To investigate what if participants were exposed to normative social influence in a solution were there could be no doubt about the correct answer to a question? How would they conform?

Findings/Results- there was a surprising amount of conformity. On 32 per cent of the critical trials (those when the confederates had given the wrong answers), naïve participants conformed to the unanimous view of the majority. This might not strike you as a particularly high figure, but remember that the correct answer was always obvious. 74 per cent of naive participants conformed at least once. 13 out of 50 participants never conformed. Some of these (independent) participants were confident in their judgements. More often, however, they experienced tension and doubt but managed to resist the pressure being exerted by the unanimous majority.

• Post experimental- during Post experimental interviews with his participants, Asch found that conformity occurred at three levels-

1. Few conforming participants experienced distortion of perception and were unaware that the majority had distorted their estimates. These participants claimed that they had actually perceived the line identified by the majority as the correct answer.

2. Most conforming participants experienced a distortion of judgement: they thought that their perception must be inaccurate and for that reason they yielded to the majority view.

3.  Some conforming participants did not undergo a distortion of perception or think that judgement must be wrong. Rather, they yielded to the majority (distortion of action) because they could not bear to be in a minority of one and risk ridiculed or excluded by the group.

• Effects of varying procedures-

1. A non –unanimous majority- Asch found that levels of conformity dropped dramatically when just one other participant dissented from the majority and supported the naïve participant. A number of studies investigating the effects of dissenters have shown that a dissenter only had to give a different answer from the majority, even a different wrong answer, for conformity levels to be reduced.

2. The size of majority consisted of only two people, conformity responses in naïve participants dropped to 12.8 per cent of their total judgements. Optimum conformity effects (32 per cent of responses) were found with a majority of three. Increasing the size of the majority beyond three did not increase the levels of conformity found.

3. Losing or gaining a partner- the effect of losing a partner was tested by having the naïve participant start with ‘partner’ who responded correctly to begin with but who ‘deserted’ to the majority in the middle of the procedure. This resulted in conformity levels of 28.5 per cent n critical judgements. When a participant who had started the procedure as a minority of one received a ‘partner’ part way through, this reduced conformity responses to 8.7 per cent.

4. The nature of the task- as Asch reduced the clarity of the task or increased its difficulty, the levels of conformity increased.

5. Mode of response- When Asch asked his participants to write their answers rather than call them out aloud, conformity levels dropped sharply. This illustrates the difference between public compliance (overtly adhering to social norms) and private acceptance (actually thinking as others do).

Conclusion- Asch’s research establishes a number of things. The participants were conforming to the group norms bringing them acceptance and approval for they felt that disapproval can bring nonconformity and rejection. People are social beings; they have a need to belong, to feel part of a social group. People are influenced to alter their behaviour to fit the expectations of others. People yield to group pressure and behave in a way that others consider appropriate, reasonable and desirable in order to gain social acceptance and approval. Ash proved that in certain situations we tend to conform to the behaviour of others despite privately disagreeing with their behaviour, this is known as Public Compliance. It occurs in response to normative social influence. In the presence of others people often act in terms of social norms and give the impression they approve of these norms in order to gain acceptance and approval.

Evaluation-

Laboratory Experiments

• Asch experimental situation is sometimes criticised for being unlike real life (lacking Ecological Validity). Why choose a task where the correct answer was so obvious? Well, he did not want where participants might genuinely have doubts about the correct response. In his later studies, he actually showed that conformity levels were higher when the answers were less obvious.

• However, the experimental method can be defended. It can be argued it has a certain advantages over normal, everyday social settings. Asch’s line-matching experiments illustrate this. Why create an artificial situation in which people- the confederates- behaves in such an unreal manners? Why confront partcipiants with complete strangers? The answer is that if participants conform in this setting it will show the power o pure group pressure. The confederates strangers- the participants will never see them again so in this respect their disapproval won’t mean that much. The experiment has therefore created a situation to indicate the power of group pressure. Everything else that might encourage conformity has been stripped away. We would unlikely to find a similar to study outside laboratory.

 

• Furman and Duke (1988) -examined conformity in more real-life situations have demonstrated how others may be the source of influence, especially when people were uncertain how to act. Furman and Duke (1988) asked students to listen o two versions of each orchestral excerpt. The students were either majoring I music on their degree programme or were majoring in another subject. Each student, on their own, selected a preferred version for each of the ten pairs of excerpts. They were then individually tested in the presence of three confederates who unanimously stated a verbal preference. However, the publicity stated preferences of non-music majors were significantly affected by the preferences of the confederates. When a group of students, acting as controls (a comparison group), wrote their responses instead of stating them aloud after hearing confederates preferences, no conformity effects were found. You might consider to what extent those around you influence your tastes in music and fashion.

Time-

Asch’s experiments were conducted in the early 1950 in the USA. The relatively high level of conformity in Asch’s research was seen by some as a reflection of American Society in the 1950s. This was a time when non-conformity was discouraged. The Mc Carthy '‘which hunts’’- investigations into so-called un-American activities- hounded anybody suspected of communist sympathies, of accusing them of treason. Thousands lost their jobs and hundreds were imprisoned for failing to conform to the “American Way’. So- called ‘ subversives’, such as the playwright Arthur Miller, were punished for their non-conformist attitudes by having to face the House of un-American Activities to defend their actions.