This document summarizes extensions and variations of Solomon Asch's conformity experiments. It discusses factors that increase conformity, such as more difficult tasks or a unanimous majority of three people. Factors that decrease conformity include a majority of only two people or a non-unanimous majority. A key study by Crutchfield found conformity even when participants made judgments alone. Later research found conformity levels decreased over time and varied by culture.

1. Extensions to Asch’s research
Since the original study
Asch has run a number of
variations of his study to
find out the circumstances
under which people will
conform or will not
conform to a majority.

2. Factors that INCREASE
conformity
1. The nature of the task – when the
task was made more difficult the
conformity levels increased (as in
Crutchfield’s study)
2. Majority of 3 people – when the
majority consisted of 3 people he
found optimum conformity effects
(32%). Increasing the size beyond 3
did not increase the level of
conformity found.

3. Factors that DECREASED
conformity levels
1. Majority of only two people -
conformity responses in the p’s
dropped to 12.8% of their total
judgements when the majority
consisted of only 2 people.
2. A non-unanimous majority (not
everyone agreed with the majority) –
conformity levels dropped to 5%
when one participant dissented from
the majority and supported the naïve
participant

4. Key Study 2
Crutchfield (1955)

5. Aim
 Crutchfield wanted to establish
whether other people need to be
physically present for conformity to
occur, or if the belief that others are
carrying out the same task is all that is
necessary.

6. Procedure
 More than 600 participants were tested
 P’s included American college students and military personnel
 They were tested for conformity on a range of tasks, including clearly
incorrect factual statements and personal opinions
◦ Task 1 – Asch style task
◦ Task 2 – Do you agree that a star has a larger surface area than a circle?
(it was in fact a third smaller) HARDER TASK
◦ Task 3 – Do you agree with the statement – ‘I doubt I would make an
effective leader’ TASK THAT INVOLVED OPINION
 participants worked in booths on their own, so were not directly exposed to
other participants.
 They were asked to indicate agreement or disagreement by means of
switches which would turn on lights.
 They were told that the lights on the display panel showed the responses by
the other participants. In fact the experimenter controlled these lights and
each participants saw an identical display.

7. Findings
 The level of conformity varied with the
nature of the task.
 There was 46% conformity to Task 2 -
agreement that a star had a larger
surface area than a circle
 30% conformity to Task 1- Asch-type
task [supporting evidence for Asch’s
study]
 37% agreed with Task 3 ‘I doubt that I
would make an effective leader’’….none
of whom did so when asked on their
own.

8. Conclusions
 He extended Asch's work by
demonstrating conformity not only in
factual judgments, but also opinions.
 When the task was made more
difficult conformity levels increased.

9. Evaluation
 Ethics – what ethical guidelines were
broken and how were they broken?
 This study can be criticised for
lacking ecological validity. This was
because ………
 The study showed that Asch’s
findings were reliable because …….

10. Other factors affecting
conformity
1. The importance of time
 Perin and Spencer (1981) argued that
Asch’s classic conformity study reflected
the social and historical aspects of 1950s
America where pressure to conform was
strong
 Perin and Spencer replicated Asch’s task
25 years later in 1981
 33 male students were used – they
found only one conforming response in
396 trials. This shows that conformity
was much lower in the 1980s than Asch
had originally found in the 1950s

11. 2. The importance of culture
 Smith and Bond (1998) reviewed 31
studies of conformity conducted in
different cultures using Asch’s
procedure.
 They concluded that people living in
non-western cultures (family and
community are seen as being really
important) show higher levels of
conformity than those who live in
Western cultures (where individuality
is preferred).