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CONFORMITY IN SPECIFIC GENDER GROUPS 1

Monkey See, Monkey Do: Conformity on Rebus Picture Puzzles

between Specific Gender Groups

Erika Genova

Hofstra University


Abstract

Conformity is defined as the alteration of one’s actions or attitudes that is caused by pressure

from either real or nominal groups. This study was designed to test whether people’s tendency to

conform on solving picture puzzles would be influenced by specific gender groups. Participants

(N = 37) were asked to complete two filler tasks (a sudoku puzzle and an inkblot test) prior to

stating their response to a series of nine picture puzzles after the 4 confederates in each

participant’s condition (all-female, all-male or mixed gender) had stated their rehearsed response

first. The participants then filled out a basic survey regarding demographics, introversion as well

as extroversion self-evaluations, and social activities such as sports and Greek life. The

hypothesized pattern that females would conform more when in the all-female condition than

when in any other condition was supported. The hypothesized pattern that males would conform

more when in the all-male condition than when in any other condition was also supported in this

study. No support was found for the role of sports membership or Greek life association in the

likelihood of a person to conform; further research is needed. These results suggest that

likelihood of one conforming is influenced not by their gender alone, but rather the gender of

those around them in relation to themselves; which in this study meant that females conformed

most with other females and males conformed most with other males.

Keywords: conformity, rebus puzzles, gender, groups, picture puzzles.


Monkey See, Monkey Do: Conformity on Rebus Picture Puzzles between Specific Gender Groups

Conformity is when someone has the tendency to align their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors

with those around them. It is a powerful force that either takes the form of evident social pressure

or unconscious influence. Social pressure is the influence exerted by an individual or group to

make another conform to a specific view. An unconscious influence is when an individual does

something such as conforming without being aware that they are doing so. Conformity can be

divided into two different categories; irrational conformity which is known as herd behavior and

rational conformity which is known to include compliance as well as obedience (Song, Ma, Wu

& Li, 2012). Rational conformity is usually guided by one’s own thinking and reasoning while

irrational conformity is based more on intuition and influence of an external factor.

Solomon Asch (1956) conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated the effects of

conformity to social influence. Asch’s study put an individual in a room with confederates who

were believed to be participants and were asked to decide which line was the same length as a

standard line. It was important that the correct answer was always obvious, and that in each

group only one person was an actual participant. The main finding in Asch’s study was that the

majority of participants conformed to at least some of the groups incorrect responses despite the

participants stating they knew the responses were wrong.

Following Asch’s research there were many studies that focused on conformity. One can

conform in a variety of ways ranging from actions, statements, to even memory. Gabbert,

Wright, Memon, Skagerberg & Jamieson (2011) conducted a study on conformity which had

shown that people are easily influenced by misleading information that is presented by another


person. Their research focused on personal eyewitness accounts of an event that is in someone’s

memory. It was found that confidence with which individuals make their assertion to each other

can operate systematically as a cue that promotes conformity (Gabbert et al., 2011). It comes

down to a confidence issue meaning that whichever person is less confident in their response will

be more persuaded to another answer even if it is incorrect, resulting in conformity. It has been

found that people tend to forget the source of the information more quickly than the information

itself (Gabbert et al., 2011). This is extremely important especially in cases of eye witness

accounts because people will conform to an idea sometimes believing it was theirs from the start.

Other research has proven that conforming to a certain view is not as simple as one may

think. When people try to resist the influence of the opinions of others they focus on their own

judgments; however the opinions of others may still affect the participants in other ways. Rather

than choosing to fit in right away, many people will still attempt to represent the world as

accurately as possible and will consider other’s information, but it will not impact their choice at

first (Skewes, Skewes, Roepstroff & Frith, 2013). For example this was seen in a conformity

study that predates the well-known Asch study; this was conducted by Muzafer Sherif (1936). In

Sherif’s study it was found that initially participants stuck to their own belief regarding the

degrees of movement of the light shown to them. As the study continued the participants’ views

began to converge with the confederates; in the end this resulted in group consensus, conformity.

