Lesson 4: Variables affecting conformity as researched by Asch

Question 1

Group size?

Answer 1

Little conformity when there were 1 or 2 confederates, conformity rates increased to 30% when there was a majority of 3 confederates, but after this the rates did not increase.
Campbell and Fairey (1989) said that group size will have an effect depending on the type of judgement being made and the motivation of the individual.

Question 2

Unanimity of the majority?

Answer 2

If one confederate gave the correct answer, conformity dropped from 33% to 5.5%.
If one confederate gave the wrong answer, conformity dropped to 9%.

Question 3

Task difficulty?

Answer 3

When correct answer was less obvious, conformity increased.

Lucas et al (2006) showed that this was dependent of the self-efficacy of the individual.

Question 4

Evaluation points?

Answer 4

+ Good control over variables + environment
+ Provides research support for NSI
- May be a child of its time - Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated using engineering students in the UK - 1 student conformed in a total of 396 trials. America in the 1950s was a conformist decade, so conforming could have been the norm. TEMPORAL VALIDITY
- Artificial situation and task - Fiske (2014) argued that Asch’s groups did not resemble everyday groups. Actual task was not something we do everyday. ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
- Limited application of findings - Neto (1995) argued that women are more conformist due to being more concerned about social relationships. Bond and Smith (1996) - individualistic culture (lower conformity rates) vs collectivist cultures (higher conformity rates). POPULATION VALIDITY
- Ethical issues - deception was used, possible psychological harm due to confusion or stress, possible lack of fully informed consent.