important
• What is another limitation of Asch's research into conformity?

  • Failed replications: Perrin and Spencer (1980) replicated Asch's experiment with British engineering students and across 396 trials, only 1 participant conformed
  • Argued that a greater degree of expertise and confidence of intelligent engineering students prevented conformity in this task
  • Shows that Asch's research wasn't objective or reliable as the same results were not found in other studies, weakening its' validity
• What is another limitation of Asch's research into conformity?

  • Ethnocentric: Asch's sample consisted of only Americans students from an individualistic culture where people are more concerned about themselves than their social group - low population validity
  • Bond and Smith (1996): similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures like China have found higher conformity rates
  • Gender bias: applies findings from a male sample to females
  • Neto (1995) suggests women may be more conformist due to concern about social relationships and being accepted
• What is another limitation of Asch's research into conformity?

  • Temporal validity: Perrin and Spencer criticised the study saying the social context of the 1950s may have affected the results
  • McCarthyism: anti-communist period had Americans more scared to be different, thus study cannot be generalised across all time periods meaning it has low historical validity