The degree of peer influence on conformity levels for self-care and non-self-care children

Ninety self-care and ninety non-self-care children from grades 5 to 7 were selected to investigate the effect of the degree of peer influence on the level of conformity. A revised form of Asch's line discrimination task was used. It was hypothesized that: 1) In the low and high influence conditions, self-care children conform less than non-self-care. 2) Both self-care and non-self-care are most conforming in the high influence condition. 3) There is no difference between self-care and non-self-care children on conformity in the control condition. There was a significant main effect of self-care status on conformity and a significant difference between peer influence conditions. There was no significant interaction between status and degree of peer influence on conformity.