PSYC 023 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Moe Williams, Psych, Collectivism
Document Summary
Experiment: only 23% of the critical participants always have the correct answer and went against the group on all 12 trials. Crutchfield apparatus: a machine that consists of an electrical panel with several rows of lights; it allows the efficient study of conformity by stimulating the responses of numerous hypothetical participants. The only exception was for judgments that involved selecting which of two drawings were preferred. In this case of expressing personal preferences, there was little or no effect of group pressure. The amount of conformity found in asch-type experiments, or using the. Crutchfield apparatus, depends on the features of the judgment task. One feature is the ambiguity of the task: conformity is more likely when tasks are ambiguous. Conformity is also influenced by the difficulty of the task. Difficult tasks might increase conformity because people are less certain of their own answer.