In a study conducted by Chen, Wu, Tong, Guan & Zhou (2012) it was found that when alone

individuals completed a task with different responses than when completing the same task in a

group setting. These findings were supported by the belief that people naturally tend to conform

to others. This idea of social conformity is seen when an individual will change their response to

match the majority of the group they are in, even when they disagree with the response.


Focusing on the issue of gender specific groups it was essential to look at past studies dealing

with cohesiveness of same sex groups, as well as mixed sex groups. Female groups tend to have

high levels of cohesiveness. Females are commonly seen as the gender that conforms more. This

is expected because the women may be trying to counter the stereotype threat when with males

or a mixed group. Rather than conforming in those groups they will stand more by their decision

rather than go with the group to try and counter the belief that women are not as strong as men in

problem solving behaviors. Conforming to the group happened 51 percent of the time even when

in 15 percent of the situations the participants were aware that it was an incorrect answer

(Hoffman & Maier, 1961).

In a study by Taylor & Strassberg (1986) groups consisting of all females were found to

spend less time on the tasks assigned to them in the study while the all male groups were found

as being very task oriented in the study and the mixed sex groups appeared to fall in the middle.

This suggests that mixed sex groups may have more positive than negative effects on the

participants. On the tasks assigned to participants in the mixed gender condition the participants

scored just as high as the highest scoring homogenous group. It was also seen that the females

and males in the mixed gender group rated their effectiveness as a group more positively than

those in the homogenous conditions (Taylor et al., 1986). Therefore, it is believed that a mixed

gender atmosphere allows there to be a blending of both males and females making the mixed

gender condition more favorable and useful.

The current study looked at the effect of gender specific groups on conformity with a 2 x 3

factorial design. For this study college students either male or female were placed into one of

three groups: all-female, all-male or mixed gender. This study consisted of four tasks that were

completed by 5 person groups where there was one participant and 4 confederates. The first was


a logical and written task represented by a Sudoku puzzle. This was followed by a creative

verbal task where the participants would verbally state what they first see in an inkblot. Then

came the logical verbal task where the participants were last to verbally state the solution to a

rebus word puzzle (a puzzle consisting of pictures representing syllables and words); this is

where it is observed whether the participants conform or not to the confederates in the room.

During this task the confederates were told to state the correct response for the first three of nine

puzzles. For the remaining six questions they were instructed to give wrong answers to measure

the conformity of the participant. Finally, the participants then completed a brief 10 question

survey.

It was hypothesized that females are more likely to conform when they are in a group of all

females than when with all males or a mixed group. Past research conducted by Collin, Di Sano

& Malik (1994) found that female subjects conformed more than males regardless of the gender

of the confederates in their condition. It was believed that females conformed more not because

of traditional sex roles, but because they are more emotionally sensitive (Collin et al., 1994). We

believe that the females will conform more often when they are placed in a group of all female

confederates because of the belief that females conform more than males. However, we believe

that females will conform less in the all-male and mixed gender conditions to break further away

from the traditional sex roles mentioned in past research.

We believe we will find that males are more likely to conform when they are in a group of all

males than with all females or a mixed group. We expect to see these results because previous

studies have shown male participants changing their responses to that of other males after

discussion. Male participants were more likely to change their answer when in a group of males,

75 percent of the time, than when they were with a mixed group, 30 percent of the time


(Hoffman & Maier, 1961). There is a negative attitude towards women’s ability to problem solve

as a result of their sex role identification and this could account for the reason that males were

less likely to conform when they were in a mixed gender group (Hoffman & Maier, 1961).

It was hypothesized that extroverts will be less likely to conform across all conditions than

introverts. An extrovert is someone who is a sociable and outgoing person. On the other hand an

introvert is someone who is shy and reclusive. Across all conditions it is expected that introverts

are more likely to conform because they will find it easier to just go along with the group.

Although there has been no conclusive evidence supporting this idea of extroversion or

introversion impacting one’s likelihood to conform it is assumed that those participants who are

classified as extroverts will be more likely to hold their own opinion. As an extrovert it is

expected that they would be willing to explain why they came up with their answer since it is

believed that they will be less likely to conform to the group.

