Conformity: Asch's research; variables affecting conformity

• Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead to an increase or decrease in conformity.
• group size

  • varied no. of confeds: 1-15 (group size 2-16)

  findings:

  • curvilinear relation. between group size + conform.
  • conform. increased up to a point
  • 3 confeds: conformity rose to 31.8% - little diff. made after this (levelled off conform.)

  This suggests that when the majority is 3 or more, the highest rate of conformity will happen.
• unanimity

  • intro. a confed who disagreed with other confeds
  • one variation: gave right answer; another - gave diff/wrong answer

  findings:

  • ppt conformed less in presence of dissenter
  • rate decreased to less than a quarter than when maj. = unanimous
  • ppt could be more indep., incl when dissenter disagreed with ppt.

  This suggests that the influence of a majority depends on the majority being unanimous.
• task difficulty

  • line-judging more difficult - stim. line and comp. lines more similar in length
  • harder for ppt to see diff. in lengths

  findings:

  • conformity increased
  • sit. is more ambiguous -> means ppt will look to others for guidance as they assume they're right

  -> means informational social influence (ISI) occurs
• limitation: artificial situation and task

  evidence: ppts knew they were in research study -> demand charac. may have occurred

  • no reason not to conform

  Susan Fiske (2014): "Asch's groups were not very groupy." (unrepresentative)

  explain: limitation b/c it means the findings don't generalise to real-world situations, especially those where conformity is more important.

  link: limitation - artificial task - low generalisability
• limitation: limited application

  point: Asch's ppts were American men

  evidence: research suggests women may be more conformist - more concerned about social sits./being accepted (Neto 1995)

  • US is individualistic; conformity studies in collectivistic cultures (e.g., China) found conformity rates are higher (Bond and Smith 1996)

  explain: limitation b/c it means Asch's research tells us very little about conformity in women and people from other cultures, especially collectivistic cultures.

  link: limitation - Asch's sample consisted of American men b/c limited application and generalisability
• strength: research support

  point: strength is research support from other studies on task difficulty

  evidence: Lucas et al (2006) - ppts had to solve 'easy' or 'difficult' maths problems

  • ppts conformed more often on harder questions (e.g., agreed with wrong answer)

  explain: this is a strength of Asch's research b/c it means he was correct in that task difficulty affects the rate of conformity

  link: strength - research support b/c increased validity
• counterpoint (research support)

  • Lucas et al found conformity is more complex than suggested by Asch
  • ppts with high confidence in maths -> less conformity on hard tasks (compared to low confidence)
  • shows individual-level factors can influence conformity combined with situational variables - Asch didn't research this.