Conformity of Six-Year-Old Children in the Asch Experiment without Using Confederates

Abstract

We investigated the conformity of young children without the use of confederates by utilizing the fMORI-Asch paradigm. The Asch-equivalent tasks were presented by means of a presentation trick so that one participant observed different stimuli than the other three, creating a minority-majority confrontation without using confederates. Ninety-six Japanese first graders (6-7 years old; 48 boys and 48 girls) participated in same-sex groups of four. The response order was randomly assigned and the third responders observed the standard lines differently from the other three children. The results showed that the minority children who had observed different stimuli tended to make more errors than the other three children. No gender differences were observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)