We hypothesized that members of a sports team will be more likely to conform to their

gender group than when with the opposite gender or mixed group. Sports teams have to be

cohesive, which is the action of forming a united whole. Levels of conformity are higher in more

cohesive groups (Prapavessis & Carron, 1997). Although the participants would be in a group of

strangers rather than their teammates we hypothesize that their mentality to conform to others of

their gender will still be apparent.

It was also hypothesized that members of Greek life will be more likely to conform to their

gender group than when with the opposite gender or mixed group. We expect this because

similarly to the sports teams, members of a sorority or fraternity are part of an extremely

cohesive group. As Prapavessis and Carron (1997) discussed, the more cohesive a group is the

higher the conformity. Greek life puts members through an intense process before they are


officially members because they are expected to be brothers or sisters and function as one.

Therefore, for participants who are involved in sororities we expect them to conform more in the

all-female group and the participants who are involved in fraternities will be expected to conform

more in the all-male group despite the fact that they will be making these judgments with

strangers rather than with their sorority or fraternity family.

Method

Participants

In this study there were a total of 37 participants that completed all phases of the study (20

males and 17 females). All of the participants in this study were students attending Hofstra

University and taking an Intro to Psychology course. The participants were given credit for their

psychology course for participating in this study. Therefore, these participants were selected

using convenience sampling, a form of non-probability sampling. Each participant was randomly

assigned to one of the three conditions in this study. Participants were distributed across the three

conditions as evenly as possible with 12 participants (5 males and 7 females) in the all-female

condition, 13 participants (8 males and 5 females) in the all-male condition, and 12 participants

(7 males and 5 females) in the mixed gender condition.

Design

In this study the main independent variable was the one of three conditions that the participant

was randomly assigned to. One condition was the all-female group (four female confederates),

the second condition was the all-male group (four male confederates) and the third condition was

mixed gender (two male and two female confederates).


In this study the dependent variables were whether the participant conformed to the

confederates or not and how quickly the participant conformed. The question number they

conformed on was recorded.

Materials

Sudoku Puzzle

The participants were asked to complete an easy level Sudoku puzzle, logical written task, in

which they had two minutes to solve as much of the puzzle as they possibly could. A Sudoku

puzzle is when several numbers are to be filled into a 9x9 grid of squares. Every row, every

column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9 with no duplicate numbers. An easy

level of difficulty was chosen for the puzzle since it could be solved using more simple logic

because as a filler task we did not want the participants to give up early just to get through the

study.

Inkblots

The participants were asked to state what they saw in a series of four inkblots verbally for the

creative verbal task. All of the inkblots used were those of Rorschach’s test, which was

developed in 1921. Inkblots are abstract paths of ink and their purpose was to see how others

would interpret the irregular figures in the blots of ink shown in the power point. Verbally stating

the first thing they saw within the inkblots was the second filler task for the participants in this

study.

Rebus Puzzles

The participants were asked to solve a series of eight rebus puzzles for the logical verbal final

task, which was the core of the study because it is where conformity was observed. A rebus

puzzle consists of pictures or word art that represent common syllables and words. For example a


rebus puzzle that is meant to represent the phrase “head over heels” would be word art with the

word head directly over the word heels. For this study a variety of nine rebus puzzles were used

representing the following phrases; first aid, two little too late, once in a blue moon, breakfast,

sideshow, small print, undercover police, up for grabs and travel overseas. The source of the

rebus puzzles used in this study was fun-with-words.com where they have a variety of these

brainteasers along with their solutions.

Basic Survey

The participants were asked to complete a brief survey that consisted of ten questions. The

first four questions were based on the demographics of the participants where they were asked to

provide their gender, age, class standing at Hofstra University, and which race that they best

identified with. These were followed by three yes or no questions that asked if the participants

were a member of a sports team, a social sorority/fraternity or a pre-professional fraternity. The

final three questions of this basic survey were geared to have a slight understanding as to

whether the participants self-classified as an introvert or an extrovert. Here they were asked

straightforward questions such as whether they consider themselves to be an outgoing person or

a shy person and if they prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. The participants had

the choice to either agree or disagree to these statements on a two-point scale.

