Variables affecting conformity Flashcards
What was Asch’s aim?
Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious.
What was Asch’s procedure?
In Asch’s study there were 5-7 participants per group. Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length. In each group there was only one real participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.
What were Asch’s findings?
Real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.
What validity lacks Asch’s study?
The study lacks ecological validity as it was based on peoples’ perception of lines, this does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity.
What ethical issues are present in Asch’s study?
Moreover, there are ethical issues regarding Asch’s study – Mention deception as participants were told the study was about perception of lines. As a result, they could not give informed consent. Furthermore, it is possible that the participants may have felt embarrassed when the true nature of the study was revealed. Thus could potentially put them through some form of psychological harm. However, Asch did debrief at the end.
Group size…
Asch altered the number of confederates in his study to see how this effected conformity. The bigger the majority group (number of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.
With one other person (i.e., confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13%, and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3). However, conformity did not increase much after the group size was about 4/5.
Because conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four, this is considered the optimal group size.
Group Unanimity…
A person is more likely to conform when all members of the group agree and give the same answer.
When one other person in the group gave a different answer from the others, and the group answer was not unanimous, conformity dropped. Asch (1951) found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity as much as 80%.
Task difficulty…
When the (comparison) lines (e.g., A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased. When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task, the greater the conformity.
Answers in private…?
When participants were allowed to answer in private (so the rest of the group does not know their response) conformity decreases. This is because there are fewer group pressures and normative influence is not as powerful, as there is no fear of rejection from the group
