Asch experiment Flashcards
What is conformity?
A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure
What are the three types of conformity?
Compliance, identification and internalisation
What is compliance conformity?
In respnse to pressure from others, individuals change their behavior or beliefs but their private beliefs dont change
Its generally due to normative social influence
They seek approval and fear rejection
What is identification conformity?
The individual takes on the behaviours, attitudes or values of a group because they want to be associated with the group. They do this to create or strengthen a social identity.
The individual may still privately not agree
What is internalisation conformity?
The individual truly adopts the beliefs publicly and privately and it becomes part of their belief system. It is permanent conformity
Generally most likely due to Informational social influence
What are the two explanations for conformity?
Normative social influence (NSI)
Informational social influence (ISI)
What is normative social influence?
Conforming to the majority to avoid rejection or being seen as an outcast
Driven by desire to be liked and gain social approval
Motivated by emotional reasons so temporary
What is informational social influence?
Conforming to the majority due to the desire to be correct in situations where the right action/belief is ambiguous (uncertain)
Driven by belief that others have more knowledge
Motivated by cognition reasons so its genuine and permanent
Summary of the Asch experiment (1951)
7-9 confederates gave an incorrect answer to a question on line length with the correct answer being obvious/unambiguous
In the 12 critical trials 75% of participants conformed at least once, 5% conforming every time
The overall conformity rate in the critical trials was around 32%
What does Aschs findings suggest?
People will conform due to NSI; they conform for social approval and to aboid being an outcast
What were the three variations of Aschs original stufy
Group size - varied group size from 1-15
Unanimity - (added a confederate who responded correctly)
Task difficulty - made the line lengths closer to
Describe what changing the group size in Aschs experiment did
With one confederate the conformity rate was 3%
With two confederate conformity rate was 13%
With 3 confederates conformity rates jumped to 33% and remained steady after this point with 31% at 16 confederates
Suggests that a small group has a strong social pressure but after a certain point group size does not proportionally increase this pressure
Describe how unanimity did to aschs experiment
With an ally in the group the conformity rate dropped to 5.5%
This suggests the presence of a dissenter provides social support
Describe what changing the task difficulty did to Aschs experiment
When the task was more ambiguous the rate of conformity increased.
Asch argued this was due to participants being more uncertain about their judgements making them more susceptible to ISI
What were the strengths of Aschs conformity?
It had internal validity - each participant had the same experience as it was controlled and standardised procedures were followed
The use of clear standardised procedures left to multiple replications of the experiment
