Social Influence and Social Interaction:

Proposal.
1. Give the Research Question for your investigation.
Does the size of a family affect how often a person conforms?
/2
2. Give a hypothesis for your investigation.
If a person comes from a larger family, then they will be more likely to
conform.
/2
3. The Independent variables are those changed or manipulated by the
investigator in order to see how they affect the dependant variables.
List all independent and dependant variables in your investigation.
Independent variable: Number of people in family
Dependent variable: How often people conformed
/2
4. Explain what data you will use to answer the research question.
To answer the research question, the data from the social interaction
and social influence investigation will be used, as well as the family
size data.
/2
5. Explain how you will manipulate the data in order to answer your
Research Question.
The data for this investigation will be manipulated to answer the
research question. All participants will be categorized into one of three
groups; only child, one sibling, and more than one sibling. In each of
these groups, the average conformity rate will be worked out and will
then be displayed in a bar graph.
/2

Social Influence and Social Interaction:

Non-SACE Research Report.
Introduction.
1. Describe what in meant by the term conformity (HINT: use a source you
can reference)
Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to
group norms.
(2)
2. Give your research question and hypothesis.
Does the size of a family affect how often a person conforms?
Hypothesis: If a person comes from a larger family, then they will be more
likely to conform.
(4)
3. Briefly explain how data was obtained (not a standard Materials and
Methods section).
Students from the Social Health class at the ASMS were asked to take
part in a quiz as part of an experiment. Students were not told what the
experiment was, this was so they would not attempt to change their
answers to effect the results. After the students completed the quizzes
individually, they were put into random groups and asked to give their
answers again. The reason this was done was to measure how much the
students conformed in a group when giving their answers to the quiz,
instead of when they answered the quiz individually.
(2)
4. Explanation of how the choice of data and how you manipulate it will
enable to research question to be answered (i.e. how does your graphs or
tables allow the research question to be answered?).
The data for this investigation will be manipulated to answer the research
question. All participants will be categorized into one of three groups; only
child, one sibling, and more than one sibling. In each of these groups, the
average conformity rate will be worked out and will then be displayed in a
bar graph. By doing this will help answer the research question because it
neatly displays the data so that the results can be accurately compared.

(2)

Results.
1. Describe the participants (i.e. how many? Ages? Genders? etc)
In this investigation, 31 students from the ASMS between the ages of
14 and 17 participated. Six of the participants were only children,
fifteen had one sibling, and nine had more than one sibling. Of the 31
students, 18 were girls, and 13 were boys.
(2)
2. Show your graphs or tables below (refer to attachment if needed).

(6)
3. Summarise the main features of the data.
This graph displays the results students had on the conformity test.
Each bar represents the different groups students were in which were;
only child, one sibling, more than one sibling. According to this graph,
only children were most likely to conform, on average scoring a 28%
conformity rate. Students second most likely to conform were those
who had more than one sibling, on average scoring a 24% conformity

rate. Finally, students who were least likely to conform were those who
had only one sibling, on average scoring a 23% conformity rate.
(4)

Discussion.
1. Using evidence, describe if the hypothesis of your study was supported.
The hypothesis for this study was that if a person comes from a larger
family, then they will be more likely to conform. Based on the data
collected from this experiment, the hypothesis was refuted, as the
students most likely to conform were only children.
(2)
2. Discuss the effect of the sample size on your conclusions.
The sample size is the number of people who participated in the
experiment. For this experiment, there was a very small sample size,
which means that the results were not accurate as only a small portion of
people participated.
(2)
3. Discuss the effect of the representativeness on your conclusions.
The conclusions drawn from this experiment are ill advised as the data
used for this experiment came from a small sample size, and are not
accurate enough to used to describe conformity rates of a larger
population. Only 31 people participated, which is not enough for the data
to be accurate. The number of people that belonged to the different family
types varied as well, which would have also effected the accuracy of the
data.
(2)
4. Discuss the validity of your data.
The quiz students filled out measured what it claimed measure, which
makes the data valid.
(2)
5. Discuss the reliability of your data.
The sample size used for the data was small and therefore unreliable,
also the number of people in each family type was not equal which would
have drastically changed the averages.
(2)
6. Discuss 3 positive aspects of the investigation design.
One positive aspect of the investigation was that the students were not
aware of the investigation, so that when the data was taken students did
not alter their answers. Another positive aspect of the investigation was
that different groups of people that participated in the experiment,
therefore not giving a bias to a particular group of people. Another positive

aspect of the investigation was that all students actively participated in the
quiz and did their best to answer the questions to the best of their ability.
(3)
7. Discuss 3 negative aspects of the investigation design and suggest
improvements.
One negative aspect of this investigation was that there wasnt an equal
number of students from the different family sizes. To make the data more
accurate, there could have been an equal number of students from the
different family sizes. Another negative aspect of this investigation was
that the sample size as too small. To make the data more accurate the
sample size could have been larger. Another negative aspect of the
investigation was that the information collected was unreliable, as the
sample size was so small. Having a larger sample size would allow for
more accurate data to be collected.
(3)
8. Discuss how this investigation fits the ethical rules (Hint: IVCARD),
suggest improvements if necessary.
There are no written ethical rules that must be followed in an
investigation. The investigator decides if the experiment is ethical or not.
These rules are considered to be morally right, however as everyone has
a different moral compass, everyone has a different idea on what should
be and should not be done. Students were not aware of what the quiz
they were taking was actually for. None of them had any idea that they
were taking part in a conformity investigation. Students voluntarily decided
to take the quiz. They were aloud to choose not to take part in the quiz,
and had the choice to withdraw from the quiz if they wished. Students also
had the right to confidentiality, and all who took part in the investigation
did not any of their personal details released. All of the results were
published and none of them had been fabricated. The quiz students took
did not have any negative side effects. As no one was hurt in any way by
doing the conformity quiz and no one was forced to do it, I think the
investigation does fit into ethical rules.
(5)
9. Conclude by discussing the implications of this study on the wider world.
The results taken came from a small sample size leading the results to be
unreliable. As the results are unreliable, then the data cannot be used in
the wider world.