Asch

Question 1

Asch’s baseline study

Answer 1

• to what extent people would conform to the opinion of others, even in unambiguous situations
• 123 American Men
• two cards, had to match 1/3 lines, to the one card
• on each trial pts had to say out loud which of the comparison lines was the same
• 1 real pt all others were confederates
• all games the same answer each time

Question 2

Asch baseline study

Answer 2

• real participants conformed 36.8% (1/3) of the time
• 25% of the participants never conformed

Question 3

Asch’s 3 variables

Answer 3

• group size
• unanimity
• task difficulty

Question 4

Group size study

Answer 4

• 1-15 confederates
• conformity increased with group size but only to a certain point
• with 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%
• addiction of anymore confederates made little difference, and the rate levelled off
• suggests people are very sensitive to the views of others because 1-2 confederates was enough to sway opinion

Question 5

Unanimity

Answer 5

• wanted to test if the presence of a non-conformity person would affect the naïve participants conformity
• introduced a confederate who would disagree with other confederates
• in one variation he gave the correct answer, and the other he gave a different wrong answer
• the rate decreased to less than a quarter level it was when the majority was unanimous
• the presence of a dissenter freed the participants to behave more independently

Question 6

Task difficulty

Answer 6

• wanted to know if making the task harder would effect the degree of conformity
• made the stimulus line and comparison line more similar to each other, harder to tell the genuine difference
• conformity increased, situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder
• natural to look for other people for the answer and assume they’re correct (ISI)

Question 7

Limitation of Asch’s studies

Answer 7

• suffers from gender + culture bias
• 123 American Men (women are known to be more conformist) -> women conform more because they’re more concerned about social relationships + acceptance
• U.S.A is an individualistic culture -> collectivist cultures show higher rates of conformity
• lacks population validity because it can’t be applied on a larger scale
• Asch tells us little about conformity

Question 8

Limitation of Asch’s study 2.

Answer 8

• artificial situation and task
• formulate artificial behaviour as these tasks aren’t carried out in regular day to day life