Social
Influence
, Conformity - Asch (1951)
Aim - extent of group pressure can in uence ppts to change their answers even in a situation when the
other answers are clearly wrong
Baseline Procedure:
• 123 American male ppt were tested individually
• Shown 2 large cards -> 1 had standard line for reference, the other had 3 comparison
lines (1/3 was same length as standard line, other 2 were clearly wrong)
• Asch asked ppt to clearly state publicly which lines matched the reference line
• Each ppt took part in 18 trials in a room with 6-8 confederates
• Only 1 was a genuine (naive) participant
• The others were CONFEDERATES of Asch and were rst instructed to give the right answers… as the
trials went on, they were instructed to give wrong answers
• The participants did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants
• test was designed so that innocent ppt is subject to pressure -> conforms with the rest of the group
Baseline Findings:
• 75% of ppt were willing to conform even when majority is clearly wrong -> they conformed as they had
the desire to t in -> NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE)
• Naive ppt gave the wrong answers 36.8% of the time as they felt in uenced by the majority and felt
pressure to say the wrong answers
ASCH EXTENDED HIS BASELINE STUDY - CONDUCTED 3 VARIATIONS - FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
• task dif culty
- Asch wanted to know whether the making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity
- he made the lines similar in length making the task more dif cult -> conformity increased as ppt found
the task dif cult so more likely to go with majority.
- Suggesting that informational social in uence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder because
in these circumstances, the situation is more ambiguous so were more likely to look to other people for
guidance and to assume they are right.
• Group size
- when the group was bigger -> majority was larger -> comformity increased.
- When group was smaller -> majority was smaller -> conformity decreased.
- To test this he varied the number of Confederates.
- Most people are sensitive to views of others because just 1 or 2 confederate was enough to sway opinion.
• Unanimity of the group - UNANIMOUS - group are fully in agreement.
- Asch introduced 1 confederate who disagreed with the other.
- In one variation of the study this person gave the correct answer and in another variation he gave a
(different) wrong one.
- The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter.
- The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently. More
confederates in agreement made conformity higher.
- Less confederates in agreement led to less conformity as there was SOCIAL SUPPORT for the right
answer
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, What does this mean for social influence?
What does the ORIGINAL experiment show for conformity:
• Conformity rate was high as the majority of the group was against them making them more likely to
conform
What do the VARIATIONS show for conformity:
• task dif culty – conformity increased as the task is more dif cult so people are more allowed to go with
the majority
• Depending on the group size social in uence would be decreased if smaller as participant will feel more
con dent going with their answer. Social in uence is higher as they feel more pressured when the group is
bigger
• unanimity - when the whole group is in agreement, conformity increases. one confederate wasn’t an
&
Evaluation
Weakness - ethical issues
• deception - naive ppt the word deceived because they thought the other people involved in the
procedure (the Confederate) were also genuine participants like themselves.
Weaknesses - artificial situation/task
• ppt knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with the demands of the
situation (demand characteristics) - people would’ve changed their answers - lowering the internal
validity.
• Naive ppt were members of a group - it didn’t really resemble groups that were part of everyday -
ndings don’t generalise to everyday situations
• Lacking mundane realism - if task is too arti cial it doesn’t have any mundane realism - if done outside
the lab it would lower external validity
S
Counterpoint
• As it was conducted in a lab, Asch could control the extraneous variables (e.g, not telling ppt what is
happening, making every trial the same - he was able to standardise).
Weakness - limited application of findings
• only American men were tested -> other research suggest that women might be more conformist
possibly because they are more concerned about the social relationship relationships and being accepted
than men the men in the study from the US (an individualist culture) - where people are more
concerned about themselves rather than their social group. Similar conformity studies conducted in
collective culture such as China where the social group is more important than found that conformity
rates are higher
• This shows that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found and the ndings may
Weakness - low temporal validity
• doing it now may not get the same results as people nowadays may not get so easily in uenced
• The study took place in America in 1950 when the country was especially conformist to the government
due to the Cold War - Perrin and Spencer repeated the experiment in 1980 and got different results
showing there’s low temporal validity as it was a different time period.
