factors that affect conformity Flashcards
group size
it is assumed that a large majority will have a bigger effect than one or two people. Asch changed his study and varied the number of participants. he found that with fewer than 3 confederates the level of compliance diminished greatly. However, increasing the group size only made a difference up to a certain point. it is also possible that participants would become suspicious if all the other participants gave the same wrong answer
social support and unanimity
in a different variation of Asch he instructed one confederate to act as an ally to the true participant by disagreeing with the others so that the majority were no longer unanimous. the ally was seated fourth and therefore answered before the true participant. this produced a sharp decrease in conformity which fell to 5.5.
secrecy of response
Asch mainly tested public compliance so in another variation a participant was told that they had arrived late and that they had to write their answers down privately while others said theirs out loud. the conformity level fell to 5%
task difficulty
Asch’s task was simple and everyone could easily see which line was longer but what would happen if the task was more difficult and the lengths were similar. Asch found hat conformity increased as the task was harder therefore it made it less embarrassing to conform
age
conformity levels remain static during ages 10-14 and the ability to dissent rises steadily to the age of 18 and thereafter it remains through early adulthood
we conform more to people like ourselves like you are more likely tp conform to a group of people your own age than a group of children
personality
certain personality characteristics link to conformity levels. santee and maslach found that people who have higher self esteem were less likely to conform. Burger found that people who value control less are more likely to conform. participants who valued control conformed less in an asch type experiment
sex
some researchers found sex differences in conformity where women tend to conform more than men such as in Mori and Arai and Jenness. Eagly suggested that this was because women tend to take on a more communal role and promote harmony in a group while men are more comfortable maintaining independence. however how male and females act have changed over time and can depend on culture as well
thought process
Asch stated that there were participants who doubted their own judgement and those who knew they were right but put down the false answer just to fit in. Hornsey found that if someone held a strong opinion on an issue they would be less likely to conform .
culture
collectivist cultures tend to show higher levels of conformity than individualist cultures as collectivist cultures tend to value family and society over individuals whereas individualist cultures value individuals over others.
smith and bond
smith and bond used conformity research all over the world and found that fijian indians have the highest conformity rates whilst belgians had the lowest conformity rates
