CONFORMITY TO PEER PRESSURE

EXPERIMENT 2

METHOD

• 18 groups of 4 children ; 4 year olds

• 3 majority 1 minority(target child)

• children; mixed socioeconomic background

• the 18 minority consisted equal number of boys and girls (11/18)

• 7 groups were excluded;4 groups due to non-unanimous decision) and 3 due to experimenter error

MATERIAL

• 3 books identical while 1 book deviated in terms of printing

• color distribution was counter balanced via lamps

• two dv camcorders(one for the two neighbouring children)

PROCEDURE

• LAMP ; SWITCH ON=SPEAK

• LAMP ; SWITCH OFF=POINT

• 1 TARGET CHILD

• POINT ;IDENTIFY ANIMAL FROM THE FAMILY PICTURE TO THE OPPOSITE PAGE

• SPEAK ;ANIMAL FROM THE FAMILY PICTURE AS SEEN ON THE OPPOSITE PAGE

• 30 TRIALS WERE CONDUCTED ;6 MAJORITY TRIALS OF WHICH TWO POINT TRIALS INCLUDED(ALL BOOKS ALIKE/TARGET CHILD HAVING A DIFFERENT BOOK)

THE REST 24 WERE THE MINORITY TRIALS THAT INCLUDED(6 POINT,6POINT/CONFLICT,6 SPEAK,6 SPEAK/CONFLICT)

RESTRICTIONS

• the first 3 trials conducted should have no conflict

• the first majority child to point

the above steps were taken for effective response from the target child

DEBREIFING

• IDV (point/speak/conflict/no conflict)

• DV (correct responses as per the book)

• COV(ensure that the male/female subjects were equally capable of performing the task)

RESULTS

• children conformed more when publicly responding than when privately responding