Procedure

Participants were divided into three groups and with an almost identical number of male and

female participants in each group. The groups were all female, all male, and mixed gender. All

participants were asked to complete a consent form before the study began. The participants

were told that the study was about written versus verbal responses on creative and logical tasks.


First the participants were given a logical written task, which was an easy level Sudoku puzzle.

The participants were given one minute to complete as much of the puzzle as possible.

Then the participants completed a verbal creative task with a power point on inkblots. In a

line starting with the subject followed by the four confederates of that condition, each stated the

first thing they saw when looking at the inkblots. There was a series of four inkblots from the

well-known Rorschach’s test. After, the group was then shown a series of nine rebus puzzles as

the logical and verbalized task. In each group the participant was the last to verbalize their

answer to allow the confederates to answer first. The group had ten seconds to look at each

puzzle before the first confederate stated their response. For the first three rebus puzzle questions

the confederates stated the correct answer to allow the participant to gain confidence in the task.

For the last six questions the confederates stated an obviously incorrect, but plausible answer to

the rebus puzzle. Whether or not the participant conformed, as well as which rebus puzzle

question they conformed on was recorded. Then the participants were given a brief survey that

consisted of questions regarding basic demographics, social activities, as well as extraversion

and introversion questions. Finally, the participants were asked if they had any questions and

then they were fully debriefed about the study.

Results

The number of rebus puzzle responses that participants in the study conformed to by stating

the same wrong solution as the four confederates in their group during the verbal and logic task

was the main dependent measure of this study. There were three main conditions used: all-

female, all-male and mixed gender. The participants were all randomly assigned to a condition

based on their gender. An alpha level of .05 was used for all of the following statistical tests in

this study.


Conformity in Different Groups

The number of questions the participants conformed to the confederates on were added

together to create a sum of the questions that the participants conformed on to be able to see the

amount of times the participants were influenced by conformity. Any sum greater than zero

meant that the participants conformed on their responses. Participants were divided into three

conditions based on their gender. Thus the design associated with this measure was a 2 (gender)

x 3 (condition) factorial where both variables were between subject variables. The sums

calculated were those of the rebus puzzles responses and they were submitted to a 2 x 3

ANOVA.

The main effect for condition was significant, F(2, 31) = 4.21, p = .024, ηp2 = .214. This

showed that conformity took place the most in the all-female condition (M = 4.41, SD = 1.24),

least in the all-male condition (M = 3.15, SD = 1.67) and fell in the middle for the mixed gender

condition (M = 3.66, SD = .887). The main effect for gender was not significant, F(1, 31) = .007,

p = .993, ηp2 = .000. The interaction between condition and gender of the participants was

significant F(2, 31) = 7.79, p = .002, ηp2 = .335. However, based on the significant interaction of

gender and condition hypothesis one was confirmed; female participants were more likely to

conform when they were in a group of all females (M = 5.14, SD = .899) rather than with males

where they conformed the least (M = 2.00, SD = 1.00) or a mixed gender group where they fell

in the middle (M = 3.80, SD = .836). This significant interaction was also consistent with

hypothesis two; male participants will conform more when in a group of all males (M = 3.87, SD

= 1.64) and least when they are with all females (M = 3.40, SD = .894) and fell in the middle

when in the mixed gender group (M = 3.57, SD = .975).

Extrovert vs. Introvert


Participants answered three short questions that would allow them to self-classify as an

extrovert or an introvert. This information was obtained through three agree or disagree

questions on a two-point scale. The responses to these questions were coded and then submitted

to t-tests comparing them to whether the participants classified themselves as an extrovert or not.

The third prediction that the participants who were extroverted would be less likely to conform

across all conditions t(35) = .872, p = .516 was not supported by the participants’ self-evaluation

of if they are an outgoing person.

The last two questions dealt with introversion. The responses to these questions were coded

and submitted to t-tests comparing them to whether or not the participants classified themselves

as an introvert. The fourth hypothesis that introverts would be more likely to conform across all

conditions was not supported by their self-evaluation of being shy t(35) = -.266, p = .529 nor by

preferring one-on-one conversations t(35) = -.396, p = .335.

