1. Asch’s Conformity Studies
Social Influence
Asch’s Conformity Studies

2. Asch’s Study of Conformity

3. Asch’s Conformity Study

4. Asch’s Results About 1/3 of the participants conformed.
70% conformed at least once.

5. Social Influence PUBLIC CONFORMITY Normative Social Influence
*being sensitive to social norms
*influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
PRIVATE CONFORMITY
Informational Social Influence
*influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality; expert

6. Social Influence
Here, the naïve individual (#6) display obvious concern about the majority’s erroneous judgment.

7. Social Influence Conformity increases when:
*one is made to feel incompetent or insecure
*the group is unanimous
*one admires the group’s status and attractiveness
*one has made no prior commitment to any response
*others in the group observe one’s behavior
*one’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards (individualistic vs. collectivist cultures)
*difficulty & importance of decision also affect conformity rate

8. Social Influence
Participants judged which person in Slide 2 was the same as the person in Slide 1
Difficult judgments
Easy judgments
Conformity highest
on important
judgments
Low High
Importance
50% 40 30 20 10
Percentage of
conformity to
confederates’
wrong answers
When the task was unimportant, people conformed about 1/3 of the time. When the task appeared important, people rarely conformed when the task was easy, but conformed half the time when the task was difficult.
Baron, Vandello & Brunsman (1996) p.705

9. Conformity: The Chameleon Effect
Humans are natural mimics. Unconsciously mimicking others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones helps us feel what they are feeling.

10. Social Influence The chameleon effect Participant Participant
rubs face shakes foot
Confederate rubs face
Confederate shakes foot
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Number
of times
When with a face-rubbing and foot-shaking confederate, participants tended to likewise rub their face or shake their foot.
Chartrand & Bargh, 1999