Asch Flashcards
Variables that Asch investigated
Group size, unanimity, task difficulty
Group size
‘Whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group’
Unanimity
‘Whether the presence of a non conforming person would affect the naive participant’s conformity’
Task difficulty
‘Whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity’
How did Asch change the group size?
He varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15.
What did Asch find when he changed the group size?
He found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity. So, conformity increased with the group size but only to a point.
What did conformity rise to when 3 confederates were used?
31.8%
What happened when more than 3 confederates were used?
The presence of more than 3 confederates made little difference to the percentage of conformity.
How did Asch change unanimity?
He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates.
What happened when Asch changed the unanimity?
The naive participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter. The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the participant to behave more independently.
What does the outcome to the variable unanimity suggest?
That the influence of the majority depends on it being unanimous.
How did Asch change the task difficulty?
He increased the difficulty by making the stimulus line and comparison line more similar to each other.
What happened when Asch changed the task difficulty?
It became harder for the participants to see the differences in the line lengths therefore conformity increased. This could be because the answer was now more ambiguous.
What does the change to task difficulty suggest?
That when the task became more difficult, the participant looked for guidance to judge whether they were right or wrong, causing conformity to increase.
What is a limitation to Asch’s research?
The task and the situation were artificial. Because the participants knew that they were in a study, they may have just gone along with what was expected. This is called demand characteristics.
What did Susan Fisk (2014) say about Asch’s study?
‘Asch’s groups were very groupy’- meaning that they did not resemble social groups that we see in everyday life, therefore, can we use these findings to generalise the real world?
Limited application to Asch’s study
Asch’s participants were all American men. Neto (1995) suggests that women may be more conformist.
Why is the fact that Asch’s participants were all American men important?
America is an individualist culture meaning that people are more concerned with themselves rather than social groups. Asch’s findings tell us little about women and people from other cultures.
Bond and Smith (1996)
Conducted similar studies to Asch’s in collectivist cultures eg. China. They found that conformity rates were higher.
Research to support to Asch
Lucas et al (2006) ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems. Supports Asch’s claim that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity.