Social Involvement

Participants provided information as to whether they were currently a member of a sports

team, social Greek life or pre-professional Greek life. This information was obtained through

three yes or no survey questions. The responses to these three questions were coded and

submitted to t-tests comparing them whether or not the participants were members of a sports

team, social Greek organization or a pre-professional Greek organization. The prediction that the

participants who were members of a sports team would be more likely to conform to their gender

in hypothesis five was not supported t(35) = .155, p = .841.

Hypothesis six that participants who were members of Greek life would be more likely to

conform to groups of their own gender was not supported for social Greek life t(36) = .528, p

= .601 nor pre-professional Greek life t(35) = -1.70, p = .098.


Discussion

The major finding in this study was the interaction between gender of the participant (male or

female) and the condition the participant was placed in (all-female, all-male or mixed gender).

This interaction means that the effect of one factor (gender or condition) depends on the level of

the other factor (gender: male/female or condition: all-female/all-male/mixed gender). These

findings show that conforming on problem solving tasks is impacted by the combination of the

gender of the participant and the condition that they were placed in. This supported my

hypothesis that female participants would be more likely to conform when they were in a group

of all females than when with all males or a mixed group. It also supported my hypothesis that

male participants would conform more when in a group of all males than when with all females

or a mixed group. The hypotheses that extroverts would be less likely to conform across all

conditions and that introverts would be more likely to conform across all conditions was not

supported. The hypothesis that members of a sports team would be more likely to conform to

their gender group than to the opposite gender or a mixed group was not supported. There was

also no support for the hypothesis that members of Greek life would be more likely to conform

to their gender group than when with the opposite gender or mixed group.

A theoretical explanation for these findings would be that the participants in this study

conformed due to the theory of herd behavior. Herd behavior is a form of irrational conformity.

This type of behavior was also seen is Asch’s (1951) study because it occurs when an individual

is influenced by a group by accepting other attitudes due to their intuition (Song et al., 2012).

Herd behavior is believed to be a part of human instinct and can only be overcome by an

individual relying on rational thinking rather than intuition. Individuals fall into herd behavior

through aspects of compliance and abidance. From this study it is clear that participants


conformed, fell into herd behavior, more often when they were in the condition of the four

confederates of the same gender. Therefore, in these situations they justified conforming through

the unconscious need for internal consistency among in-groups (Song et al., 2012).

Limitations

This study had some limitations that could have impacted the results. One weakness of this

study was that all of the participants were obtained through convenience sampling from a group

of students attending Hofstra University and taking a Psychology 101 class. Therefore, all of the

participants were college aged students with the majority in their freshman year of college. If

there had been more of a variety of students, conformity would have been better represented in

this study. Another weakness of this study could have been the introversion and extroversion

questions on the survey. In hoping to keep the survey brief only three questions regarding these

traits were asked and the responses were on a two-point scale of either agree or disagree while it

would have been better represented if it was on a five-point scale ranging from strongly agree to

strongly disagree.

Future Studies

In the future it would be interesting to run this study again, but with a larger and more diverse

sample. Rather than using the majority of college freshman having a variety of ages may help to

support the significant findings of this smaller scale study. A future direction for this study

would be to possibly focus more on the effect of membership to a sports team or Greek

organization on conformity. The lack of support for the hypotheses regarding conformity with

these social activities is largely due to the fact that the majority of the participants were not

involved in these activities. It would be interesting to find out if involvement in these activities

impacts the likelihood of someone conforming when in a specific gender group. To do this


would entail having a large population of people that are evenly distributed among those who

play sports and those who do not, as well as those involved in Greek life and those who are not.

Conclusion

Consequently, this variation to the Asch conformity study has shown that being in specific

gender groups can impact how someone conforms on activities such as a rebus picture puzzle. It

has been found that people are more likely to conform when they are in gender specific groups

consisting of only their own gender than when with the opposing gender or a mixed group. It is

important to take the information from this study and see if these results remain true among a

more diverse group of participants outside of psychology students and with more variety in ages.

These findings can help to develop new ways to help boost confidence in people. Based on these

results placing people in a mixed group of individuals is the best way for them to stand by their

own thoughts rather than conforming to the thoughts of others on logic tasks.


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