Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Variables affecting
conformity
- Asch (1956)
- studied conformity using
'visual discrimination' where
group of participants say out
loud which of three lines
matched a standard line
- All but one participant were
confederates who gave
unanimously incorrect answer on
2/3 of 18 trials
- Conformity was lower
when group size was
smaller & increased as
group size increased
- very little conformity with 1/2 confederates,
but with 3 conformity rose to 33% however
further increase in group size did not lead to
more conformity
- conformity decreased
when unanimity was
disturbed
- when unanimous
conformity 33%, when
disturbed conformity 6%
- Made task more difficult by
making the lines more
similar, conformity
increased the more difficult
the task got
- when task is easy =
normative social influence
- compliance, when task is
hard = informational social
influence
- Evaluation
- Not all
participants
conformed when
majority
unanimously
incorrect
- 2/3 trials participants
kept original answer
despite majority giving
wrong answer
- indicates tendency to show
independent behaviour rather than
conforming
- this suggests majority
influence is not as
strong as a higher
proportion of trials
produced an
independent response
than those who
conformed
- Asch's findings
may not be true
today
- USA was affected
by McCarthyism at
the time, so people
were scared to go
against the
majority
- Perrin & Spencer (1980)
replicated Asch's study
only had 1 conforming
response in 386 trials
- Suggests conformity levels change
over time, study may be a 'child of
its time' rather thana universal
phenomenon - low temporal
validity
- Studies have
used limited
majority sizes
- Asch felt majority
of 3 was a sufficient
number for
maximum influence
- Bond (2005) only Asch used a majority
greater than nine, most studies use
between 2-4
- suggests we know very
little about larger
conformity rates
- Asch's confederates
may have been
unconvincing
- If confederates were not
convincing the internal
validity of the study would
be low
- Mori & Arai (2010) overcame this by
giving each participants glasses
which altered what they saw,
therefore no need for confederates
- findings had similar conformity
levels so confederates did act
convincingly and that his findings
are valid
- Cultural
Differences in
conformity
- So should expect different
results in different cultures
- Smith et al (2006) average
conformity rate inn
individualist cultures was 25%,
while average in collectivist
cultures was 37%
- Suggests culture has an
impact on conformity rate in
that cultures that value
interdependence more whill
have higher rate of
conformity than those who
value independence
(indiviudalist)