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Influence
, Conformity - Asch (1951)
Aim - extent of group pressure can in uence ppts to change their answers even in a situation when the
other answers are clearly wrong
Baseline Procedure:
• 123 American male ppt were tested individually
• Shown 2 large cards -> 1 had standard line for reference, the other had 3 comparison
lines (1/3 was same length as standard line, other 2 were clearly wrong)
• Asch asked ppt to clearly state publicly which lines matched the reference line
• Each ppt took part in 18 trials in a room with 6-8 confederates
• Only 1 was a genuine (naive) participant
• The others were CONFEDERATES of Asch and were rst instructed to give the right answers… as the
trials went on, they were instructed to give wrong answers
• The participants did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants
• test was designed so that innocent ppt is subject to pressure -> conforms with the rest of the group
Baseline Findings:
• 75% of ppt were willing to conform even when majority is clearly wrong -> they conformed as they had
the desire to t in -> NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE)
• Naive ppt gave the wrong answers 36.8% of the time as they felt in uenced by the majority and felt
pressure to say the wrong answers
ASCH EXTENDED HIS BASELINE STUDY - CONDUCTED 3 VARIATIONS - FACTORS AFFECTING CONFORMITY
• task dif culty
- Asch wanted to know whether the making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity
- he made the lines similar in length making the task more dif cult -> conformity increased as ppt found
the task dif cult so more likely to go with majority.
- Suggesting that informational social in uence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder because
in these circumstances, the situation is more ambiguous so were more likely to look to other people for
guidance and to assume they are right.
• Group size
- when the group was bigger -> majority was larger -> comformity increased.
- When group was smaller -> majority was smaller -> conformity decreased.
- To test this he varied the number of Confederates.
- Most people are sensitive to views of others because just 1 or 2 confederate was enough to sway opinion.
• Unanimity of the group - UNANIMOUS - group are fully in agreement.
- Asch introduced 1 confederate who disagreed with the other.
- In one variation of the study this person gave the correct answer and in another variation he gave a
(different) wrong one.
- The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter.
- The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently. More
confederates in agreement made conformity higher.
- Less confederates in agreement led to less conformity as there was SOCIAL SUPPORT for the right
answer
fifi fi fl fl fi fi
, What does this mean for social influence?
What does the ORIGINAL experiment show for conformity:
• Conformity rate was high as the majority of the group was against them making them more likely to
conform
What do the VARIATIONS show for conformity:
• task dif culty – conformity increased as the task is more dif cult so people are more allowed to go with
the majority
• Depending on the group size social in uence would be decreased if smaller as participant will feel more
con dent going with their answer. Social in uence is higher as they feel more pressured when the group is
bigger
• unanimity - when the whole group is in agreement, conformity increases. one confederate wasn’t an
&
Evaluation
Weakness - ethical issues
• deception - naive ppt the word deceived because they thought the other people involved in the
procedure (the Confederate) were also genuine participants like themselves.
Weaknesses - artificial situation/task
• ppt knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with the demands of the
situation (demand characteristics) - people would’ve changed their answers - lowering the internal
validity.
• Naive ppt were members of a group - it didn’t really resemble groups that were part of everyday -
ndings don’t generalise to everyday situations
• Lacking mundane realism - if task is too arti cial it doesn’t have any mundane realism - if done outside
the lab it would lower external validity
S
Counterpoint
• As it was conducted in a lab, Asch could control the extraneous variables (e.g, not telling ppt what is
happening, making every trial the same - he was able to standardise).
Weakness - limited application of findings
• only American men were tested -> other research suggest that women might be more conformist
possibly because they are more concerned about the social relationship relationships and being accepted
than men the men in the study from the US (an individualist culture) - where people are more
concerned about themselves rather than their social group. Similar conformity studies conducted in
collective culture such as China where the social group is more important than found that conformity
rates are higher
• This shows that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found and the ndings may
Weakness - low temporal validity
• doing it now may not get the same results as people nowadays may not get so easily in uenced
• The study took place in America in 1950 when the country was especially conformist to the government
due to the Cold War - Perrin and Spencer repeated the experiment in 1980 and got different results
showing there’s low temporal validity as it was a different time period.
fi
fi fi fl fl fi fi
