The 10 th Biennial Conference of SARMAC Conformity and Scholastic Levels: An fMORI-Asch Experimental Study of Japanese Junior High School Students Kazuo Mori Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Akitoshi Uchida Togakushi Junior High School, Nagano, Japan Acknowledgments This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Grant No ) to the first author. We thank the pupils and teachers in Shinonoi- Nishi Junior High School in Nagano Prefecture for their cooperation in the conduct of this research. We are indebted to Rebecca Ann Marck for her superb work in editing the English text in the slides.

1 2 3 The Asch Conformity Experiments (Asch,1956) Would a minority participant conform to the majority who responded incorrectly on relatively easy tasks? Drawbacks of using confederates ： Confederates may behave unnaturally. Interaction of pretending vs. detecting ability of participants. Difficulty of finding good child confederates. No Asch experiments with children. Impossible to manipulate interpersonal relation among participants. All responders except this genuine participant were confederates.

Only one participant in each group of four wore the sunglasses which made him see things differently from the others. An LCD Projector The Asch experiment without using confederates. (Mori & Arai, 2010) Mori & Arai (2010) successfully replicated an Asch conformity study without utilizing confederates by using a presentation ruse, the “fMORI Technique” (Mori, 2007).

Purpose ： To examine the effects of social status on conformity among junior high schoolers Two experiments were conducted with junior high school pupils: Exp. １ in 2010 and Exp. ２ in Fifteen boy foursomes and 15 girl foursomes participated in Exp. 1. Eighteen boy foursomes and 18 girl foursomes participates in Exp.2. The participants were classified into High, Middle, and Low school achievement groups according to their most recent term examination results. We examined conformity among the same achievement groups in Exp.1, and among different achievement groups in Exp.2.

Exp. ２ Exp. １ Experimental Hypotheses: Conformity under social pressure Experimental hypotheses ： –Low achievement pupils tend to conform more. –Low achievers tend to conform to high achievers. Experimental design ： – ＨＨＨＨ Condition （ High Achievers ） – ＬＬＬＬ Condition （ Low Achievers ） – ＭＭＭＭ Condition （ Middle Achievers ） – ＨＨＬＨ Condition （ Low among High Achievers ） – ＬＬＨＬ Condition （ High among Low Achievers ） – ＭＭＭＭ Condition （ Middle Achievers ）

Experimental Procedures There were three neutral tasks that were identical for both conditions. Six tasks were critical ones that were designed to be observed differently. The same set of 9 tasks was repeated twice. Each task was presented for about 30 seconds. Then, it disappeared from view. The participants announced their answers in the predetermined order. The minority participants were the 3 rd to answer for each task. We administered a questionnaire after the line judgment task phase. General Instructions Line judgment tasks (3 neutral tasks + 6 crucial tasks) Questionnaires Line judgment tasks (3 neutral tasks + 6 crucial tasks)

A girl foursome performing the task. General Instructions Line judgment tasks (3 neutral tasks + 6 crucial tasks) Questionnaires Line judgment tasks (3 neutral tasks + 6 crucial tasks) Experimental Procedures: a video clip recorded with a hidden camera

A replication of the Asch experiment ： Number of errors in terms of response order The 3 rd responders made more errors than the other three because they were in the minority condition and conformed to the majority. To ensure that the Asch experiment was accurately reproduced, the average number of errors were examined in terms of response order. For both Exp.1 and 2, the 3 rd responders made more errors than the other responders. This results showed that the 3 rd responders were in the minority condition and under the social pressure similar to that of the Asch experiment situations. Average errors

Results: Conformity and Scholastic Achievement Low achievers tended to conform to the majority irrespective of the scholastic levels of the majority groups. Of 12 critical tasks, those who made 4 and more errors were classified as “Conformers.” No gender differences were observed. Almost half were conformers among the Middle achievers. Exp. １ BoysGirlsTotal Conf.Indp.Conf.Indp.Conf.Indp. LL L L HH H H MMMM Total Exp. ２ BoysGirlsTotal Conf.Indp.Conf.Indp.Conf.Indp. HH L H LL H L MMMM Total

Discussion: People learn and develop not to conform The present finding that the tendency to conform decreases along with scholastic achievement corresponds to… our previous result that boys develop not to conform. We conclude that people develop and learn not to conform. Nevertheless, girls may develop differently. Mori & Arai (2010), Hanayama & Mori (2011), Arai et al. (2013) Conformers Independents

Remaining problems: What is conformity in the Asch task ？ Distributions of error scores were continuous. –Conformers and Independents were not clearly defined. –Conformity occurred as a compromise of various factors.

References Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority. Psychological Monograph: General and Applied, 70, Whole No Hanayama, A. & Mori, K. (2011). Conformity of six-year-old children in the Asch experiment without using confederates. Psychology, 2, Open Access Mori, K. (2007). Projecting two words with one machine: A method for presenting two different visual stimuli using just one projector without viewers' noticing the duality. Behavior Research Methods, 39, Downloadable from my website. Mori, K. & Arai, M. (2010). No need to fake it: Reproduction of the Asch experiment without confederates. International Journal of Psychology, 45, Downloadable from my website. Arai, M., Hanayama, A., Ito, A., & Mori, K. (2013). Boys, be independent! Conformity development of Japanese children in the Asch experiment without using confederates. Manuscript for publication.

Questions and comments are welcome.

A Sample Slide Used in This Study