Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Asch (1955)
- Basics
- 1955
- Conformity
- Polish, moved
to US, worked
with Gestalt
- Nature of Democracy, and
group influence on individuals
+ majority-minority
- Previous research by Thorndike
- Also Sherif's (1951) auto
kinetic effect conformity
- The study
- N=123, 7-9 people
in each group (one
participant)
- 3 lines
- 1st and 2nd trial,
confederates give
correct answers,
but after 3rd all
given obviously
wrongly
- 18 trials altogether
- 12/18 trails were
rigged with
confederates
being wrong
- Results
- 76% conformed at least
once (24% didn't)
- Everyone takes took
the group judgement
into account
- All confused
- Those that
conformed felt
they were the
problem, not
the group
- Interpretation
- Independence
- With confidence
- Without confidence
- Yielding/Distortion
- Of Action
- Of Perception
- Of Judgement
- Replications
- Quality of the task
- Varying
size of
error
- Larger difference of
lines, between 1-7''
- Hardly effected results
- Quality of group
opposition - size
of majority
- Varied number of
confederate opposition
- 1 - 15 confederates
as majority
- Maximum number
needed = 3.
- 1=3.6% wrong, 2=13.6%,
3=31.8%, 15=31.2%
- Quality of opposition
- type of support
- Varied type of support
- Support = 12.6%
- Support but
wrong = 9%
- S departs = 10%
- S defects = 28%
- Majority and
minority size
- 9 confederates and 11
participants in a group
- Participants receive
support from each other,
becoming the majority
- Debate and controversy
- Minority influence
- Moscovici (1976) stated the
confederate group to be a minority
- When thinking from
the room view, group is
the majority. However
when seen with a
world view, the group
is a minority of people.
- Taschfelt's
experimental vacuum -
apps already seeing lab
situation from their
own world perspective,
no blank slate.
- Conformity bias
- Task content...
- No uncertainty Ross et al.
- Nothing to lose or gain by
conforming, may act differently
when resources at stake
- Personal relevance
- No opportunity to confer
- However, doesn't
change much, used
for justification
instead of debate.
- Generalisability
- Age
- Young children
conform the most
- Gender
- Women tend to
conform more
- Culture
- Collectivist culture
conform more than
individualist
- Time period
- Conformity decreased over
time, better knowledge, but
also affected by world events
- Impact & Legacy
- Findings support that
groups are rational,
however often used to
prove the opposite.
- Group deficit model
- Enshrined in physical and social
reality testing (Festinger, 1950), and
normative/informational influence
- Impact of groups is secondary
and inferior, hence best avoided
- Social reality testing -
objective distinction between
internal (thoughts) and
external (reality) things.
- Deutsch & Gerard (1955)
- Normative vs informational influence
- Normative =
conformity:
Wanting to be
accepted by group
- Informational =
conversion:
Motivation to be
correct about a
situation
- Recently re-examined: Turner
(1981), Asch shows all reality
testing is both influences.
- Referent
informational
theory
- Politeness
- Believe first
confederate has vision
impairment, others
humour him to save
embarrassment.
- Alernatives
- Mishearing/understanding
the question, best to go
with others
- Social
desirability
- Don't want to
ruin experiment