Reflect the experiment Asch conducted in 1951.

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Title

Group Size and Conformity.

Abstract

The experiment I will carry out to find my aim will reflect the experiment Asch conducted in 1951. To find out if conformity does really exist and if increasing the number of confederates in a group will have any significant changes. Previous research has indicated that conformity increases when confederates increase. I will have a group of students, who will undergo a test within a group. The number of confederates will increase within the group, starting with two people, 1 of whom will be a confederate. The participants will be from my college and they will roughly be of the same age group. The group size will increase with the addition of more participants and a further one confederate. The chosen method for this experiment is experimental as I am comparing two variables, group size and conformity. I will use an independent measure design as different participants will be used in different situations. We want to see in this experiment if conformity occurs when someone voluntarily performs an act because others are doing it as previous research has indicated.

Introduction

Conformity is defined by Zimbardo (1992) as, ‘A tendency for people to adopt behaviour, values and attitudes of other members of a reference group.’ Mann (1969) identified the two major types of conformity: normative conformity and informational conformity.
Normative conformity is caused by a desire to be liked. People conform because they think that other members of their reference group will like and accept them. They also want to avoid embarrassment and humiliation from other group members.

 It is a desire to right that forms the basis of informational conformity; people conform because they look to others whom they believe to be correct to give them information.
In 1951, Asch conducted an experiment into conformity. Previous studies into conformity, such as Sherif’s 1935 study using auto-kinetic effect, were based on ambiguous tasks, where there was no obvious answer. Asch believed that if the answer was made obvious, there could be no doubt that the subject was conforming if he followed the answers of the rest of the group.

In the experiment, a pair of card where shown to people sitting around the table. The first card had a line on it, and the second card had three lines, of varying length. The participants were asked which of the lines on the second card matched the line on the first card in length, and gave their answer in front of the rest of the group. All but one of the participants was confederates of the examiner, and was instructed to give the same wrong answer. The naive participant answered second last.

Asch found that 32% of the trials, the naive subject conformed to answer given by the rest of the group, and 72% of naive subjects conformed at least once. 13 out of 50 naive participants never conformed. When he interviewed the naive participants afterward, he found that conformity existed on three levels: distortion of judgement, distortion of perception and distortion of action. Those who experienced distortion of judgement conformed because they trusted the group’s judgement over their own. Those that experienced distortion of action knew that they were right, but changed conformed to avoid ridicule from the rest of the group. Finally, those who experienced distortion of perception actually believed that they saw the group’s choice as matching the line on the card. Asch’s experiment raised three interesting points to consider.

a). Conformity increases when the task is ambiguous.

b). Conformity decreases when performance on a task by a naive person is supported by the behaviour or performance of a confederate or ally.

d.) Conformity decreases if subjects answered on a piece of paper.

All these issues will be considered when I carry out my experiment to see if the same points are observed.

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Many other researches from other different researchers have shown similar findings. 

Aims

My aim in this experiment is to find out if conformity increases when the number of confederates in a group increases. As well as this, I would like to see what happens to conformity as the group increases. Asch did this sort of experiment in 1951. In a way I am replicating his study. As the confederate’s increases in the group, the conformity levels will rise due to correct procedures and methods. As well as this, previous research has evidence for this hypothesis. However, if I do not ...

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