Psychology Notes for AS & A2

AQA Specification A

Module 3

Social Psychology - Conformity & Minor Influence

Definition of Conformity

Crutchfield defined conformity as "yielding to group pressure".

Aronson defined conformity as "a change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Why do People conform?

• INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCES
  because they lack information or do not know the answer. People assume that others probably know more than the do. This may apply to the Jenness and Sherif studies.
• NORMATIVE INFLUENCES
  people want to be accepted as part of the group, don't want to be different. This may apply to the Asch studies.

Types of conformity

Kelman believed there were three types of conformity:

• COMPLIANCE
  go along even though you don't change your mind, believe the group to be wrong but still conform.
• INTERNALISATION
  because they become persuaded that the group is right, they change their opinion not just their behaviour.
• IDENTIFICATION
  because everyone else is, these people don't think, typical of younger teenagers.

Jenness 1932

Jenness was the first person to study conformity, his experiment involved a glass bottle filled with beans. He asked people individually to estimate how many beans the bottle contained, then put the group in a room with the bottle, and asked them to provide a group estimate.

He then interviewed the subjects individually again, and asked if they would like to change their original estimates, or stay with the group's estimate. Almost all changed their individual guesses to be closer to the group estimate.

Sherif 1935

Sherif carried out an Autokinetic study. He put subjects in a room which would soon be darkened. He told them that a light would appear in front of them for an instant, then be extinguished then another light would appear and also be extinguished. He asked them to tell him how far the light had moved.  The light had not moved at all, but because the subjects had been asked the specific question "how far…?" they assumed that it had, and gave a distance.

Sherif then conducted the same study with the whole group of subjects in the room, and asked each in turn the distance they thought the light had moved. He discovered that whatever answer the first person provided, the rest would all be very close, regardless of their individual assessment the first time round.

The significant difference between the Jenness and Sherif studies, is that Jenness requested a group answer, whereas Sherif never did.

Asch 1950's

Asch studied a group of six subjects (now called participants, due to political correctness).  He projected a straight line onto a screen, then a group of three lines of differing lengths: A, B and C, where B was exactly the same size as the original line, but A and C were very obviously different lengths. He then asked which line was nearer to the first in length. 

Only one of the group of six was a real subject, the other five being associates of Asch. The real subject was second to last to be asked, and the four preceding gave false answers (e.g. "A"). The subject would generally follow the answer the other "subjects" had given, even if plainly incorrect.

This did not happen every time, but 74% went along with what the group said at least once, producing a level of 32% conformity. When debriefing the actual subjects, they said they knew the answer they were giving was wrong, but they still followed the group.

Asch carried out this study in many ways, varying the numbers of subjects and position of the real subject in the line up with differing results.

• If the subject was asked last, it made them suspicious.
• If the subject was near the beginning, they were less likely to conform as there were too few to conform to.
• If the size of the group was increased, the level of conformity still remained at 32%.
• With only two subjects, if the first one gave the correct answer, then the second would also give the correct answer, dropping the level of conformity to 5%.

Crutchfield 1954

Crutchfield was aware of the studies that Asch had carried out and wanted to improve them by making a few significant changes. He primarily wanted to test a much larger quantity of subjects, and doing this the way Asch had (one real subject per test) would be too time consuming, so he developed a way to test large numbers of subjects at once.

The test room was set up with many cubicles lining the edges so that when the subjects were in place they could not see or be seen by the other subjects. The experiment was to see if people would conform less if they were not face to face with the rest of the group.

A screen and buttons were placed in each booth, a picture would appear on the screen, be removed and other images appear. The subjects were asked to select which following image was the same as the first, and press the corresponding button. Each screen had a number, and each person would be asked numerically to select their choice, while the results of the selection were shown in all booths.

The twist here, is that all booths were number six, and all other answers were dummies. This eliminated the need for dummy subjects, as each subject was effectively giving an individual response.

Crutchfield carried this study out with varying inputs: Asch's lines, stars, pictures etc. The results of this study showed that conformity levels rose to 50% instead of down as Crutchfield had expected.

Unfortunately the study is invalid, as Crutchfield sourced all his subjects from military bases, and military personnel are trained to conform!

When the test was repeated with a more typical group of ordinary people, the conformity level returned to the 32% that had arisen from Asch's studies.

Perrin & Spencer 1980

Perrin & Spencer decided to carry out their studies in the UK, believing that UK citizens would conform less than Americans. Their studies showed a very low level of conformity, and they published a report stating that the British were less conformist, and not at all like sheep.

These studies too, were faulty. Perrin & Spencer had selected their subjects from universities, specifically engineering students, who are trained to make exact measurements!

Again, when the test used ordinary people, the result was 32% conformity.

Zimbardo 1973

Zimbardo worked as a psychology lecturer at Stanford University in the USA. He conducted the prison test, where subjects were allocated the role of prisoner or prison guard, and the study was run in the basement of the university for two weeks. This was to study Conformity to Role Models.

In the middle of the night prior to the commencement of the study, Zimbardo arranged for each of the subjects playing the role of prisoner to be arrested by the police at their homes. They were taken to the police station, have their fingerprints taken, then transported to the cells set up at the university. This was done without their prior knowledge.

The study had to be aborted by Zimbardo after the subjects playing the guards became very aggressive and started abusing the subjects playing the prisoners. The guards acted extremely oppressively, and the prisoners acted very submissively.

Zimbardo had not at any time instructed any of the subjects how to act in these circumstances. The subjects had taken their own views of how guards and prisoners should act, and these views were reinforced by each other as the study went on.

This is an interested study from an ethical point of view, but all the subjects were volunteers, all had signed up and given their full consent for the study to take place, none of them had been instructed how to act.

Zimbardo actually reported himself to the American Psychological Society for mistreating his subjects and causing harm to them. He was investigated, but it was proved that he had taken all precautions, done all he could and even aborted the study, and was cleared.  The research from this study did get put to good use though – it was taken on by mental institutions and prisons to train their staff.

Moscovici & Facheaux 1969

These two French researchers wanted to see if a minority could influence a majority. Six subjects (two of which were plants) were tested for good eyesight and colour vision. As a group they were shown 36 slide projections of varying shades of blue.  When asked what colour the slides were, the two plants would say green, which was obviously wrong, as the four real subjects would have known.

The results showed that if the two plants agreed with each other and were friendly but very confident in their answers with no hint of doubt, then the majority of the remainder could be persuaded that the slides were in fact green.

Moscovici & Facheaux conducted variations on this study, including not allowing the subjects to leave the room until they came to a unanimous decision.

During debriefing it arose that many subjects actually believed the slides were green – they had actually changed their opinions to yield to minority pressure (Internalisation).  If the two plant subjects hesitated or were bossy or nasty there was no hope of conformity from the real subjects.

Examples of Minority Influence

• Juries
• The "Green" movement (considered fringe nutters twenty years ago)
• Suffragettes

Allen & Levine 1968

Allen & Levine did not conduct a study of their own, but studied all the research done by other people on the subject of conformity.  They discovered that people were more likely to conform when it did not involve moral beliefs. Where important issues or beliefs were involved, the subjects were more likely to stick to their guns.

All Material Copyright © 2001 / 2002 Kerridwen Red