Group composition and conforming behavior in Japanese students

Abstract

A recent report suggested that a radical change was occurring in the response of British students to the Asch-type conformity experiment. The present study of Japanese students, however, shows no such change; nor did it show any signs of anticonformity as reported earlier. In comparison with students of other countries, Japanese students showed less conformist responses to the stranger groups; and more conformist responses to the familiar groups, e.g. to their own university's sport clubs. These results seem to support the conclusion that response to the Asch-type experiment is not universal but rather reflects cultural and situational factors.

The role of consensus and culture in children’s imitation of inefficient actions

“…We found no difference in Caucasian American and Chinese American children's tool choice selection in the Single Model condition. Instead, this willingness of Chinese American children to learn from a consensus-even when their choices are non-optimal-confirms the second hypothesis and is consistent with research demonstrating that Asian American children and adults seem to be especially inclined to conform to the majority (Frager, 1970;Huang & Harris, 1973;Meade, 1973;Williams & Sogon, 1984). It is also consistent with the possibility that Chinese American children pay special attention to social cues (Corriveau & Harris, 2010).…”

“…In Study 2, we confirmed that the effects found in Study 1 were based on cultural differences-and not on social group membership-by testing a group of first-generation Caucasian American preschoolers. We focused on these groups because previous research with adults has indicated that individuals from collectivistic cultures (such as Asian cultures) engage in higher rates of imitation than those from individualistic cultures (such as the United States) (Chu, 1979;Frager, 1970;Huang & Harris, 1973;Meade, 1973;Williams & Sogon, 1984; for a review, see Bond & Smith, 1996). Moreover, recent developmental work with preschoolers echoes this finding; the rate of deference to an incorrect consensus among Asian American preschoolers is nearly double that among Caucasian American preschoolers (Corriveau & Harris, 2010;Corriveau et al, 2013).…”

On the Social Dimensions of Moral Psychology

“…Yet the subjects in the original Asch experiments were not strangers to each other: both subjects and confederates were recruited from friendship groups on the college campus. This likely explains the failure to replicate the results of the original Asch experiments in later studies that employed randomly selected subjects who were strangers to each other (Perrin & Spencer, 1980), and the initially surprising fact that Japanese subjects in cross‐cultural replications of Asch's experiments demonstrated significantly less conformity than American subjects, despite the cultural stereotype of the Japanese as conformist (Frager, 1970): the subjects in these experiments were randomly selected strangers, although Japanese subjects displayed greater conformity in different experiments in which the experimental subjects were family members or fellow employees at their company (Kinoshita, 1964; Williams and Sogon, 1984).…”

Self as Cultural Product: An Examination of East Asian and North American Selves

“…When in a situation with strangers, Japanese conform to a comparable degree as Americans, or even show some evidence of anti-conformity (e.g., Frager, 1970). However, when in a situation with their peers, Japanese show evidence of heightened conformity (Williams & Sogon, 1984); indeed, this study found the second largest degree of conformity out of the 133 studies reviewed across 17 different countries (Bond & Smith, 1996). In contrast, the degree of conformity for Americans did not appear to be contingent on the relationships between the subjects and those of the majority group.…”