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Running head-CONFORMITY EXPERIMENT

The Conformity Experiment on Filipino

High School Students

Joy Logico

Jeneve Velasco

Lyn Irish Calves

Jelly Sardan

Niña Eva Louise Alvarado

University of San Carlos

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The Conformity Experiment on Filipino High School Students

The study of conformity has long been an area of interest for many renowned

psychologists and researchers. Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in

belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group. This change is in response to real (involving the

physical presence of others) or imagined (involving the pressure of social norms/expectations)

group pressure (McLeod, S., 2007). Considerable research in the areas of conformity (i.e., when

people are in a peer group they have the tendency to agree with the majority; Dr. Muzater Serif,

The Autokinetic Effect 1906-1988); whether or not one can change someone’s judgment of a

situation without changing their knowledge or assumptions about the situation; (Solomon Asch

Experiment 1955); these research have been prominent in the stimulating decades of insightful

inquiries into the nature of conformity.

As stated in social psychology, people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced

by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. And according to Herbert Kelman(1958)

social influence occurs when one’s emotions, opinions or behaviors are affected by others.

Conformity is the most common and pervasive form of social influence (‘Kelman’s term’)

involving a change in behavior, belief or thinking to align with those of others or to align with

normative standards. According to Leon Mann (1969), "the essence of conformity is yielding to

group pressure." He then, classified conformity to three types: Normative (driven by fear of

rejection or the desire to fit in), Informational (looking up to others when the answer is unknown

or vague) and Ingratiational (driven by the desire to fit in when a form of social reward is

foreseen). Nearly half a century ago, Deutsch & Gerard (1955) distinguished between
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informational and normative conformity motivations, the former based on the desire to form an

accurate interpretation of reality and behave correctly, and the latter based on the goal of

obtaining social approval from others. The extant literature has upheld the conceptual

independence of each of these motivational factors (Cialdini & Trost 1998), although the two are

interrelated and often difficult to disentangle theoretically as well as empirically (David

& Turner 2001.

The most famous conformity experiment was done during the 1950's by an American

psychologist, Solomon Eliot Asch. His Line Judgement Experiment became very prominent that

a lot of psychologists (take his advisee, Stanley Milgram, for example) chose to follow through

with his research with more depth. In Asch’s experiment, male students from Swarthmore

College were told that they were participating in a ‘vision test’. Using the line judgment task,

Asch put a participant in a room with four to six confederates. The confederates tried to influence

the participants through social forces that would affect a person’s opinions and attitudes as he

measure his conformity study. At first, the group unanimously answered correctly but eventually

they began providing incorrect answers. As a result, he found that when alone (the control group)

participants made mistakes less than 1% of the time, but in the group situation, participants made

errors in line judgment 36.8% of the time. About one fourth of participants never submitted to

the majority, whereas some individuals conformed almost every single time. Every participant

that conformed to the majority underestimated the frequency of their conformity when

interviewed later (Asch, 1955).

Several studies have been made to determine the instance of conformity and how group

pressure or individual reliance comes to play, how conformity works and its impact to the well-

being of an individual. A lot of studies have also argued that conformity varies per culture.
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According to Perrin and Spencer (1980, 1981), the Asch effect was "a child of its time" and that

Asch's result only was applicable to the "unobtrusive members of the American Society in the

1950's". When they did the same Asch experiment to engineering, mathematics and chemistry

students, only one of 396 trials did conformity (joining in to the erroneous majority) occur.

Another study modified the social conformity paradigm of Asch (Webley, P., A partial and non-

evaluative history of the Asch effect). Lalancette, M-F & Standing, L.G (1990) conducted

another experiment that aimed to (1) make the test stimuli more ambiguous and (2) increase the

likelihood of obtaining conformity in an experiment with 40 undergraduates. With the same aim,

anonymous and individuated conditions were used. As with a previous attempt to replicate Asch

(Perrin and Spencer, 1981), no conformity was observed. They conclude that the Asch effect

appears to be an unpredictable phenomenon rather than a stable tendency of human behavior.

(Webley, P., A partial and non-evaluative history of the Asch effect).

