The Journal of Social Psychology. 1996, 13643). 367-372 Conformity in the Asch Task as a Function of Age MICHAEL B. WALKER MARIA G. ANDRADE Department of Psychology University of Sydney, Australia ABSTRACT. The social conformity paradigm of Asch (1956) was replicated to investi gate the relationship between age and conformist behavior. One hundred ten Australian school children and adolescents between 3 and 17 years of age participated in the study. Each participant was placed in the position of being a minority of | against a wrong but unanimous majority of 3. The results indicate that conformity decreases with age in per- ceptually unambiguous tasks. Conflicting evidence from earlier studies can be attributed to task ambiguity in those studies, IN THE ASCH CONFORMITY TASK, an individual (the “participant”) is placed with a group of experimental “confederates” who behave as if they were also participants in the research. The task involves choosing one of three lines that is the same length as a test line, On a critical trial, the experimental confed- erates unanimously choose an incorrect line. The central question concerns whether or not the participant gives the same incorrect response as the majority (conformity) or the correct response, despite the majority choice (independence). With a majority of three or more confederates, Asch (1956) found that approxi- mately 30% of the subjects’ responses on a critical trial were conformist. The degree of influence of many different variables on the size of the con- formity effect was also investigated by Asch (1956) and others, Among those independent variables was age of the participant. A range of conflicting results have been reported (see Table 1). The range can be explained by differences in the experiments: Participants from different age groups were involved, but none of the researchers used a range from 3 years to adulthood with five or more age categories. Most, but not all, used the Asch task. Most did not use the face-to-face procedure used by Asch, but they presented participants with recorded judgments, Address correspondence 10 Michael B. Walker, Department of Psychology: University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Austratic. 367 nein) © OAAE Al) Binkte Baceuad36X_The Journ wf Social Pevchologs _ TABLE 1 of the Relation Between Age and Conformity Age (years) Design Stimuli Pressure Conformity Study Berenda 9) 7-10 Asch lines Unambiguous Face-to-Face Decreased (1950) TE eve, 256 7 Metronome Ambiguous & Recorded Increased Williams, 9 clicks unambiguous judgments (males) peak & Harvey 2 at 12 (females) (1963) 15 Costanzo 96 7-9 Asch lines Ambiguous Lights Increased to & Shaw ns ‘relatively showing 11-13. then 1966) 15.17 group decreased 19.21 judgments Hoving, 108 Counting Ambiguous & Recorded Increased or Hamm, T]-dots unambiguous judgments decreased & Galvin ls depending on 1969) ask Bishop & 144 8-12. Asch lines Unambiguous Recorded Decreased Beckman judgments, «g7ty Coher 9 Louder of Ambiguous & Recorded Decreased for Bomstein, 11 wo tones unambiguous judgments both tasks & Sherman B (1972) supposedly made by the majority. Finally, and most important, the ambiguity of the task varied from experiment to experiment. The stimuli used by Asch were unam- biguous; no errors were made in pretesting. However, if the three line lengths are made more similar in length, doubt about the correct answer increases. Asch demonstrated that conformity increases as the correct judgment becomes more ambiguous. The single factor that appears to be most influential in explaining the difter- ent conclusions reached in different studies is the ambiguity of the stimuli. With unambiguous stimuli, conformity declines with age (Berenda 1950; Bishop & Beckman 1971; Hoving, Hamm, & Galvin 1969: Iscoe, Williams, & Harvey 1963). When the stimuli are unambiguous, the participant is faced with a clear conflict between reality and the choice of the majority. It may be assumed th: increasing age brings with it increasing confidence in one’s grasp of reality. Pet hhaps it is relevant in this connection that less conformity is observed among the more highly educated (Tuddenham, 1958). The different conclusions reached for ambiguous stimuli could be explained in terms of the decreased conflict betweenWalker & Andrade 369 reality and the majority judgment (the majority may well be correct), and the increased importance of group reinforcement for shared norms. However, the conclusions discussed thus far have been based on studies of children no younger than 7 years of age. For children younger than 7, two opposing hypotheses may be