4. Asch (1951-55) Conformity Experiment Flashcards
When was the Asch experiment
1951
What did Asch aim to do
Asch looked at the effects of Normative Social influence (NSI)
- Asch designed an experiment to see whether ppl would conform to a majority’s incorrect answer in an unambiguous task (where the answer is obvious)
How many participants were there
123 American male undergraduates (so not representative of all ages or genders)
Method of the Asch experiment
- Asch carried out a laboratory experiment w an independent groups design.
- In groups of 8, participants judged the line lengths by saying out loud which comparison line matched the standard line.
- Each group contained only 1 real participant, the others were confederates (who acted like real participants but were really helping the experimenter) - - The naive participant was not aware of this. The real participant would always answer last, ensuring they heard the others give their deliberately incorrect answers.
- Participants were shown 2 cards at a time. One showing a ‘standard white line’ whilst the other showed 3 ‘comparison lines’. One line was correct, two were significantly disproportional.
- Altogether each participant took part in 18 trials. On 12 of these (the critical trials), the confederates all gave the same wrong answer. There was also a control group, where the participants judged the line lengths in isolation.
Results from the Asch experiment
- In the control trials, participants gave the wrong answer 0.7% of the time.
- In the critical trials, the naive participant conformed to the majority 37% of the time. Overall, only 25% of the participants did not conform on any trials, 75% conformed at least once.
- When interviewed, most participants said they didnt really believe their answers, but didnt want to look different - conformed to avoid rejection (due to NSI)
CONCLUSION: ‘Asch effect’ - conformity on an unambiguous task
Evaluation of the Asch experiment: PROS
- This was a laboratory experiment, so there was good control of the variables. This minimises the effects of extraneous variables.
- Strict control of the variables also means that you could easily repeat the study to see if you get the same results
Evaluation of the Asch experiment: CONS
- Bc the participants were not in a natural situation, the study lacks ecological validity. Whether they were right or wrong didn’t matter to the participants - they might have been likely to conform if their answers had real-life consequences.
- In terms of ethics, the participants were deceived & might have been embarrassed when they found out the true nature of the study
- Only tested Americans, so data cannot be used to represent all of society
Other factors that influenced participants
Participants were influenced by situational factors. This happens due to the social situation a person is in.
Sometimes we are influenced by dispositional factors, due to a person’s internal characteristics
Asch investigated situation factors
What did Asch do to investigate the situational factors in the experiment
Asch repeated his study, this time varying the:
- Group size
- Unanimity/social support
- Task difficulty
How does Group size in the experiment have an effect (situational factor)
- With only two confederates, the real participant conformed on only 14% of the critical trials.
- With three confederates, conformity rose to 32%.
- Increasing the group size only increased conformity to a certain point. There was little change to conformity rates after that
- So, very small majorities are easier to resist than larger ones. But influence doesnt keep increasing w the size of the majority.
How does Unanimity/social support have an effect (situational factor)
Asch was curious to investigate whether or not the presence of another non-conforming person affect the naive participants conformity. So he introduced a confederate who disagreed w the other confederates.
- A dissenter (someone who goes against confederates), who gave the correct answer, broke the unanimity of the group, which made it easier for the real participant to resist the pressure to conform. Rate of conformity fell to 5.5%
- A dissenter who gave a different incorrect answer led conformity to the majority to drop to 9%
This suggests that social support means the participant is more likely to stick w their instincts & initial beliefs/have confidence in their answer
How does Increasing task difficulty have an effect (situational factor)
To increase difficulty, the lengths of the lines were changed so that the stimulus line & comparison lines appeared more similar in length.
Conformity levels increased when the task become more difficult bc ISI plays a greater role when a task becomes more ambiguous. Ppl are more likely to conform if they’re less confident that they’re correct.
Who repeated Asch’s original study
Perrin & Spencer (1980) replicated Asch’s study w participants who were engineering students. -
- Conformity levels were much lower.
- This could have been due to the fact that engineers had confidence in their skills in making accurate observation
What did Perrin & Spencer find upon repeating Asch’s study
Only 1/396 UK engineering students (therefore intelligent) conformed, possibly due to finding the task easier bc of their line of study/confidence in their skills
Shows that Asch’s study lacks temporal validity & ppl are less conformist today
What is temporal validity
A type of external validity that refers to the ability to generalise results of a study across time.
