Asch's Research into Conformity

Asch (1951) set up a situation to see if poeple would conform when a very obvious wrong answer was given to a simple question by other group members.

To do this Asch recuited 123 American male students and each of them were tested individually in a group with either 6 or 8 confederates- (friends of the researcher)

On each trial the participants identified the length of a standard line and on the first few trials the confederates gave the correct answer but after that they all selected the same wrong answer. 
Each participant took part in 18 trials and on 12 'critical trials' the confederates gave the wrong answer.

The naive participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time) this was the percentage of the 12 'critical trials' where the confederates all gave the wrong answer and the participants agreed.

This shows a high level of conformity which is called the Asch effect- the extent to which people conform even in an unambiguous situation.

There were however considerable individual differences:
25% of participants NEVER gave the wrong answer, so 75% conformed at least once and a few participants conformed most of the time.

Most participants said that they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI) and continued to privately trust their opinions (compliance).

Asch was also interested in other factors that couldeith increase or decrease conformity rates so he investigated this by carrying out some variations of his original procedure.

There were three variations that Asch did which were:

Group size where the number of confederates ranged between 1 and 15;

Unanimity where he introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate whose answer was different from the others but was still inaccurate.

Task difficulty where Asch made the kine judging harder by makin the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length.

Group size: Asch found that when there were two confederates, conformity to the wrong answer was 13.6% but when increased to three, conformity also increased to 31.8%. However, adding any more confederates after made little difference to conformity.

Unanimity: When a dissenting (disagreeing confederate was present, it reduce the conformity regardless of whether they gave the right or wrong answer. On average conformity to wrong answers was about 25% and by having the dissenting confederate it allowed the naive participants to behave more independantly.

Task difficulty: Asch found that conformity increased when the task was more difficult, so he found that informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. This occurs because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and therefore assume that they are right.

LIMITATION

Perrin and Spencer (1980) found just one conforming response in a total of 396 trials and the participants who where UK engineering students felt more confident about measuring lines than those in Asch's original sample and where therefore less conformist than those who took part in the original study.

Also, the 1950's when Asch completed his study was a very conformist time in America and people may have been less likely to conform in the decades that followed.

This means that the Asch effect is not consistent over time and is therefore not an enduring feature of human behaviour.

LIMITATION

The participant were aware of the fact that they were part of a study and may have therefore responded to demand characteristics that were present.

The line task was trivial so there was no reason not to conform and also, the naive participants were on a 'group', but not like the groups that are found in everyday life.

The findings do not generalise to everyday life and everyday situations where the consequences of conformity are important, and where we interact with groups more directly.

LIMITATION

Asch only tested men in his study and Neto (1995) suggested that woman may be more conformist, possibly because they are more concerned about social relationships and therefore being accepted.

Participants were from the USA, an individualist culture and Smith and Bond (1998) suggest that conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures such as Chine as they are more concerned with group needs rather than individual needs.

This suggests that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found so his finding may be limited to American men only.

LIMITATION

Participants answered out loud and were in a group of strangers who they wish to impress so this means that conformity rates may be higher than usual.

However, Williams and Sogon (1984) found that conformity was higher when the majority were friends with the participants rather than strangers.

This means that the Asch effect varies depending on the circumstances that the participant is in.

Conformity- a change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Internalisation- a deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. it leads to far-reaching and permanent changes in behaviour, even when the group is absent.

Identification- a moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way with the group because we value it and want to be part of it. However, we don't necessarily agree with everything the majority believes.

Compliance- a superficail and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with the majority group, but privately disagree with it. The change in our behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring us.

Informational social influence- an explanation of confromity that says we agree with the opinion of the majprity because we believe that it is correct. We accept it because we want to be correctas well. This may lead to internalisation.

Normative social influence- an explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked, This may kead to compliance.

Group size- Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the sixe of the majority. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, as it leveled off when the majority was greater than three.

Unanimity- the extent to which all the members of the group agree. In Asch's studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line. This produced the greatest degree of conformity in naive participants.

Task difficulty- Asch's line judging task is mroe difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer. Conformity increases because naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right.