Asch

Question 1

(AO1) Asch’s baseline procedure

Answer 1

This is the procedure used to assess the extent to which people will conform even in situations where the answer is certain.

Question 2

(AO1) Standard and comparison lines are…

Answer 2

• 123 American male participants were tested.
• Each saw two large white cards, the x on the left hand card is the standard line.
• The A, B and C are the three comparison lines.
• One of the comparison lines is obviously the same as X, the other two are very different.
• In each trial the participants had to say which line matched line X.

Question 3

(AO1) Physical arrangement of the participants in the study…

Answer 3

• Tested groups of 6-8.
• Only one being a real participant, always seated last or next to last around a table.
• The other people were Asch’s confederates, meaning they gave the wrong answers. The real participant did not know this.

Question 4

(AO1) Baseline Findings…

Answer 4

• On average, the real participants agreed with the confederates 36.8% of the time. (conformed about a third of the time)
• Individual differences were present, with 25% of participants not giving incorrect answers.

Question 5

(AO1) What were Asch’s variables and why did he use them?

Answer 5

Asch also investigated the conditions which might increase or decrease conformity - he carried out variations of original procdeure with these independent variables:

Size, Unanimity, Task difficulty

Question 6

(AO3) Artificial stimulation and task (Limitation)

Answer 6

Problem: Participants knew they were in a study and so likely did what was expected of them. (demand characteristics)

According to Susan Fiske, do not resemble groups experienced in everyday life. Results cannot represent real life situations.

Question 7

(AO3) Limited application of findings (Limitation)

Answer 7

Group consisted of only American men. Americans have a more individualist culture, where the focus is on the individual. Unlike other countries like China where they have a collective culture.

It was found that women might be more conformist, likely due to a need to be accepted and due to a concern of social relationships.

Question 8

(AO3) Evidence to support Asch’s findings (Strength)

Answer 8

Looking at task difficulty. Todd Lucas found that the participants conformed more (agreeing to the answer) the harder the problems were.

Question 9

(AO3) Evidence to support Asch’s findings Counterpoint (Strength)

Answer 9

Lucas’s studies are more complex than Asch’s. People who were confident in their maths abilities were less likely to conform than their unconfident counterparts. This shows a person’s individual-level factors affect conformity. Asch never studied individual factors.

Question 10

(AO3) Ethical issues (Limitation)

Answer 10

Asch conducted these experiments with the participant thinking the confederates (other people involved) were also involved in the experiment. The ethical question is raised about whether or not the goal of the trials justify lying to those tested.