Although Asch’s results have been upheld by many other studies still it has not been

particularly supported since his claims are different from the result of the researchers who took

his study in more depth research. For one to generalize a theoretical observation into empirical

claims, cross-sectional observational studies should be conducted looking at every possible

factors to prove that one variable validly causes the other and to see if there is a consistency or

reliability in the study. For example in his study, Solomon Asch made a generalization that

people changed their opinions when confronted with opposing views from the majority on which

his conclusion is only applicable at the American society at 1950’s. His experiment reached its

limitations when conformity varies per culture. It simply shows that it is difficult to generalize

his results to real world situations.

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The primary focus of this review is to measure if the majority affects the capacity of an

individual to make a decision in a situation. It will also determine whether people have the

innate tendency to cling on to easy options of conforming or deviate from the expectations of the

society. The study will scrutinize the ability of a person to hold on to their own knowledge,

persuasion and intuition when easy or difficult situation arises.

We also aim to present a cultural representation of the conformity experiment on Filipino

high school students with our study, and determine if conformity is limited to only a few

cultures. We hypothesize that majority of the student-participants will join the erroneous majority

when uncertain about the definition of words that will be presented in the experiment. We have

prepared three levels of difficulty for the students to define in a classroom setting: easy (English

words that have commonly been used in their Elementary textbooks), moderate (English words

that have been used in their High School textbooks) and difficult (words adapted in the English

language that have been adapted from international sources). The study will determine whether

students will conform and follow the other students' (confederates) erroneous definitions or risk

providing another answer based from their experience, perception of root words or their

command of the English language.

Employing modifications of the Asch conformity experiment, our study will carry out

hypotheses concerning the conformity on Filipino high school students and determine if

conformity varies per culture or it is a natural tendency of human behavior. The hypotheses will

receive strong support from the experimental data. Our research will advance those prior studies

about conformity and will move on to elucidating and investigating the level of conformity of

high school students from the Philippines. Prior studies about conformity experiments had used

college students or adults as their participants. In the Philippines, there have been plenty of
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studies about conformity but they also made use of high school students as their participants. It

is vital to study this experiment on high school students as this is the age of strong social bond

and influence. This study will be the basis for future studies on conformity. If there is no

significant difference between conformers and free-thinkers for this experiment on high school

students, later studies can then infer that conformity becomes non-existent for adults. The results

of this study will also hopefully change or support the society’s perspective on teenage behavior

regarding conformity and make necessary action to propagate or prevent it.

METHOD

Design

A Multiple-Independent Group Design (Between-Subjects Design) was used for this

experiment via Random Assignment (arranging the students by alphabetical order)

because every level or degree of the Independent Variable was important in

determining Peer Conformity. The test will determine whether a person relies with

other people's suggestions or answers or formulates his/her own when faced with

uncertainty. To represent uncertainty in the context of this study, three levels of the

Independent Variable were prepared: easy (English words that have commonly been

used in their Elementary textbooks), moderate (English words that have been used in

their High School textbooks) and difficult (words adapted in the English language that

have been adapted from international sources). 5 students from the 15 participants

were randomly assigned for each level. To eliminate practice effect, we partially
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counterbalanced our tests by employing three sections from the Third and Fourth Year

High School that had 50 students each; with different word sequences (see Annex B).

Each section had 15 participants and 35 confederates.

Participants

Three sections from the Third and FourthYear High School with 50 students each,

from Compostela National High School, Liloan, Cebu City, were selected to participate in

this experiment. Section A had a mean age of ___ with ___ males and ___ females. Section

B had a mean age of ___ with __ males and ___ females. Section C had a mean age of ___

with ___ males and ____ females. Each section was divided to two groups: the participant

group (15 students) and the confederates (35 students. Each section differed on the

sequence for each level of difficulty (see Annex B).

Materials

33 words from the English Vocabulary were chosen and used for each of the

three levels of difficulty (see Annex A). A camcorder was also used to record each

session. To measure conformity, five students from the University of San Carlos

blindly rated the similarity of answers between the confederates and participants.

Answers that were the same or different from the confederates' responses were

tabulated and grouped via Ratio Scale.

