Richard Crutchfield (1955) refined Asch's technique by not having the participants see each other, since he thought that some of Asch's conforming responses were made because the naive participant could see the confederates. His research was also to be more economical, using large numbers of naive participants at the same time. He studied 100 military and businessmen. Their average age was 34 and they came from a variety of educational backgrounds.
The men were divided into groups of five, and seated side by side in individual booths. They could not see each other, and were forbidden to talk. Various
multiple-choice questions were projected onto the wall in front of the men.
"The slides call for various kinds of judgements length of lines, areas of figures, logical completion of number series, vocabulary items, estimates of the opinions of others, expression of his own attitudes on issues, expression of his personal preferences for line drawings, etc." (Crutchfield, 1955).
The men had to give their answers by pressing one of five switches, which corresponded to the answer they favoured. For example, if they thought the
answer to one question was the fourth alternative, they would press switch number four.
There were 21 critical questions. Some men conformed on one or two occasions; one man conformed on 17 of the 21 trials. Crutchfield found that on the
judgement questions (such as asking whether one figure was larger than another) and on factual questions (such as asking for the next number in a given sequence), 30 per cent of his participants would conform to the wrong answer when they thought that the others were also giving that answer. On matters of opinion one of his more celebrated findings was that 37 per cent of the army personnel he tested agreed with the statement, 'I doubt whether I would make a good leader'. When tested privately none of them had agreed with this statement!
Crutchfield (1955) concluded that people conform for a number of different reasons:
(1) Conformers tend to be less intellectually effective. By this Crutchfield means that they lack insight and are less able to apply logical principles to given data.
(2) They have less ego strength and are not self-sufficient. This means that they are less sure of themselves, lack confidence in their abilities and are less forceful in expressing opinions or ideas.
(3) They have less leadership ability. Their cautious approach and general indecisiveness would not inspire confidence in their competence and would not inspire respect and loyalty.
(4) They tend to have authoritarian views of what 'ought to happen', and what 'should be' done.
(5) They tend to have inferiority feelings too, and are generally submissive. They know they lack confidence and competence, and so look to others to be strong and decisive.
(6) They have rather limited friendship networks and their social relationships are often rather shallow.
(7) They are not widely liked, although they may be widely tolerated.
These conclusions imply that there is such a thing as a 'conforming personality'. There isn't much supporting research evidence for this. However, his findings do lend support to those of Asch (1951).