Conformity: how groups of people influence other groups of people.
Asch’s Experiment- the predictions: Because of the relative ease of the task, participants would get 100% correct.
Experts predicted this would not show conformity.
The Results: About 33% of the participants conformed.
These blamed “poor eyesight” or blatant misjudgment.
What influences conformity?
Positive correlation: Group Size, Cohesiveness, Gender.
Negative correlation: Social Support
No correlation: Race
So why does this happen?
Two basic concepts of motivation here-
Normative Social Influence:
Going along with others because of the desire to be liked.
Informational Social Influence:
Going along with others because of the desire to be correct.
Interesting as we all do this to some extent.