Asch’s study has not stood the test of time after being repeated numerous times - evidence has shown we don’t conform in the same way as in 19th century
What is the Hawthorne effect
Refers to the fact that ppl will modify their behaviour simply bc they are being observed. This affects the validity of the test
Validity meaning
How well a test measures what it claims to
Methodological issues with Asch’s experiment
- sample of US male undergraduates: cannot be generalised, not a naturalistic situation
- lacks ecological validity - not applicable to real world, cannot be used to predict behaviours in real world
- deception - participants didn’t know abt confederates
- lab/confederates - actors, artificial situation so lacks mundane realism
- psychological harm - Bogdonoff et al. (1961) provides supporting evidence that the participants were placed in a stressful situation. They tested the autonomic arousal of participants in an Asch-like task & found that they were physciologically aroused, high blood pressure, etc
What were views on genders in mid-1970s based on conformity
In 1970s it was suggested that women would be more conformist than men, possibly bc they are more concerned w social relationships
Who conducted research into gender as a factor of conformity
Eagly and Carli (1981) conducted a lot of research against the simplistic mid-1970s view that females conform more than males
What did Eagly and Carli find from their meta-analysis of previous studies
Conducted a meta-analysis of conformity research, where they re-analysed data from a no. of studies.
- They did find some sex differences in conformity, but the differences were inconsistent
- The clearest difference between men & women was in Asch-like studies where there was group pressure from an audience
Who also conducted research into gender as a factor of conformity
Eagly (1987) - argued that men & women’s different social roles explain the differences in conformity:
- Women are more concerned w group harmony, so are more likely to agree with others.
- Assertiveness & independence are valued male attributes, so maintaining your own opinion under pressure fits with the perceived male social role.
How do cultural differences come into play with conformity
- Individualistic cultures (UK & US) is where personal goals take preference. More concern abt self, than others
- Social behaviour in collectivist cultures (China) is determined by goals w the collective rather than separate from it
- Found that conformity rates in ppl with collectivist views are higher (Bond and Smith, 1996).
Is it fair to conclude conformity from Asch’s findings
- 2/3 of the trials, participants resolutely stuck to their og opinion despite being face w an overwhelming majority
- Asch believed the study demonstrated independence & not conformity
3 reasons ppl conform
- Distortion of perception: came to see the lines in the same way as the majority
- Distortion of judgement: felt doubt abt the accuracy of their judgement so sided w majority
- Distortion of action: continued to trust their own judgement & perception but changed behaviour to avoid disapproval
AO3 Evaluation: Research support for ISI (math questions)
Lucas et al. (2006) ‘self efficacy/personal judgement’
- Students were asked to give answers to mathematical problems, that were easy or more difficult.
- There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easier
- This was more likely the case for students who rated their mathematical ability as poor
- Results indicated that ppl conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer - low self efficacy
Research against NSI: who is less likely to be affected by NSI
- Ppl who are less concerned w being liked are less likely to be affected by NSI
- nAffiliators = ppl who have a greater need for ‘affiliation’
- McGhee & Teevan (1967): students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform
Criticism of NSI: Individual differences in the way ppl respond
ISI & NSI working together
- ‘two process approach’ suggests that behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI
- Asch (1951): conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting (smne who disagrees) participant
- The dissenter might reduce the power of NSI bc the dissenter provides social support
- Or may reduce the power of ISI bc there is an alternative source of info
- Casts doubt over the view of ISI & NSI as two processes operating independently in conforming behaviour
Extra evaluation: support for NSI (why did participants go along with majority)
- Asch (1951) found that many of his participants went along w a clearly wrong answer just bc other ppl did. When asked why they did this, the participants said they felt self-conscious abt giving the correct answer & they were afraid of disapproval
- When Asch repeated the study but asked participants to write down their answers, instead of saying them out loud, conformity rates fell to 12.5%
- This is a strength bc it shows ppl were more prepared to give the wrong answer just to be liked, rather than to give the correct answer just to be right, as suggested by NSI
