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Conformity. September 12, 2006. Asch’s “Failed” Experiment. Dominant view in psychology was that people were conformists. Asch believed people are not as conforming as psychologists believed. If people were asked to judge objective facts then they would not yield to conformity pressure
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Conformity September 12, 2006
Asch’s “Failed” Experiment • Dominant view in psychology was that people were conformists. • Asch believed people are not as conforming as psychologists believed. • If people were asked to judge objective facts then they would not yield to conformity pressure • KEY: Objective facts are verifiable by one’s own senses
Procedure • Subjects: Male college undergraduates • Deception: Test of visual perception EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS • Majority: 7-9 people who were confederates. • Minority: Naïve subject who was the next to last person to give his judgment. • Control: Students who judged the lines while alone
Results • Control: • Made errors less than 1% of the time • 95% were free of error • Experimental: • Made errors 37% of the time. • Only 25% of the subjects showed errorless performance
Individual Differences • Independents: Judged correctly on all 12 trails, never yielding to the majority. • Yielders: Judged incorrectly on all 12 trials, always being swayed by the majority • Overall: The preponderance of judgments were independent, meaning that the influence of reality exceeded that of the majority.
Reactions to Group Pressure • Emotional reactions: • Feeling concern over the disagreement • Alienation from the group (e.g. loneliness) • Discomfort at being the center of attention • Cognitive reactions • Is there an illusion based on the fact that the lines are so close together? • Maybe everyone is looking at width not length?
Independence vs. Yielding • Differential psychological reactions to majority pressure • Not all of those who remained independent were affected in the same way • Not all of those who yielded were affected in the same way Key Point: Psychological effects not obvious based on overt behavior
Independence of Strength • Confident in the correctness of their position and remained independent from the group. • Q: What in your character and experience would you say was responsible for the way you acted in the experiment? • A: “Long years of practice in being different from other children. I’ve never had any feeling that there is a virtue in being liked by others. I’m used to being different. I often came out well by being different.” • Is independence socialized or in-born?
Independence without confidence • Emotional reactions similar to yielders: • Experienced great doubt • Convinced that their personal judgments were innacurate • Felt sure that the majority was correct • Why did they remain independent? • Felt obligated to respond honestly • Why would they feel obligated to the experimenter?
Yielding at the perceptual level • Subjects (a small minority) who yielded without even being aware of it! • Very little emotional reaction: Calm and complacent • Proposed reason: • Extreme sense of personal inadequacy • Deep desire to join the group • Caveat: Very little is known about them
Yielding at the level of judgment • Subjects who decided quickly, “I am wrong and they are right.” • Similar to those who were independent but without confidence Quote • “But I went with them, not only because I was sure I was wrong and didn’t want to be the only one disagreeing, but because I was sure I was wrong and didn’t want to foul up your statistics.” • Demand characteristics?
Yielding at the level of action • Subjects who yielded even though they saw the lines correctly each time • Compliance not based on belief that the majority was correct, but on the fear of being different or estranged from the group • Nothing to lose by going along with the crowd
Factors that Impact Conformity Pressure • Majority Size: Conformity increases with increasing group size, but after 5 people the effect diminishes. • Unanimity: A unanimous majority creates most pressure, but independence more likely when another person dissents. • Cohesion: People more likely to conform to members of their own group and less likely to conform to members of another group.
Factors that Impact Conformity Pressure (continued) • Status: People of high status more likely to induce conformity while people of low status more likely to conform (findings mixed). • Commitment: Once a person has committed to a position in public, he/she will rarely back-down in response to group pressure. • What would happen in the Asch experiments if the naïve subject went first and was then asked if he/she wanted to re-consider?
Conformity Pressure Strongest When… An individual is faced with: A largeunanimous majority of people who are members of your own group but of higher status and you have not had the opportunity to publicly state your opinion. Example: Professor Goncalo at a faculty meeting.
Conformity Across Cultures • Higher degree of conformity in collectivistic cultures, based on replications of Asch experiment. • Alternative viewpoint: Are people in individualistic cultures conforming to the expectation to stand out and resist the crowd? • Is conformity a non-conforming response in an individualistic culture??
Reactance or Independence? • "There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist." (Ayn Rand) • Is someone who always goes against the group also a conformist? What is the difference between being independent and always doing the opposite? How can you tell?
