asch Flashcards
when did asch conduct his experiment
1951
what was the aim of asch’s experiment
to see if people would conform to a group’s wrong answer even if the answer was unambiguous
describe asch’s experiment
participants were shown a series of lines of different lengths: a, b, c and a fourth separate line x. they were asked which line a, b, or c resembled the length of x closest
what is a confederate
a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher used to manipulate social situations
how did asch use confederates in his experiment
only one person in each group of participants was uninformed; the rest were confederates. the single person is not aware that the others are confederates. in asch’s study the confederates identified a line that was obviously shorter than line x. the uninformed person was then asked to select a line
what were the results of asch’s experiments
75% of participants conformed to group pressure atleast once by choosing the shorter line
what four factors did asch find that influenced conformity
the size of the majority, the presence of another non-conformist, whether the responses are given in public/private and task difficulty
how does the size of the majority affect conformity
the greater the majority, the more likely an individual is to conform, but there is an upper limit where increasing the majority no longer affects the likeliness of an individual to conform
what was the upper limit of the size of the majority affecting the likeliness of an individual to conform in asch’s experiment
7
how does adding another non-conformist affect conformity
if there is another non-conformist, conformity drops to almost zero
what is another word for a non-conformist
dissenter
how does the private/public nature of the responses affect conformity
in public conformity is more likely
how does the difficulty of the task affect conformity
the harder the lines were to distinguish in length, the more conformity increased
what were the pros of asch’s methodology during the experiment
it was conducted in a lab so variables were strictly controlled, meaning the experiment could be repeated easily and extraneous variables could be controlled
what were the cons of asch’s methodology during the experiment
it was an artificial situation so had low ecological validity and is not comparable to real life + used deception
