Social Behavior and Personality, 1984, 12 (2), 187-190 © Society for Personality Research (Inc.) THE ASCH CONFORMITY EFFECT: A STUDY IN KUWAIT TAHA AMIR University of Kuwait This study aimed at investigating whether conformity in the experimental setting suggested by Asch was particularly related 10 American culture and less likely to be replicable elsewhere — e.g. in Kuwait — as has been suggested recently. An experimental and control group of Kuwait Ss were used in replicating the original experiment. An ‘Asch effect’ of a comparable ‘magnitude to that of Asch was obtained, Individual differences in comformity were evident. Further experimental manipulation of relevant variables were suggested. Under certain conditions the judgements of the individual are affected by the judgements of others. The work of Solomon Asch (1954, 1958) has been significant in this area. In his well known classical work Asch used pairs of cards. On one of the pair there were three vertical lines of differing lengths. These were the ‘Comparison’ lines. On the other, there was a single line, and this was the ‘Standard’ line. The standard line was always equal in length to one and only one of the comparison lines. Seven to nine subjects participated as ‘Confederates’. The role of the confederates was to give ‘their’ judgements in such a way that some of these judgements were deliberately erroneous. An additional subject was added to the group and this was called the ‘Critical’ subject. The critical subject was not aware of the arrangements which the experimenter made with confederate subjects as to the deliberate errors. He was made to believe that he was participating ina test on perception and that each of the other Ss was going to give his true personal judgement, All Ss sat in a row. In turn, each announced his judgements loudly To subject the critical subject to the maximum impact of the group influence, the experiment setting was so arranged that he would be the one before last to announce his judgements. All the aspects of the behavior of the critical subject were carefully recorded. Those included his remarks, questions, movements, gestures — and of course his judgements as to the relative length of lines. This procedure was repeated with each critical subject. The judgements of critical Ss were then compared with the judgement of a control group who gave their judgements privately and in writing and were, therefore, not, influenced by the judgements of others. Asch reported that about a third (33.2%) of the judgements of the critical Ss were incorrect. On the other hand, the errors of the judgements of the control group did not exceed 7.4%. Asch attributed the difference to ‘contamination’ by the incorrect judgements of the group. The “Asch effect” has been widely studied by researchers, and replications conducted. The effect has been shown by some and not by others. Typical of those finding the effect were Pincus (1981) and Gray (1981). Pincus used sound tones produced by an audiometer. Gray presented pairs of colours consecutively against a grey background and subjects were required to report whether the second colour was darker or lighter than the first. In certain replications the numbers of confederate Ss were decreased to less than three. In the Pincus study, in which musical tones were used, there was a single confederate subject. The impact of his judgement was increased by introducing him to the critical subject as 2 musical expert (Pincus 1981). However Perrin and Spencer (1980) were unable to replicate the “Ash effect”, They suggested that this effect might be a useful indicator of cultural expectations of conformity that Ss bring to the experimental situation from their contemporary world Perrin and Spencer argued that the call for conformity at present was not as strongasit 187188 AMIR was when Asch conducted his work (during the “MeCarthy” era in the USA), and that was why they failed to get similar results. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM The fact that some workers were able to replicate the “Asch effect” does not finally settle the issue raised by Perrin and Spencer. The question still stands. To what extent is the “Asch effect” a child of a particular society in a particular time? ‘Attempting to replicate the Asch effect in different facts of the world at different times is one way of addressing the problem. This study aims to answer the following question: Is the Asch effect more likely to ‘occur in American and European cultures so that replications in Kuwait will be likely to fail? If an Asch effect is at all obtainable in Kuwait, what will be its relative strength compared with effects obtained in other cultures? Further, and in view of the evidently distinctive social roles of males and females in Kuwait it may be appropriate to ask: Is there a significant difference between male and female Kuwaitis as to their conformity in the experimental setting suggested by Asch? METHOD Since it was considered important to compare the results of the present study with those of Asch and because failure to replicate the ‘Asch effect’ could be the function of variations in method, it was decided to follow very closely Asch’s original experimental techniques in terms of stimulus, procedure and setting. Cards of the same dimensions as those described by Asch were used (Asch 1954), Vertical lines of exactly the same dimensions were drawn on the cards. SUBJECTS Subjects (Ss) were