Conformity

• What did Asch study (1951)

  Base line study &

  Variables affecting conformity

  • group size
  • unanimity
  • task difficulty
• what was the aim of Aschs baseline procedure

  Asch (1951) devised a procedure to measure the extent that people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation when others answered were clearly wrong.
• procedure of Aschs baseline study

  • 123 american male participants were tested individually, sitting last/next to last in a group of 6-8 confederates
  • they were shown two large cards
  • on one was a standard line and on the other was 3 comparison lines
  • one of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other 2 were clearly different.
  • each group member stated which one matched
  • there were 18 trials, on 12 of these the confederates all gave the same clearly wrong answer.
• what were the findings of the baseline study (1951)

  • naive participants conformed 36.8% of the time (shows a high level of conformity when the situation is unambiguous)
  • there were individual differences:
  • 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer
  • 75% conformed at least once
• group size: procedure

  asch varied the number of confederates in each group between 1-15
• group size: findings

  • the relationship between group size and level of conformity was curvilinear
  • if there were 2 confederates, conformity rose to 13.6%
  • when there were 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%
  • above 3 confederates, conformity rate levelled off. adding more than 3 confederates made little different
• group size: explanation

  people are very sensitive to opinions of others because just one confederate was enough to sway opinion
• unanimity: procedure

  Asch introduced a dissenting confederate - sometimes they gave the correct answer and sometimes a different wrong answer - but they always disagreed with the majority
• unanimity: findings

  • in the presence of a dissenter, conformity reduced on average to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous
  • conformity reduced if the dissenter enabled the naive participant to behave more independently
• unanimity: explanation

  having a dissenter enabled the naive participant to behave more independently
• task difficulty: procedure

  Asch made the line judging task harder by making stimulus lines and comparison lines more similar in length - difficult to see the differences between the lines
• task difficulty: finding


  conformity increased
• task difficulty: explanation

  the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and to assume they are right a we are wrong. this is informational social influence - it plays a greater role when the task becomes harder
• on limitation of Asch study is that the situation and the 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 (meaning they werent like real life groups). this means the findings dont generalise to everyday life - especially those situations where the consequences of conformity are important
• another limitation is that Aschs findings have little application

  only american men were tested by Asch. Neto (1995) suggested that women might be more conformist, possibly becasue they are more concerned about social relationships (and being accepted). Also the US is an individualist culture and studies in collectivist cultures (China) have found higher conformity rates (Bond and Smith 1996). this means that Aschs findings tell use little about conformity in women and people from some cultures.
• one strength is other evidence to support Aschs findings

  Lucas (2006) asked participants to solve easy and hard maths questions. participants were given answers that falsely claimed to be from 3 other students. the participants confirmed more often when the problems were harder. this shows Asch was correct that task difficulty is one variable affecting conformity
• one strength is other evidence to support Aschs findings: counterpoint

  Conformity is more complex than Asch thought. Lucas 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.