AO1 - Variables Affecting Conformity

• Asch's Aim: To investigate the effects of a majority opinion on individuals' judgements
• Asch's Method: Lab experiment
• Asch's Sample: 123 American male students
• Asch's Procedure: Participants were placed individually into groups with 7-9 confederates, they were shown 2 cards at a time: one with stimulus line 'x' and the other with 3 comparison lines a, b, and c. They were asked to say which comparison line was closest in length with the stimulus line, they were either second to last or always last to answer. On 12/18 trials (critical trials), the confederates gave the same wrong answers.
• Asch's Findings: Participants conformed 37% of the time. Post experiment interviews concluded that the majority of participants conformed publicly, but not privately as they wanted to avoid ridicule.
• Group Size: Conformity rates increase as the size of the group increases. However the size of the groups stop having an affect when the group reaches a certain size of 3.
• One real participant and one confederate: Conformity rates were 3%
• One real participant and two confederates: Conformity rates were 13%
• One real participant and three confederates: Conformity rates were 32%
• Conformity rates plateaued after 3 confederates (32%)
• Unanimity: Complete agreement from a group of people about an answer
• In Asch's original study, confederates all gave the same wrong answer and conformity rates were 37%
• One confederate gave the right answer - conformity rates dropped from 37% to 5.5%
• A 'lone' confederate gave an answer different to the majority and the correct answer - conformity rates dropped from 37% to 9%
• When a dissenter breaks the groups' unanimous decision, conformity decreases
• Task Difficulty: Conformity increases when the difficulty of the task increases
• When the stimulus line and comparison lines were more similar in length (the correct answer was less obvious - the task was harder), conformity rates increased
• As the right answer becomes less obvious, we lose confidence in our ability and are more likely to conform