considered: Conformity will be higher, consistent with the trend from previ- ous research; or conformity will be lower because very young children are less concerned with peer approval (Hoving et al. 1969). Method Participants One hundred fifty-four male participants between the ages of 3 and 17 years were drawn from two institutions: a primary school (age ranges 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11 years) and a secondary school (age ranges 12-14 and 15-17 years). The two schools were private schools selected from the same area of Sydney, and students in those schools could be characterized as middle class. No students with impaired eyesight (44 of the 154) were included in the final sample. The sample sizes for the five groups were as follows: 3-5-year-olds, n = 20; 6-8- year-olds, n= 26; 9-1 l-year-olds, n = 21; 12-14-year-olds, n = 21; 15-17-year- olds, n = 22. Materials The experiment followed as closely as possible Asch’s original experimen- tal method in terms of stimuli, procedures, and setting. The task involved choos- ing one of three comparison lines that was equal in length to a test line. The stim= uli consisted of 1-cm thick black strips mounted lengthwise on a 30-cm x 21m white poster card. The lengths of the test stimuli and comparison stimuli are shown in Table 2. On a given trial, the pair of cards was placed 80 cm apart on a ledge 3 m from the participant. The comparison lines were numbered 1, 2, and 3. Task Structure Each participant took part in six trials: one practice trial, three neutral trials, ‘and two experimental trials, The two experimental trials were identical except for the majority response, which, although wrong in both cases, involved different comparison lines. On the neutral and practice trials, the majority gave the correct response. Details of the trials are reported in Table 2. ‘The confederates and participant were drawn from the same school class. The confederates met with the experimenter before the experimental session, During this training period, the general purpose of the experiment was explained and the confederates’ role rehearsed. Training focused on the two trials in which the confederates would give a preset response that was incorrect, In the three310_The Journal of Social Psxcholes TABLE 2 Details of the Six Trials Lengths of comparison lines Trial Type of Length of Majority number ‘ial test fine (em) 1 2 3 response 1 Practice 10 7s 12 3 2 Neutral 25 2 25 2 3 Neutral 5 5 2s 1 4 Experimental 18 95108 1 5 Neutral lo 7512 3 6 Experimental 78 95 105 2 older age groups, the first confederate was supplied with a card containing the answer to give on each trial; with the two younger age groups, the first confed- erate counted the fingers held up surreptitiously by the experimenter, The other two confederates were instructed to give the same response on each trial as that given by the first confederate. The confederates were asked to act in a natural and confident manner and to give the impression that they were equally new to the experiment. They were instructed to announce their judgments clearly and ly. They were advised not to look directly at the participant and to refrain from any discussion in the experiment. The three confederates preceded the naive par- ticipant into the room and took the prescribed seats so that the naive participant always sat fourth in line to respond on each trial. The experimenter began by placing the first set of cards on the board edge and reading the instructions aloud to the group. rm- Instructions Asch’s (1956) original instructions were simplified for the younger age groups. Two sets of instructions were necessary to accommodate the wide age range of the participants. The two sets of instructions were equivalent and were read aloud by the same experimenter for all groups, Instructions to the younger participants were repeated with paraphrasing until it was clear that they had been understood. ‘Ages 3 to 8: Lam going to show you pictures of different lines. There will be one line fon Card 1 and three lines on Card 2. These lines are numbered 1. 