Cameron Lipton

PSYCH 100 Section 8

The psychological question that I wanted to observe was what age people start to

`conform? What had inspired me to research this topic were the experiences I had while working

as a counselor at a sleepaway camp this summer. Every day the kids got to sign up for activities

that they wanted to do that day. What I had noticed was that the girls who were around 5-8

would sign up on their own accord while the older girls would do what the majority of their

friends wanted to do. Most of the time the older girls didn’t want to do the activity and would

just sit on the side. When I would ask them why they signed up their response was always

“Cause that’s what my friends are doing”. This sparked my curiosity on not just when young

girls but all children decide to conform.

My hypothesis for my question is that children start conforming around the age of 10 due

to the observations that I made as a camp counselor. The experiment that I would conduct to

prove my point would be somewhat similar to the classic “Asch Experiment”. I would have 5

groups: the ages would be 6, 10, 14, 18 and 20. The experiment would be conducted with a total

of 8 people per age group; 4 females and 4 males. They would go one at a time in another group

of about 5 other people who are helping with the experiment by having prepared answers. They

will look at a picture of lines that are different lengths and have to answer which is the longest or

the shortest. All of the other “participants” will answer incorrectly (for example: answer with the

second longest line). When it comes to the real participants turn they will answer and their

response will be recorded and will determine whether they conformed or not. If they answered

the question along with the others it would have proved they had conformed to the majority.

However, if the participant does a separate answer than the rest they did not follow under the

pressure of their peers to answer differently. The dependant variable would be how many

conformed and the independent variable would be the age of the participant.
Cameron Lipton
PSYCH 100 Section 8

The study that I found pertaining to the conformity of children was conducted at

University of Florida. The researchers took 72 students from P.K.Yonge Laboratory School and

24 undergraduates from their fellow students from their university. The genders were evenly split

up of the males and females. They were divided into 4 age groups; Group I was 7 to 9 years,

Group II was 11 to 13, Group II 15 to 17 and Group IV ranged 19 to 21. The experiment that was

conducted involved the experimenter separating the subjects into private booths and with a

projection screen and a panel of twenty lights (4 rows with 5 lights in each row) and 5 switches

underneath it. While the 4th row of lights was controlled by the subject, the top three lights were

controlled by the experimenter. The other rows of lights was supposed to suggest that the other

lights are the answers of other participants. On the panel in front of them, there was three lines

shown a line and given three options on which matched the line given. At certain points of the

experiment, the experimenter would have the three other “participants” answer wrong (ex:

choosing a line shorter/longer than the one shown). If the subject answers the question according

to what the other “participants” say, it proves that they have conformed.

The results were recorded by age and gender of the individual. The group that was least

likely to conform was Group I (a.k.a. Ages 7-9) and Group II (11-13) was the group that

conformed the most. When it came to groups III (15-17) and IV (19-21), there was a steady

decrease of conformity. What the study also confirmed was that females are slightly more likely

to conform than males.