theoretical context

1. THEORETICAL CONTEXT
• Asch formed the theory of conformity in 1956 which was made to
find that the group size influenced whether the subjects conformed.
• According to his theory, the bigger the majority group, the more
people conformed but only up to a certain point
• The theory of conformity by Asch also tells us that people's
individual perceptions can be influenced by the perceptions of a
larger group
• Asch also found that people were willing to ignore reality and give an
incorrect answer in order to conform to the rest of the group.
• Asch's conformity experiments were a series of studies conducted in
1950s to test how peer pressure to conform would influence the
judgment and individuality of a test subject.

2. HYPOTHESIS:
Participants will change their
answers in order to conform to
how the others in the group
responded.
When confederates uniformly
gave a particular response in a
group setting, the lone true
participant would feel pressure to
conform to the group consensus. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.

3. VARIABLES
Independent variables:
• The 'response of the confederates' was the independent variable
• The conformity was all based on the number of confederates and the answer
they gave in the group and the larger the group the more conformity took
place with their response
Dependent variable:
• The 'subject's response' to the same question was the dependent variable
• The power of the conformity as seen here when the subjects gave the same
answer that was given the confederates because of the influence of peer
pressure even though the answer was incorrect