IndexAbstractGender differences and self-esteem in conformity: revisiting the methods of the Asch conformity testAbstractStudies on conformity have been explored following the classic Asch line judgment task (1956 ). Numerous factors are believed to influence compliance behaviors. The present study investigates gender differences in conforming behaviors and how self-esteem is associated with conformity, replicating Asch's original experiment. The study further explores whether self-esteem is associated with conformity differently across gender groups. Twenty-two undergraduate psychology students (eight males and fourteen females) were recruited. An independent t-test and bivariate correlation analyzes were used to analyze the data. The results revealed 1) no gender difference in compliant behaviors, 2) a significant negative correlation between self-esteem and compliant behaviors, 3) differential association of self-esteem and compliance between males and females. Overall, the findings suggest that conformity is influenced by an individual's sense of self-worth rather than a person's gender identity; gender may be a moderating variable in self-esteem and conformity research that future studies can explore. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Gender Differences and Self-Esteem in Conformity: Revisiting the Asch Conformity Test People often face situations in which they are pressured to conform to certain norms or behaviors. Conformity is the change in behaviors in response to real or imagined pressure from members of the social environment (Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, & Nisbett, 2013). In a classic study by Asch (1956), it was shown that people can give obviously wrong answers even when they know they are incorrect due to a sense of pressure from others. Specifically, study participants were shown three different comparison lines and asked which line was similar to a target line presented adjacent. Participants were seated in a group of 7 to 9 and had to respond after the others had indicated their answer. There was only one participant in each group and the others were confederates who unanimously gave incorrect answers on specific trials, known as critical trials. Approximately 75% of participants complied with at least one study; of these participants, 5% complied with all critical studies. Qualitative analysis after the experiment revealed that participants knew the answers were incorrect, but felt the need to conform because they did not want to feel rejected, suggesting that people have a psychological need to integrate into a group. Giving in to group pressure because of the need to fit in is called normative social influence, as opposed to informational social influence where people are uncertain about a situation and look to others for guidance (Asch, 1956; Gilovich et al, 2013). Clearly, Asch's study explores the aspect of normative social influence. Since then, numerous studies have found divergent results (Bond & Smith, 1996; Mori & Arai, 2010), casting doubt on the study's external validity. Perhaps the most important limitation of Asch's study was the use of only male participants, indicating the need for further studies exploring gender differences. The literature on gender differences remains inconsistent: while in the past women have generally been found to conform more than men (Bond & Smith, 1996), recent studies do not suggestgender differences (Rosander & Eriksson, 2012) or contrasting findings in conformity between gender groups (Enjanjan, Zeigler-Hill, & Vonk, 2015). Review of Gender Differences Women have generally been found to conform more than men, likely due to gender roles and conforming to those roles during the period (1960s-1990s) in which the experiments took place ( Rosander & Eriksson, 2012). The social identity of women was probably more submissive and compliant than today. Good and Sanchez (2010) hypothesized that people conform to society's gender roles because of the intrinsic pleasure of bringing together an individual's actual and ideal self, or because of extrinsic pressure from society. According to self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, cited in Gilovich et al., 2013), people are constantly motivated to compare their real self – which represents who they truly believe they are – and their other two selves, the ideal and the due. if. The first refers to the more positive connotation of people's ambitions and what others say about them; the latter refers to the sense of obligation that people feel pressured to follow. The meta-analysis by Bond and Smith (1996) seems to confirm this theory. In retrospect, the review was also carried out in the 1990s and compliance behaviors may have changed since then. Rosander and Eriksson (2012) agreed that women do not conform more than men. The study used the Asch paradigm, but over the Internet where participants did not interact face-to-face with each other. An additional measure of task difficulty (Easy/Hard) was introduced. The overall compliance result was similar to Asch's original study. Furthermore, men have been found to conform more than women on difficult tasks (particularly on difficult and logical questions; for details, see Rosander & Eriksson, 2012). This is confirmed by Enjanjan