I’d be interested in a trolley version of the Asch conformity experiment: line up a bunch of confederates and have them each give an answer, one way or another, and act respectfully to each other. Then see how the dodge rate of the real participant changes.
Then you could set it up so that one confederate tries to dodge, but is talked out of it. Etc.
My prediction (~80% confidence) is, given one subject and six confederates and a typical Asch setup, if all confederates give the non-safe answer (e.g., they say “I’d throw one person under the train” or whatever), you’ll see a 40-60% increase in the subject’s likelihood of doing the same compared to the case where they all dodge.
If one confederate dodges and is chastised for it, I really don’t know what to expect. If I had to guess, I’d guess that standard Asch rules apply and the effect of the local group’s pressure goes out the window, and you get a 0-10% increase over the all-dodge case. But my confidence is low… call it 20%.
What I’d really be interested in is whether, after going through such a setup, subjects’ answers to similar questions in confidential form change.
If one confederate dodges and is chastised for it, I really don’t know what to expect. If I had to guess, I’d guess that standard Asch rules apply and the effect of the local group’s pressure goes out the window
That’s not the normal Asch setup- the dissenter isn’t ridiculed for it; the subject feels free to dissent because they’ve seen someone else dissent and ‘get away with it’. I would expect that the chastistement variation on any Asch test would produce even more, rather than less, conformity.
Yeah, I can see why you say that, and you might be right, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never seen the results of an Asch study where the dissenter is chastised. And this particular example is even weirder, because the thing they’re being chastised for—dodging the question—is itself something that we hypothesize is the result of group conformity effects. So… I dunno. As I say, my confidence in this case is low.
I’d be interested in a trolley version of the Asch conformity experiment: line up a bunch of confederates and have them each give an answer, one way or another, and act respectfully to each other. Then see how the dodge rate of the real participant changes.
Then you could set it up so that one confederate tries to dodge, but is talked out of it. Etc.
I would too.
My prediction (~80% confidence) is, given one subject and six confederates and a typical Asch setup, if all confederates give the non-safe answer (e.g., they say “I’d throw one person under the train” or whatever), you’ll see a 40-60% increase in the subject’s likelihood of doing the same compared to the case where they all dodge.
If one confederate dodges and is chastised for it, I really don’t know what to expect. If I had to guess, I’d guess that standard Asch rules apply and the effect of the local group’s pressure goes out the window, and you get a 0-10% increase over the all-dodge case. But my confidence is low… call it 20%.
What I’d really be interested in is whether, after going through such a setup, subjects’ answers to similar questions in confidential form change.
That’s not the normal Asch setup- the dissenter isn’t ridiculed for it; the subject feels free to dissent because they’ve seen someone else dissent and ‘get away with it’. I would expect that the chastistement variation on any Asch test would produce even more, rather than less, conformity.
Yeah, I can see why you say that, and you might be right, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never seen the results of an Asch study where the dissenter is chastised. And this particular example is even weirder, because the thing they’re being chastised for—dodging the question—is itself something that we hypothesize is the result of group conformity effects. So… I dunno. As I say, my confidence in this case is low.