2. and 3 (pointing to the numbers corresponding to the three comparison lines), All you have to do is call out the number 1, 2, oF 3 that is the same asthe line on Card 1. We will start from here (pointing to the confederate on the left). There is to be no talking until we have finished,Walker & Andrade _371 ‘Ages 9 10 17: This experiment is a perceptual task. All you have to do is discriminate the length of lines. You will see a pair of cards in front of you. On the left isa single line, and on the right there are three comparison lines that differ in length. These are rnumbered 1, 2, and 3. One of the three lines on your right is equal to the standard line ‘on the left. You will decide in each case which is the equal line. You will state your judgments in terms of the corresponding number. There will be six such compar- isons, As there are only a few lines and the group is small, there is to be no talking during the experiment. Suppose we start at the left and proceed to the right. Results On the practice trial, only two errors were made out of 110 judgments. On the experimental trials, participants could make 0 errors (independence), | error, or 2 errors (complete conformity; see Table 3). When participants who conformed on at least one trial were categorized as conformist and other participants as independent, the level of conformity was significantly associated with age groups, 72(4, N = 110) = 30.2, p < 01. Discussion The results support the finding that conformity decreases with age from childhood to maturity in the Asch (1956) situation: With unambiguous stimuli, conformity was highest in the youngest age group and lowest or absent in the late teenage years. Two main explanations for the higher conformity of the younger children may be considered. The first is methodological. If younger children, aged 310 5 years, do not understand the task, then they may imitate the others as ‘a means of providing a response. The second explanation focuses on the cogni- tiye development of the child. Children in the youngest age range do not show conservation in a range of Piagetian tasks (Piaget, 1954). Their comprehension of the world is error prone, by adult standards. When placed in the Asch situa- tion, the youngest group of children may not be confident of their choices even TABLE 3 Frequency of Conforming Responses for the Five Age Categories Age groups (years) 68 911 1214 15-17 Total (= 110) 3 Is B 19 2 R 8 3 6 0 0 7 9 8 2 2 0 1 13 073 052 0.1900 Osa % conforming 85 2 38 9 0 35.4 nest @ OAAE Al) Binkte Baceued372_The Joma ay Social Ps when they are correct, and they may be swayed by the unanimous und contident majority. Of these two explanations, the methodological one seems the less like: ly, because only 2 out of 20 participants made an error on the practice trial. That level of error cannot account for the average of 1.3 errors per child made over the two experimental trials Also requiring some explanation is the absence of conforming responses among the 15- to 17-year-olds. Asch himself observed that about a third of the responses of his research participants aged 17 to 25 years were conformist. The absence of conformity in this study is consistent with the results reported by Per rin and Spencer (1981) and Lalancette and Standing (1990), and the findi sts that the willingness of older students to conform has decreased since conducted his studies. The results obtained in the present study apply only to situations with unam: biguous stimuli. The conflicting results in the literature on age and conformity may well be resolved when this one factor of ambiguity is taken into account. It remains unclear whether maximum conformity is obtained with ambiguous stim, uli just before adolescence. as Costanzo and Shaw (1966) suggested. or in the preschool years, consistent with the results of this study g sug Asch REFERENCES Asch, S. E, (1956), Studies of independence and conformity: A minority uf one against a ‘unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70, 1-71 Berenda, R. (1950). The influence of the group on the jurdgiments of children, New York Kings Crown Press Bishop, B., & Beckman, L.. (1971). Developmental conformity, Developmental Paxcholo- ey, 5, 536, Costanzo, P.. & Shaws, M, (1966). Contormity ay a function of age level. Child Develop- iment, 37, 967-975, Hoving. K.. Hamm, N.. & Galvin, P. (1969), Social influence as a function of stimulus ‘ambiguity of three age levels. Developmental Psychology: 1, 631-636. Iscoe, 1, Williams, M.. & Harvey. J, (1963). Modification of children’s judgments by a simulated group technique: A normative developmental study. Child Development. 3. 963-978, Lalancette, M.. & 18, 7-12 Perrin, S., & Spencer, C. (1981), Independes conformity in the Asch experiment as ‘a reflection of cultural and situation factors. British Journal of Social Psvchologs. 20, 205-209. Piaget, 1. (1954). The construction of reality on the chil, New York: Basic Books Tudldenham. R. (1958), The influences of a distorted norm upon individual judgments The Journal of Psychology: 46, 227-24 Standing. L, (1990), Asch fails again, Social! Behavior and Personality Received March 14, 1994