Procedure
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Groupings

The students’ class standing and the original seat plan per section were also

reviewed prior to the experiment. Since academically performing students will

most likely have a greater command of the English Language, the original seat

plan was disregarded and all the students were seated alphabetically so they can

be well-distributed. The seats were arranged so it can have 8 columns and 7 rows.

The students were then asked to count-off from one to three, starting with the

student from the first row and column from the left. The same seating

arrangement and counting off were used for all three Sections. After they have

counted off, the students grouped themselves by their numbers. Group 1 was then

instructed to follow the experimenter to another room while Groups 2 and 3

remained in the classroom. The students from Group 1 were the randomly

assigned participants for the experiment while students from Groups 2 and 3

were the confederates. This was the same set-up for all three sections. The

students from Group 1 who were brought to another room were then debriefed

about the nature of the experiment. They were led to believe that the study aimed

to determine how familiar they were to the words we presented in class. They also

were informed that they will be randomly picked to support their answer for each

word's definition. They were assured that all answers, whether right or wrong,

will be accepted. Meanwhile, the students from Group 2 and 3 (confederate

group) were given 1 index card each with their assigned buffer words (2 words

per confederate) and actual word (1 word per confederate). The actual words

have definitions that are intentionally wrong while the buffer words have
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definitions that are intentionally correct. Also in the index cards were the words

and the specific answer they had to raise their hands for.

Classroom Discussion

After 10 minutes, Group 1 returned to the original classroom and joined Groups

2 and 3. They were seated back to their alphabetical order. An experimenter

recorded the entire discussion through a camcorder. Another experimenter

introduced herself and explained the nature of the experiment through the cover

story- to determine how familiar high school students are with the words

presented. Three levels of difficulty were used in the experiment- easy, moderate

and hard. Easy words, in this experiment, refer to those words that have been

taken out from Elementary English Textbooks. Moderate words refer to those

that have appeared from the participants’ High School Textbooks. Hard words

are those words with International origin that are already accepted by the

English Language. The words that were presented to the students had two

possible definitions under it. The students (including the assigned confederates)

were then asked to choose (by raising their right hand) which of the choices is

correct. Each word had 1 correct definition and 1 wrong definition (labeled A or

B) for the students to select from. The experimenter then asked 2 confederates to

support their right or wrong answer (depending on which they're assigned for)

then asks 1 participant to support his/her answer (either the right or wrong

definition). A sequence has been prepared prior to the experiment that alternates

Buffer versus Actual Words to avoid practice effect or predictability (see Annex
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A). The sequence also differs per level of difficulty (see Annex B). The

participants’ answers to their pre-assigned level of difficulty were recorded via

camcorder. The experimenters then employed five students from San Carlos

University to blindly rate whether the supported answers from the participant

and confederates to a specific word were the same or different. Answers from the

participants that were the same or different from the confederates’ wrong

answers were then tabulated and statistically analyzed.

ANNEX A:

SEQUENCE TO BUFFER AND ACTUAL WORDS PER LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY

I. Easy:

A= actual words B= buffer words

SEQUENCE WORD GROUP

1 Stagnant B
2 Accurate B
3 Vast A
4 Awful B
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5 Mumble A
6 Cease A
7 Vital A
8 Enthusiasm B
9 Clog A
10 Caution B
11 Yield B

II. Moderate

A= actual words B= buffer words

SEQUENCE WORD GROUP

1 Threshold A
2 Perceive B
3 Sinister A
4 Leisure B
5 Conceit A
6 Sophisticated B
7 Pavement B
8 Recede B
9 Cheque A
10 Sequel B
11 Surplus A
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III. Hard

A= actual words B= buffer words

SEQUENCE WORD GROUP

1 Qat A
2 Repertoire B
3 Shadoof B
4 Joktaleg B
5 Avadavat A
6 Cauline B
7 Vicissitudinous A
8 Zebu A
9 Yamatoe B
10 Kinchin B
11 Slypes A

ANNEX B

SEQUENCE OF THE LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY PER SECTION

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E= easy

M= moderate

H= hard

Section A E M H
Section B E H M
Section C M E H