Asch (1955)

Procedure

Read the piece of paper I have given you. DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE WHAT IT SAYS!!

A CB

Test run

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

A CB

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?

Some key terms

Deviation: the opposite of conformity

Majority influence

Public compliance

Private acceptance

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 change their original estimates, or stay with the group's 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 non-ambiguous situations

Read Asch’s quote. What research method terms can we use to sum up Asch’s criticisms?

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?

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 68-73, and the original text.

When in doubt, look to the original text!

The baseline study

8 minutes 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. This suggests that this task is _____________.unambiguous

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

In pairs, read through the original study, and write down the procedure and findings for the variations.

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.

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?

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

Nicholson et al (1985) 32% of British students and 38% of US students

conformed at least once. Provides some support.

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?

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) Pg 77 (blue box) What did they do? What did they

find? What does it mean about Asch?

Berns et al (2005) Brain scan evidence

Boel et al (2006) Pg 77 (blue box) What did they do? What did they

find? What does it mean about Asch?