Social Influence
Conformity
Asch’s Research
Solomon Asch (1951)…
Aim: to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even where
the answer is unambiguous.
Participants: 123 American men
The basic procedure:
Each participant was unknowingly in a group with 5-7 confederates with standardised
replies, seated last or penultimate in the order.
Each participant did 18 trials, and 12 were critical.
Given a line marked X and three other lines A, B and C – had to say aloud which line
matched the length of X.
Findings:
Participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time.
Individual difference: 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer.
Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that may
increase/decrease conformity.
1. Group size
- Varied number of confederates from 1-15
- Found a curvilinear relationship between conformity and group size
- With 3 confederates – conformity was at 31.8% - more than that made little
difference
- Suggests that people are very sensitive to the views of others
2. Unanimity
- Introduced a non-conforming confederate – in one variation of the study gave a
correct answer and in another it was incorrect
- Rate of conformity decreased to less than ¼ of the level it was when the
majority was unanimous
- Dissenter freed participant to answer more freely, even when the dissenter
disagreed with the participant
- Influence of majority greatly depends on unanimity
3. Task difficulty
- Made stimulus and comparison lines more similar in length
- Conformity increased
- Perhaps due to increased ambiguity of the situation, with participants looking to
others for guidance and assuming they are right and you are wrong (ISI)
,Evaluation
Artificial situation and task…
- Knew they were in a study – demand characteristics
- Trivial task – no reason not to be unanimous and therefore conform
- Susan Fiske (2014): ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’ – did not really
resemble everyday groups
- Cannot generalise
Limited application…
- American men
- Neto 1995 research suggests women may be more conformist (as they are
more concerned about social relationships and being accepted)
- US is an individualist culture – similar studies in collectivist cultures e.g. China
have found higher conformity rates (Bond and Smith 1996)
Research support…
Support for task difficulty variation
Todd Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths
problems
o They were given answers from 3 other students (fake)
o Participants conformed more often when task was harder
- Counterpoint: Lucas et al.’s study found further complications than were
explored by Asch – participants more confident in their maths ability conformed
less on ‘hard’ tasks
- Shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting
with situational variables (e.g. difficulty) – this was not investigated with Asch
Conflicting research
McGhee and Teevan – students with a high need of affiliation were more likely
to conform – individual differences – nAffiliators so greater need for affiliation
Supporting research
Linkenbach and Perkins – children told those their age smoked – 41% took up
smoking vs 17% where the campaign didn’t run
Schultz – hotel guests told that 75% of guests chose to reuse towels reduced
need for towels by 25% in comparison to control group simply informed of
environmental benefits
Ethical issues…
- Participants were deceived as they did not know of the confederates
- Ethical cost can however be weighed up against the benefits of the study
- Deception, trauma, questioning intelligence
Validity
Temporal validity
Cultural and gender bias
Individualist and collectivist
, Real-life application
- Dangerous conformity: 1979 Woolworths, Manchester
Conformity: Types and explanations
Types of conformity
Herbert Kelman (1958) suggested that there are three ways of conforming to a
majority:
1. Internalisation – when a person genuinely accepts the group norms, resulting in
private and public change of opinions/behaviour
o Usually permanent
o Change of opinions/behaviour occurs even in the absence of other group
members
2. Identification – conforming to the opinions/behaviour of a group because we
value something about the group
o May publicly change opinions/behaviour even if we don’t privately agree
with everything the group stands for
3. Compliance – going along with others in public but privately not changing
personal opinions and/or behaviour
o Superficial change
o Particular behaviour/opinion stops when group pressure stops
Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard (1955) argued two reasons why people conform:
Normative social influence
o About ‘norms’ – they regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals
o Emotional rather than a cognitive process
o Temporary change in opinions/behaviour – compliance
o May be more pronounced in stressful situations with new people in fear of
rejection or for social approval of friends etc.
Informational social influence
o Due to uncertainty over whether behaviours/beliefs are right or wrong
o Follow the behaviour of the group as they are likely to be right and we
want to be right
o A cognitive process
o Permanent change in opinions/behaviour – internalisation
o Most likely in new situations, crisis situations or ambiguous situations
Evaluation
In Support of NSI In Support of ISI
As an explanation of conformity: Todd Lucas et al. (2006) – participants
Asch (1961) – some participants said conformed more to incorrect answers
they conformed as they felt self- to maths questions when they were
conscious giving the correct answer hard and the situation became
and were afraid of disapproval; in ‘ambiguous’; as they did not want to
writing answers down, conformity fell be wrong, they relied on the answers
to 12.5% as giving answers privately they were given; those who rated their
Conformity
Asch’s Research
Solomon Asch (1951)…
Aim: to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even where
the answer is unambiguous.
