Asch (1955)
Core Study 2.
Field of psychology: Social
Procedure
• Read the piece of paper I have given you.
DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE WHAT IT SAYS!!
Test run
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What is conformity?
• A person is said to conform if they chose a
course of action which is favoured by the
majority of group members, or is considered
socially acceptable.
• In what way are the people on the next slide
conforming?
• How have you conformed today?
Some key terms
• Deviation: the opposite of conformity
• Majority influence
• Public compliance
• Private acceptance
Conformity in action
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQI8pZJiM
e0
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE5YwN4
NW5o
Jenness (1932)
• Individually, guess how many
beans are in this jar
• As a group, come to an estimate
• Do you want to change your
original guess?
Jenness (1932)
• Asked people individually to estimate how
many beans the bottle contained
• Then put the group in a room with the bottle,
and asked them to provide a group estimate.
• Subjects were asked individually if they
would like to stick with their individual
estimate, or go with the group estimate.
• Almost all changed their individual guesses to
be closer to the group estimate.
Sherif (1935)
• The Autokinetic effect
• On the next slide is a light. The light will move
and you have to say in which way it is moving.
Sherif (1935)
• The autiokinetic effect is when a stationary
spot of light appears to move due to small
movements of the eye
• Sherif told participants to estimate by how far
the spot of light had moved.
– Asked individually
– Then exposed to the estimates of two other
participants
– Estimates tended to converge to a group norm
which was an average of these individuals’
estimates.
Issues with the previous research
• Sherif and Jenness both used ambiguous
situations to investigate conformity.
• Little known about conformity in nonambiguous situations
• Read Asch’s quote. What research method
terms can we use to sum up Asch’s criticisms?
Context
• Asch also gave two further reasons for the
importance of studying conformity. Read the
information on page 68, and complete the
table
Aims
• Investigate the effects of group pressure on
individuals in unambiguous situations.
• When confronted with an obviously incorrect
answer, would individuals would give an
answer which perpetuated this error
(conformed) or would they would give an
independent response?
Aims
• He also aimed to investigate the effect of
various factors on the rate of conformity.
• Read the additional procedures information
on page 69 , and group them in the table,
predicting whether the rate of conformity will
be higher, or lower
Procedures
• Asch carried out a number of variations of the
same experiment. You need to know in-depth
procedures for the baseline study, and also
some of the variations.
• Use the textbook page 69
The baseline study
• Complete the table for the baseline study
procedure
– Read and highlight the procedure
• Findings for the baseline study
– In a control study carried out before this
experiment, it was found that less than 1% of
people made errors when carrying out this task
when by themselves. What does this suggest
about the line estimating task?
Findings from the baseline study
• On the critical trials,
36.8% of responses
were wrong.
• 25% never gave a wrong
answer
• Others agreed on nearly
every trial
• Behaviour was constant
Those who did not conform…
• Asch states “Those who strike out on the path
to independence, do not, as a rule, succumb to
the majority”.
– confidence in their own judgment
– capacity to recover from doubt
– felt it was “their obligation to call the play as they
saw it”
Those who did conform…
• Asch says “Those who chose the path of
compliance are unable to free themselves,
and the ordeal is prolonged”.
– Believed that “I am wrong, they are right”
– conformed so as “not to spoil the results"
– suspected the majority were “sheep”
– thought the majority were “victim of an optical
illusion”
– thought they were ‘deficient’
The variations
• Each pair/small group gets one/two of the
variations
– Have to be able to explain the procedures and
findings from that variation
– Only focus on how it is different from the baseline
study
– Can also use page 83-84
Conclusions
• The results from both the baseline study and
the variations suggest that there is a strong
tendency to conform to group pressures, even
in an unambiguous situation.
Conclusions
• The pressure from the majority reduced when
the majority was smaller, although this was only
true when the majority was 3 or less.
• Pressure to conform was also reduced by the
presence of a dissenter, even if the dissenter
was giving a wrong answer.
• Therefore, conformity depends a lot upon the
majority being unanimous. For example, when
the dissenter started to agree with the majority,
many participants began to conform.
Conclusions
• Read the quote from Asch, and look back at
the results. How does this study show how
people are able to resist conformity?
Evaluate the methodology
• Evaluate:
– Method
– Reliability
– Validity
– Sampling
– Ethical issues
Alternative evidence
• Do Sherif and Jenness
support, contradict, or
develop Asch’s results?
Why?
• Perrin and Spencer (1980)
• 1 person conformed out of
396 trials
– Higher pressure to conform in
the 1950s
– Perrin and Spencer used
science students
Alternative Evidence
• Modern research however seems to support
Asch’s findings. Read the information on page
72-73. What did Nicholson et al (1985) find?
Alternative Evidence
• Eagly (1978)
– Women are more conforming than men in group
pressure situations. Can you think of a reason
why this would be the case?
• Women are more concerned with social relationships
than men, more used to making compromises
– However, men and women have different short
term goals. The result is that women appear to
conform more than they would in the real world.
Alternative evidence
• Bond and Smith (1996)
– Asch’s study only used participants from the USA.
What did Bond and Smith (1996) do, what did
they find, and what does this suggest about Asch’s
original study? (pg 86)
• Berns et al (2005)
– Brain scan evidence
– Compliance vs internalisation