Asch Flashcards
What did Asch want to experiment
The extent to which social pressure from a majority could affect a person to conform
Who was in Aschs sample
50 male students
What did participants believe they were taking part in
A vision test
What did Asch use for his experiment
A line judgement task,
How did he place participants
One naive participant in a room with seven confederates, who had agreed their answers in advance
Where did the real participants sit
Second to last
What did the participants have to do
Say out loud which line was most like the target line in length
How many trials did each participant complete
18
What were critical trials
The 12 trials in which the confederates gave incorrect answers
What did Asch try to see
If a participant would conform to a majority view even if it was clearly incorrect
On average, how often did the real participants conform to the majority view
32% of the critical trials
How many conformed on at least 1 critical trial
74%
How many participants never conformed
26%
What did Asch find when using one control group with no confederates
That less than 1% of participants gave an incorrect answer
Why did most participants say they conformed
To fit in or fear of ridicule