and colleagues (2015), where men with different levels of self-esteem were found to conform more in difficult tests. Furthermore, women may not have been more compliant, but men tend to report less compliance depending on the context (Rosander & Eriksson, 2012). A recent explanation for why men conform less alludes to the idea that nonconformity portrays uniqueness, thus making an individual stand out and increasing potential opportunities such as leadership roles (Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006; Rosander & Eriksson, 2012). Taken together, the findings suggest no concrete direction of the gender difference and suggest a relationship between conformity and self-esteem. Reviewing Self-Esteem in ConformityFollowing self-discrepancy theory, conformity toward attributed norms can increase self-esteem due to intrinsic positive feelings. . Conversely, conforming due to feelings of pressure can induce lower levels of self-esteem (Good & Sanchez, 2010; Gilovich et al., 2013). Alternatively, this article aims to identify whether self-esteem levels influence people's conforming behaviors. One of the main reasons why people conform is the desire to fit in or be corrected (i.e., normative and informational social influences; Gilovich et al., 2013). Since these desires are associated with self-esteem (Enjanjan et al., 2016), it is intuitive to think that people with low self-esteem conform more. In fact, studies converge on the idea that individuals with low self-esteem tend to conform more than individuals with high self-esteem (Enjanjan et al., 2016), perhaps to protect their weak sense of self and mitigate the harmful impacts of failure ( Ardnt, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002). The research onrelationship between gender in self-esteem and conformity remained poor, with identifiable studies placing self-esteem as the outcome/dependent variable in their study instead of conformity (Good & Sanchez, 2010). Due to inconsistencies in the literature, this paper predicts a non-directional gender difference in compliance rate. Next, self-esteem is expected to be negatively related to conformity. Finally, this article further explores whether levels of self-esteem across gender groups are differentially associated with conformity. Design Methods There were two study designs: a quasi-experimental between-subjects design for the group difference test and a correlational design for the association test. The independent variable for the first test was gender; the dependent variable was social conformity operationalized as the rate of conformity (out of 12 critical trials) of the Asch (1956) conformity test. Self-esteem, measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965a), was correlated with the dependent variable. Participants responded to both the RSES and the compliance experiment. Participants A total of 22 participants (8 male, 14 female), aged between 18 and 25 years (M = 20.7, SD = 2.35 years) were recruited from James Cook University as part of their course requirement PY3102. Most participants (N = 19) were first-year students, while the remainder (N = 3) were second-year students. All participants were included in the study as all relevant details were entered into both demographic forms (gender, age, and year of study in college) and all participants completed the experiment. MaterialsAsch line judgment task (1956). Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 was used to create the stimuli, presented in class via an overhead projector at James Cook University in Singapore, room C2-06. The stimuli (Appendix A) consisted of 18 online judgment test trials, 12 of which were critical trials in which the researcher recorded participants' responses. Confederates were told to give unanimous wrong answers on critical trials. The target lines were copied exactly (copy-paste function) from the correct comparison line, while the remaining lines were created in such a way that the correct answer was always obvious. All lines were between 2 and 10 inches (5.08 cm - 25.40 cm) according to the original study. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; 1965a). The RSES is a 10-item scale that measures feelings of self-esteem by assessing both positive and negative feelings about the self (Rosenberg, 1965b). Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Points 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 are assigned the reverse score. Item scores are summed, and higher scores indicate higher self-esteem (Appendix B). The scale was found to have good internal consistency, a = .91, and demonstrated good internal and external validity (Sinclair et al., 2010). Procedure Participants were given an information sheet and told that their participation was completely voluntary; they could leave at any point in the experiment. For each experiment there was only one participant. After accepting informed consent and completing the demographic sheet, participants completed the RSES. Participants were told that they were participating in a group study on visual judgment with three other peers and that they had been assigned to the last seat in the row. The researcher presented the line judgment task on the screen (5 meters away) and the participants had to answer: “Which line.