Factors Affecting Conformity and Obedience

Both conformity and obedience are influenced by a range of situational and dispositional factors. Understanding these factors is essential for explaining why people sometimes follow the group or obey authority and why they sometimes resist.

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Factors Affecting Conformity

1. Group Size

Asch found that conformity increased as group size increased, but only up to a point:

• 1 confederate: very little conformity
• 2 confederates: conformity increased slightly
• 3 confederates: conformity increased significantly
• Beyond 3–4: little additional increase in conformity

This suggests there is a threshold beyond which adding more people to the majority has diminishing effects.

2. Unanimity

Conformity drops dramatically when the unanimity of the group is broken:

• When one confederate gave the correct answer, conformity dropped from about 37% to 5.5%
• Even when the dissenter gave a different wrong answer, conformity still dropped significantly
• Having just one ally is enough to dramatically reduce the pressure to conform

3. Task Difficulty