A Questionnaire Analysis of the Asch Experiment without Using Confederates

Miho Arai, Kazuo Mori

Department of Clinical Psychology, Tokyo Kasei University, Tokyo, Japan.
Institute of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Koganei, Tokyo, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2013.411127                

Abstract

Without using confederates, Mori and Arai (2010) replicated the Asch results with 40 male and 64 female Japanese undergraduates in same-sex groups of four. One from each foursome wore a different type of polarizing sunglasses so that he/she observed the standard lines differently form the other three participants, who played the same role as the majority in the Asch experiments. As expected, the minority participants tended to conform to the majority. There was a gender difference: the female minority participants conformed, but the males did not. The present study reported the qualitative findings from analysis of the responses on a questionnaire administered in the Mori and Arai experiments. It revealed that female participants who conformed more than the males were less confident and felt more isolated and anxious than the males.

Keywords

Correlational Analyses; Conformity; Gender Differences; Asch Line Judgment Tasks

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monograph: General and Applied, 70, Whole No. 416.
[2]	Mori, K. (2007). Projecting two words with one machine: A method for presenting two different visual stimuli using just one projector without viewers’ noticing the duality. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 811-815.
[3]	Mori, K., & Arai, M. (2010). No need to fake it: Reproduction of the Asch experiment without confederates. International Journal of Psychology, 45, 390-397.