Summary
Summary AQA A level psychology conformity notes
- Module
- Social Influence
- Institution
- AQA
Includes detailed A01 + A03
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L2 - conformity studies:Asch
A : to investigate if the effect of conformity to a majority when a task is unambiguous
M : laboratory study, with 123 American male undergraduate - volunteer sample - study of visual
perception (deception)
P : ppts involved in line judgment task - shown two card
1. with reference line
2. Three other line - had to compare reference line to options to see which is the same length
3. Naive ppts tested individually - room with 6-8 confederates - always seated last or second to
last
4. Conducted 18 trials in total - first few trials confederate gave right answer
5. 12 trials gave the wrong answer
R : ppts gave wrong answer 36.8% of the time, 25% never conformed and 75% conformed at
least once - shows high levels of conformity
C : when interviewed - ppts said conformed due to 2 reasons distortion of action and distortion
of judgment
Distortion of action - majority of ppt who conformed continued to trust their private perception
and judgments but changed their public behavior = SHOWS NSI AND COMPLIANCE
Distortion of judgment - a small minority doubted their perception and became convinced that
the majority was correct = SHOWS ISI
Variation of asch’s study :
1. group size (curvilinear relationship = increase to a certain level then plateaus) with 3
confederates the conformity rose to 31.8% but he found that if 4-5 confederates there was little
differences in conformity . A group of 3 was considered the optimal group size for conformity to
occur
2. Unanimity (presence of non - conforming person effect conformity) = when all the
confederates gave the wrong answer conformity rate was as high as 33% but when one
confederate gave a different wrong answer or right answer. This led to reduction in conformity
fell to about 25% due to the idea of social support - reduced the effect of social pressure even
when the dissenter claimed they have poor eyesight = allows you to resist
● confederate who gave the right answer - 5.5.%
● Confederate who gave the wrong answer - 9%
3. Difficulty to task (correct line was more difficult to determine by making lines more similar)
conformity increased due to informational social influence due to situation being more
ambiguous so more likely to look at others for guidance assuming they are right
, Evaluation:
P : lacks temporal validity
E: Asch only found high conformity rates because research was conducted in 1950s where
America was in era of McCarthyism = period where there was strong anti-communist feeling in
America
E : anyone who went against the majority - stand out and viewed as not patriotic = people were
scared to be different = more likely to conform
E: 1980s Perrin and Spencer conducted same study with science and engineering students
found 1/396 students conformed - could be based on the norms and values of the time 1950s
L: levels of conformity changes over time depending on events taking place
CA: USED MATH AND SCIENCE STUDENTS = EXPERT KNOWLEDGE = PARTICIPANT
VARIABLES
P: risk of demand characteristics
E: ppts could have easily worked out the true nature of the experiment because of the nature of
the task (unambiguous) . This meant that when confederates gave the wrong answer when the
answer was clear it made ppts suspicious
E: they then displayed ‘screw you effect’ which is where they do the opposite of what’s expected
of them = explain the 25% they never conformed or ‘please you’ effect where they do what’s
expected of them and go along with the research
L: invalidates asch’s study as this suggests that people do not conform as much as it was seen
in Asch study
P : limited application
E : gender bias present by asch. Neto suggested women more conformist as more concerned
with social relationships and being accepted - more likely to seek NSI = issue of beta bias
E : there is culture bias - smith and bond conducted a meta analysis of studies from different
countries and found that collectivist cultures had an average conformity rate of 37% whereas
individualistic cultures had a lower rate of 25%. This is because collectivist cultures are
socialised to value the collective goal of the group whilst individualistic cultures emphasis on
personal achievement and independence
L : cannot be extrapolated to target population as can only apply to American men - doesn’t take
into account gender and cultural differences Cannot be used universally
IF YOU REALLY NEED ANOTHER PEEL = ETHICAL ISSUES
P: methodological issues
E: lab experiment was conducted so both the task and a the environment was artificial And
trivial people would not be asked in real life to compare length of lines
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