Conformity Flashcards
(8 cards)
Who researched conformity?
Asch
What was Asch’s baseline procedure? What did he want to assess
To what extent people will conform even when answer is certain.
Standard and comparison lines: 124 male American participants, each one in group with ‘participants’. Each saw two large white cards on each trial. X on left card, ABC as comparison lines, one was clearly same as X others very different, participants had to say out loud what they think.
Participants tested in groups of 6-8, only one participant was genuine and always last or second to last, other 5-7 were confederates.
What did Asch find?
Genuine participants agreed with incorrect 36.8% of time, 25% never gave a wrong answer.
What variables did Asch investigate when extending his baseline? What did he find in each?
1- group size: wanted to know if size of group was more important than agreement. Varied number of confederates 1-15.
Found curvilinear relationship between size and conformity rate, conformity increased with group size but only to a point. W/ 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8% but the presence of more made little difference.
Most ppl are sensitive to views of others as just one or two confederates could sway opinion.
2-Unanimity: would presence of nonconforming person effect naïve participants conformity. In one variation one person gave correct answer and in another he gave the incorrect. Genuine participant conformed less in presence of dissenter. Rate decreased to less than a 1/4 of level it was when majority unanimous. Dissenter appeared to free the naive participant and this was also true when dissenter gave the incorrect answer, disagreeing with participant.
Influence depends on it being unanimous and nonconformity likely when cracks perceived in majority’s unanimous view.
3- difficulty: would making task harder affect degree of conformity. Made lines more similar. Conformity increased. You assume others are right- ISI
PEE
Limitation 1
Artificial situation
P: task and situation artificial
E: participants knew that were in study and so display demand characteristics and the task wasn’t trivial so there wasn’t reason not to conform.
FISKE: groups don’t resemble real life groupings
E: can’t generalise to real world
PEE
Limitation 2
Limited application
P: All participants were male and American
E: women said to be more conformist as concerned with social relations and culture, and USA is individualist culture, collective cultures tend to be more conformist
E: tell us little about conformity of other groups
PEE
Strength 1
Research support
P: other studies support effect of task difficulty
E: LUCAS- participants solve easy and hard maths problems. Given answers by 3 other ‘students’ and participants conform more whne task harder
E: Asch correct that task difficulty effects conformity
PEE
Countering support
P: Conformity is more complex that Asch stated
E:Lucas found participants w/ higher confidence in maths conformed less on the hard tasks
E: an individual level factor can influence conformity
