Conformity

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Conformity

• September 12, 2006

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Aschs 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 ones own
  senses

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The Line Study Correct Answer?
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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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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

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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. Ive never had any feeling
  that there is a virtue in being liked by others.
  Im used to being different. I often came out
  well by being different.
• Is independence socialized or in-born?

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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?

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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

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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 didnt want to be the only
  one disagreeing, but because I was sure I was
  wrong and didnt want to foul up your
  statistics.
• Demand characteristics?

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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

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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.

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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?

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Conformity Pressure Strongest When

• An individual is faced with
• A large unanimous 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.

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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??

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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?

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Discussion 1 Breasting Feeding in Public
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Discussion 2 Racial Profiling