School of Psychological Sciences

Lab Report

Method and Results Sections

To be included in your report

Method
Participants
Participants were 175 (78 male and 97 female) undergraduate students from an
Australian tertiary education institution. All participants were required to be over 18 years of
age and participated in return for credit as part of a unit of study. Failure to participate did not
impact the participants progression in the unit of study. The mean age of the participants was
32.16 years (SD = 5.74); male mean age was 33.16 (SD = 2.00), and female mean age was
30.14 (SD = 3.65).
Materials
The conformity task used in this experiment was modelled on the original work of
Asch (1956). Here participants were presented with a target line to the left of the screen and
asked to select one of three test lines located on the right of the screen that most closely
matched the target line in left. Participants indicated their choice amongst the three lines by
selecting the corresponding letter key on the computer keyboard.
On half of the trials presented (n=48), participants made their judgement based solely
on the line stimuli presented (SELF trials), while on the other half of the trials participants
were able to view the responses of five confederate responders listed to the far right of the
screen (CONFEDERATE trials). See Figure 1 for a depiction of the two trial conditions. The
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CONFEDERATE trials were designed to mimic the Asch (1956) condition where the
participant was required to respond to the stimuli in the presence of five in-person
confederates. In the current study the confederates did not represent living responders, but
rather responses pre-selected by the experimenters and presented to all participants on the
same trial. To begin, all CONFEDERATE trials included responses that accurately indicated
the matching test line. Following the first seven trials the remaining trials were divided
between accurate (35%) and inaccurate (65%) responses.

a.

b.

Figure 1. Depiction of the two trial stimulus conditions (a) SELF trials
where the participant is provide with no information about other responders
selections and (b) CONFEDERATE trials where the responses of five
confederates are provided.

Procedure
Participants were seated before a computer screen at an approximate distance of 4050cm. Participants responded throughout the task using the computer keyboard by pressing
the keys [A], [B] and [C] to indicate their response on the experimental trials. Participants
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were required to log onto a secure server, Inquisit, which hosted the entire experiment. The
experiment was divided into two stages; demographic questionnaire which collected
information about participant gender, age, cultural background, level of education and
household income (Stage 1), and the conformity task (Stage 2). Participation took
approximately 25 minutes.
Results
Prior to running the statistical analyses all data were screened for normality. As a
result of missing data, the responses of 105 participants were retained for further analysis.
Following the removal of the data of one participant the data was once again screened for
normality and homogeneity of variance with no violations present in the data set.
The data was collapsed into two groups, collectivist and individualist, according to the
work of Hofstede (1980) and a t test was conducted to determine whether a difference existed
in the level of conformity between the two cultural groups. Conformity was determined by
comparing the number of incorrect responses selected by a participant when completing SELF
compared to CONFEDERATE trials.
Initial analyses revealed that in general levels of conformity in this experiment were
quite low, that is, when a participant made an error in line selection the error was not
necessarily reflective of the responses offered by the confederate participants. Of the errors
made, approximately 48% of the errors were in agreement with the confederate responses,
while 52% of errors were different to the confederate responses. Interestingly, on appraisal of
trials where the Target Line did not match with any of the Match Lines (No Match Trials), the
responses of the confederate participants did appear to be of greater influence. Specifically, on
No Match Trials 82% of participant responses matched that of the confederates.
An analysis of the influence of culture on the conformity exhibited by participants was
significant. As can be seen in Figure 2, individuals belonging to collectivist cultures tended to
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make more errors on CONFEDERATE trials that did individuals from individualist cultures.
Importantly, the incorrect decisions made by individuals belonging to a collectivist culture
matched the selection of the confederates on the trial. That is, these individuals did not merely
make the wrong decision but instead that wrong decision was in line with the confederate
majority. This suggests that individuals from individualist cultures are less impacted by the
implied presence of others (n=33% of CONFEDERATE trials) and are more likely to oppose
an opinion held by the (implied) majority than will individuals from collectivist cultures
(n=54% of CONFEDERATE trials).

Figure 2. The mean number of incorrect responses (in%) made in the

CONFEDERATE condition for individuals from collectivist and
individualist cultures where the response was consistent with the
confederate line selection.

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References
Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A minority of one against a
unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(9), 1-70.
Hofstede, G. (1980).Cultures Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related
Values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

NB: This method and results section is simplified so as not to disadvantage students not
currently, or previously, completing PSYC1012. For this reason statistical notations
have been removed. For assessments in level 200 units the knowledge gained in your

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Evidenced Based Units will allow you to complete these sections in significantly
greater detail.

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