Participants: 123 American men
The basic procedure:
Each participant was unknowingly in a group with 5-7 confederates with standardised
replies, seated last or penultimate in the order.
Each participant did 18 trials, and 12 were critical.
Given a line marked X and three other lines A, B and C – had to say aloud which line
matched the length of X.
Findings:
Participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time.
Individual difference: 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer.
Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that may
increase/decrease conformity.
1. Group size
- Varied number of confederates from 1-15
- Found a curvilinear relationship between conformity and group size
- With 3 confederates – conformity was at 31.8% - more than that made little
difference
- Suggests that people are very sensitive to the views of others
2. Unanimity
- Introduced a non-conforming confederate – in one variation of the study gave a
correct answer and in another it was incorrect
- Rate of conformity decreased to less than ¼ of the level it was when the
majority was unanimous
- Dissenter freed participant to answer more freely, even when the dissenter
disagreed with the participant
- Influence of majority greatly depends on unanimity
3. Task difficulty
- Made stimulus and comparison lines more similar in length
- Conformity increased
- Perhaps due to increased ambiguity of the situation, with participants looking to
others for guidance and assuming they are right and you are wrong (ISI)
,Evaluation
Artificial situation and task…
- Knew they were in a study – demand characteristics
- Trivial task – no reason not to be unanimous and therefore conform
- Susan Fiske (2014): ‘Asch’s groups were not very groupy’ – did not really
resemble everyday groups
- Cannot generalise
Limited application…
- American men
- Neto 1995 research suggests women may be more conformist (as they are
more concerned about social relationships and being accepted)
- US is an individualist culture – similar studies in collectivist cultures e.g. China
have found higher conformity rates (Bond and Smith 1996)
Research support…
Support for task difficulty variation
Todd Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths
problems
o They were given answers from 3 other students (fake)
o Participants conformed more often when task was harder
- Counterpoint: Lucas et al.’s study found further complications than were
explored by Asch – participants more confident in their maths ability conformed
less on ‘hard’ tasks
- Shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting
with situational variables (e.g. difficulty) – this was not investigated with Asch
Conflicting research
McGhee and Teevan – students with a high need of affiliation were more likely
to conform – individual differences – nAffiliators so greater need for affiliation
Supporting research
Linkenbach and Perkins – children told those their age smoked – 41% took up
smoking vs 17% where the campaign didn’t run
Schultz – hotel guests told that 75% of guests chose to reuse towels reduced
need for towels by 25% in comparison to control group simply informed of
environmental benefits
Ethical issues…
- Participants were deceived as they did not know of the confederates
- Ethical cost can however be weighed up against the benefits of the study
- Deception, trauma, questioning intelligence
Validity
Temporal validity
Cultural and gender bias
Individualist and collectivist
, Real-life application
- Dangerous conformity: 1979 Woolworths, Manchester
Conformity: Types and explanations
Types of conformity
Herbert Kelman (1958) suggested that there are three ways of conforming to a
majority:
1. Internalisation – when a person genuinely accepts the group norms, resulting in
private and public change of opinions/behaviour
o Usually permanent
o Change of opinions/behaviour occurs even in the absence of other group
members
2. Identification – conforming to the opinions/behaviour of a group because we
value something about the group
o May publicly change opinions/behaviour even if we don’t privately agree
with everything the group stands for
3. Compliance – going along with others in public but privately not changing
personal opinions and/or behaviour
o Superficial change
o Particular behaviour/opinion stops when group pressure stops
Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard (1955) argued two reasons why people conform:
Normative social influence
o About ‘norms’ – they regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals
o Emotional rather than a cognitive process
o Temporary change in opinions/behaviour – compliance
o May be more pronounced in stressful situations with new people in fear of
rejection or for social approval of friends etc.
Informational social influence
o Due to uncertainty over whether behaviours/beliefs are right or wrong
o Follow the behaviour of the group as they are likely to be right and we
want to be right
o A cognitive process
o Permanent change in opinions/behaviour – internalisation
o Most likely in new situations, crisis situations or ambiguous situations
Evaluation
In Support of NSI In Support of ISI
As an explanation of conformity: Todd Lucas et al. (2006) – participants
Asch (1961) – some participants said conformed more to incorrect answers
they conformed as they felt self- to maths questions when they were
conscious giving the correct answer hard and the situation became
and were afraid of disapproval; in ‘ambiguous’; as they did not want to
writing answers down, conformity fell be wrong, they relied on the answers
to 12.5% as giving answers privately they were given; those who rated their
