social influence

• Conformity


  A change in a person's Behavior or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
• Ash's Baseline procedure


  1. 123 male undergraduate Americans volunteered

  2. Participants put in groups of 6-8 with 5-7 Confederates

  3. Shown card with standard line and 3 other lines of varying lengths

  4. Participants took turns answering which line matched the standard

  5. Confederates all gave the same incorrect answer

  6. Participant always 2nd to last to answer
• • On average, participants conformed to the incorrect answer 37% of the time
  • 75% of participants conformed at least once
• Ash's variations


  • Group size
  • Unanimity
  • Task difficulty
• Group size variation


  1. Varied number of Confederates from 1 to 15

  2. Conformity increased with group size up to 3 Confederates, then levelled off
• Unanimity variation


  1. Added a non-conforming Confederate

  2. Conformity dropped to 9% with different incorrect answer

  3. Conformity dropped to 5% with correct answer
• Task difficulty variation


  1. Made line length differences smaller and harder to distinguish

  2. Conformity rates increased
• Ash's research suggests that as tasks become more ambiguous or harder, people tend to look to others for guidance and assume others are right
• Ash's research

  • Supports other studies on effects of task difficulty on conformity
  • Lacks support for influence of individual differences like confidence
  • Used narrow sample of male American undergraduates, lacks generalisability
  • Artificial task and situation, lacks external validity