Social Influence Revision Notes
Conformity
Ash’s Research:
Ash’s Baseline Procedure:
• Asch (1951) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the
opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain.
• The procedure of his original study is called the ‘baseline’ study because it is the one
against which all the later studies are compared.
• 123 American men were tested, in groups of 6-8 with all 7 participants being
confederate and one being ‘naïve’. Each participant saw two large white cards on
each trial, the first card which a standard line labelled X and the other card with 3
different sized lines, one of which is the same as line X, labelled A,B and C. The
participants had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same length
as line X.
• On average the genuine participants agreed with the confederates incorrect answers
36.8% of the time, meaning they conformed.
• 25% of the participants never gave the wrong answer, meaning they never
conformed.
,Variables Investigated by Asch:
• Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead
to an increase or a decrease in conformity.
Group Size:
• Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important
than the agreement of the group.
• To test this, he varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15.
• Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate.
• With 3 confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. But the
presence of more confederates made little difference meaning the conformity
rate soon levelled off.
• This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because
just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
Unanimity:
• Asch wondering if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the
naïve participant’s conformity.
• He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates. In one
variation of the study this person gave the correct answer, and, in another
variation, he gave a wrong one.
• The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter.
• The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority
was unanimous.
• The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naïve participant to behave
more independently. This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the
genuine participant.
• This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it
being unanimous. And that non-conformity is more likely when cracks are
perceived in the majority’s unanimous view.
, Task Difficulty:
• Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of
conformity.
• He increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line
and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length. This meant it
became harder for the genuine participant to see the differences between the
lines.
• Asch found that conformity increased. It may be that the situation is more
ambiguous when the task becomes harder – it is unclear to the participants what
the right answer is.
• In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and
assume that they are right, and you are wrong otherwise known as informational
social influence.
Evaluation:
Artificial Situation and Task
• Limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial.
• Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along
with what was expected, otherwise known as demand characteristics.
• The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no
reason not to conform.
• Fiske (2014) claimed ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’, meaning they did not
really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.
• Means the findings do not generalise to real-world situations (having low mundane
realism) especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important.
Ethical Issues
• In Asch’s research, the naïve participants were deceived because they thought the other
people involved in the procedure (confederates) were also genuine participants.
• However it is worth bearing in mind that this ethical cost should be weighed up against
the benefits gained from the study.
, Limited Application
• Limitation is that Asch’s participants were American men.
• Neto’s (1995) research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly
because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
• Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture meaning people are more concerned
about themselves rather than their social group. Similar conformity studies
conducted in collectivist cultures have found that conformity rates are higher.
• Means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from
some cultures.
Research Support
• Strength of Asch’s research is support from other studies for the effects of task
difficulty.
• Lucas et al. (2006) asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths
problems. Participants were given answers from three other students (not real).
• The participants conformed more often when the problems were harder.
• Shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects
conformity.
Counterpoint – More Complex
• However, Lucas et al’s study found that conformity is more complex than Asch
suggested.
• Participants with high confidence in their math abilities conformed less on hard
tasks than those with low confidence.
• Shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with
situation variables. But Asch did not research the roles of individual factors
Conformity
Ash’s Research:
Ash’s Baseline Procedure:
• Asch (1951) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the
opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain.
• The procedure of his original study is called the ‘baseline’ study because it is the one
against which all the later studies are compared.
• 123 American men were tested, in groups of 6-8 with all 7 participants being
confederate and one being ‘naïve’. Each participant saw two large white cards on
each trial, the first card which a standard line labelled X and the other card with 3
different sized lines, one of which is the same as line X, labelled A,B and C. The
participants had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same length
as line X.
• On average the genuine participants agreed with the confederates incorrect answers
36.8% of the time, meaning they conformed.
• 25% of the participants never gave the wrong answer, meaning they never
conformed.
,Variables Investigated by Asch:
• Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead
to an increase or a decrease in conformity.
Group Size:
• Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important
than the agreement of the group.
• To test this, he varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15.
• Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate.
• With 3 confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. But the
presence of more confederates made little difference meaning the conformity
rate soon levelled off.
• This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because
just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
Unanimity:
• Asch wondering if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the
naïve participant’s conformity.
• He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates. In one
variation of the study this person gave the correct answer, and, in another
variation, he gave a wrong one.
• The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter.
• The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority
was unanimous.
• The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naïve participant to behave
more independently. This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the
genuine participant.
• This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it
being unanimous. And that non-conformity is more likely when cracks are
perceived in the majority’s unanimous view.
, Task Difficulty:
• Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of
conformity.
• He increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the stimulus line
and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length. This meant it
became harder for the genuine participant to see the differences between the
lines.
• Asch found that conformity increased. It may be that the situation is more
ambiguous when the task becomes harder – it is unclear to the participants what
the right answer is.
• In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and
assume that they are right, and you are wrong otherwise known as informational
social influence.
Evaluation:
Artificial Situation and Task
• Limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial.
• Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along
with what was expected, otherwise known as demand characteristics.
• The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no
reason not to conform.
• Fiske (2014) claimed ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’, meaning they did not
really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.
• Means the findings do not generalise to real-world situations (having low mundane
realism) especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important.
Ethical Issues
• In Asch’s research, the naïve participants were deceived because they thought the other
people involved in the procedure (confederates) were also genuine participants.
• However it is worth bearing in mind that this ethical cost should be weighed up against
the benefits gained from the study.
, Limited Application
• Limitation is that Asch’s participants were American men.
• Neto’s (1995) research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly
because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
• Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture meaning people are more concerned
about themselves rather than their social group. Similar conformity studies
conducted in collectivist cultures have found that conformity rates are higher.
• Means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from
some cultures.
Research Support
• Strength of Asch’s research is support from other studies for the effects of task
difficulty.
• Lucas et al. (2006) asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths
problems. Participants were given answers from three other students (not real).
• The participants conformed more often when the problems were harder.
• Shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects
conformity.
Counterpoint – More Complex
• However, Lucas et al’s study found that conformity is more complex than Asch
suggested.
• Participants with high confidence in their math abilities conformed less on hard
tasks than those with low confidence.
• Shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with
situation variables. But Asch did not research the roles of individual factors
