Conformity Examples

6. An example of a study of conformity is the beans-in-the-jar experiment. In this study participants estimated the amount of beans in a jar. The experiment had three steps. First, the participants estimated individually. Second, they estimated in groups. Third, they estimated individually (Jenness 1932). The study found that during the third step participants shifted their estimate to be closer the estimate of the group. This study is an example of conformity because the changes in the third step are the result of conformity to the group of the second step. Furthermore, even though the third step occurred individually the participants were still demonstrating conformity to the group’s estimate even though the group was not present. The participants
A gender and culture role study example is the survey with adjectives. This study examined how gender roles might vary amongst different cultures. Using a survey with three hundred adjectives was distributed to college students in twenty-seven countries. These participants were instructed to assigned which adjectives where more closely associated with males and which were more closely associated with females. The study found that the participants from the twenty-seven countries came to similar conclusions of which adjectives were more closely associated with each gender (Williams & Best 1990). The study has low generalizability as the participants were university students and therefore are not statistically representative of the twenty-seven populations studied. As an etic study this study was culturally valid however the vast variances between the twenty-seven countries make it difficult to assess the differences and similarities of these countries’ cultures that may have had an effect on the data
An example of a schema theory study is one that examines the schema of memory. This study examined how cultural and social factors influence schemas and its affect on the distortion of memory. The participants of this study read a Native American folk tale, titled: The War of the Ghosts. The participants’ memory of the story was tested using repeated reproduction and serial reproduction. The participants were instructed to recall the story six or seven times over several retention intervals. This study concluded that both methods resulted in similar effectiveness, for instance, as the number of reproductions increased the story length decreased and specifics became more general (Bartlett 1932). The participants were of an English speaking background with limited familiarity with the Native American folk tale. This unfamiliarity could have affected the participants’ ability to recall and retain the