asch Flashcards
What was the aim of Asch’s research?
To examine the extent to which social pressure to conform from unanimous majority affects conformity in an unambiguous situation.
How many people took part in Asch’s research?
123 male undergrads.
What did the participants believe they were taking part in?
A vision test.
Summarise the process of Asch’s research.
- 1 real (naive) participant was placed in a room with 6-8 confederates who had agreed their answers in advanced.
- Naive participant; decieved/led to believe the confederates were real participants.
- Each person then has to say out loud which line was the most like the target line; the answers were obvious.
- Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials; ‘critical trials’.
- Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly correct.
Where was the real participant always seated?
Second from last.
What did Asch measure?
The number of times each participant conformed to the majority view.
Summarise the results of Asch’s results.
- Real participants conformed to incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials.
- 74% conformed on AT LEAST ONE of the critical trials.
- 26% NEVER conformed.
What was Asch’s control group?
One real participant completed the same experiment without any confederates.
What were the results of Asch’s control group?
Less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer.
Asch interviewed his participants after the experiment to find out why they conformed.
What was the feedback?
Most participants said that they knew their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group in order to fit in, OR because they thought that they would be ridiculed.
What does Asch’s research confirm?
Participants complied due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in publicly without changing their private viewpoint.
What is meant by the term ‘distortion of action’?
Didn’t want to ‘stand out’ so conformed to the group publicly but not privately.
What is meant by the term ‘distortion of judgement’?
Doubted their accuracy.
What are the 3 variations that can affect conformity?
- Difficulty of the task.
- Unanimity of confederates.
- Size of the group.
How does the difficulty of the task affect conformity?
- When the lines were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer.
- When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation.
- Conformity therefore increases.