drawn randomly from amongst students of the University of Kuwait. The experimental group consisted of 40 females and 40 males, while the control ‘group consisted of 60 male student and an equal number of female students. The age of subjects, in the experimental group ranged between 18 and 24 years with a mean of 20.3 years and S.D. of 1.69 while the age of Ssin the control group ranged between 18 and 25 years with a mean of 21.58 years and S.D. of 1.71 years. RESULTS QUANTITATIVE ‘The results of this study reveal a clear-cut and powerful ‘Asch effect’. Approximately 24.5% of the estimates of Ss seem to have been transformed under the experimental conditions: only 4.76% of the judgements of Ss in the control group were incorrect, whereas more than 29% of the judgements of Ss in the experimental group were incorrect (Table I and 2). Allerrors of the experimental group were in the decision of the majority estimates. ‘The results show that both males and females were equally susceptible to transformation of judgements in the experimental conditions. There was, however, a noticeable tendency for male controls to make more incorrect judgements compared to female controls. The results obtained in this study in Kuwait in 1984 were strikingly similar to those obtained by Asch for U.S. in 1950 (Table 1, 2, 3). For Asch’s 33.2% errors in the experimental group, this study revealed 29.01% error ina similar group, where 25.8% of the errors in Asch study and 22.15% in this study are accounted for by the effect of the group judgements. In this study too, as in that of Asch, errors of the critical Ss were not equally distributed. These were extreme individual differences (Table 4). There were among the members of the experimental group Ss who remained absolutely and consistently independent (18.75%). On the other hand, there are those who went almost every time with the majority judgement (3.75%). 18.75% of the subjects in this group relinquished their own estimates in half the trials or more in favour of the majority judgements. Asch reported that 259% of his critical group did the same.ASCH CONFORMITY EFFECT IN KUWAIT 189 TABLE |: THE PRESENT STUDY: CONTROL GROUP No. of % of Sex N Estimates Errors Errors Males 60 420 26 6.19 Females 60 420 14 3.33 Total 120 840 40 4.76 TABLE 2: THE PRESENT STUDY: EXPERIMENTAL GROUP No. of % of Sex N Estimates Errors Erros Males 40 280 81 28.92 Females 40 280 83 29.64 Total 80 560 64 29.28 TABLE 3: ASCH STUDY No. of N Estimates Errors % of Errors Experimental Group 31 217 2 33.2 Control Group 25 175 u 4 TABLE 4: DISTRIBUTION OF ERRORS OF CRITICAL S's Experimental Group Control Group Errors Males Females Males Females 0 7 & 39 50 1 12 7 16 7 2 8 12 5 2 3 5 6 1 4 4 2 5 2 4 6 2 1 7 - Total 40 40 60 60190 AMIR. QUALITATIVE 30% of Ss who conformed to majority judgement in half or more of the trials showed marked signs of anxiety and tension as was manifested in movements, gestures, comments, questions etc. Only 13.3% of those who remained absolutely independent showed similar signs of tension — their number, however, was too small to warrant any generalization. When Ss were shortly interviewed after experimental session, the following was revealed: Two thirds of those who either totally or partially conformed to the majority judgements admitted that in at least some of the trials they gave estimates which they did not really believe were correct. They also mentioned that during the sessions they experienced profound doubts about the nature of the task. They also doubted whether they have understood the instructions correctly. Some blamed the special angle from which they looked at the lines for the discrepancy between what they ‘thought’ they saw and what the majority ‘saw’. CONCLUSION This study shows that the ‘Asch effect’ is replicablein Kuwait with Kuwait University students as Ss. The ‘Asch effect’ obtainable in Kuwaiti culture is as powerful as the original effect reported by Asch for a U.S. sample. There are extreme individual differences in conformity under the experimental conditions. Contrary to expectations there is no sex-difference in conformity as depicted by the ‘Asch effect’ in Kuwait Further research into the most relevant variables seems essential (Burnard 1969, 1981). These tentatively include: The personality of critical Ss, the relative difficulty of the task, the clarity of instructions, communication among respondents during the experimental session and the nature of the stimuli REFERENCES Asch, S. (1954). Social Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc, (1958). “Interpersonal Influence” in Maccoby (ed): Readings in Social Psychology, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Burnard, G. (1969). A Generalization about Group Behavior. Acta Psychologica, 31 197-231. (1981). The Asch Effect. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 34, 39. Gary, J. (1981). The Asch Effect. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 34, 40. Perrin and Spencer. (1980). The Asch Effect. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 33. Pincus, J. (1981). The Asch Effect. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 34, 39. TAHA AMIR, Department of Psychology, Kuwait University, P.O. Box No. 23558, KUWAIT. Reprints of this paper are available from Dr Amir.Copyright of Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal is the property of Society for Personality Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.