Asch's Conformity Flashcards
When did Asch’s experiment take place?
1955
How many participants took part?
123 males
How many trials were there for each participant?
18 trials (12 critical trials)
How many answers given by the participants were wrong?
37%
How many participants conformed at least once?
75%
What are the reasons for conformity within Asch’s experiment?
- Some wanted to please the experimenter
- Some didn’t want to appear different
- Some genuinely thought the majority were correct
- Some thought their eyesight was faulty
What was Asch’s experiment?
6-8 confederates and one naive participant matching a line with 3 other lines labelled a, b and c
What was the level of conformity by putting a confederate in the 3rd seat that always gave the right answer?
Conformity dropped to 5% as the participants had an ally
What was the level of conformity when participants wrote their answers?
Conformity dropped because they were giving their view
What was the level of conformity when there were 3 confederates?
Some conformity but dropped
What was the level of conformity when there were 2 confederates
Conformity dropped because a lower majority
What was the level of conformity when making the lines closer together ? (more ambiguous)
Increased conformity because of the ambiguity
What are the factors affecting conformity?
- Group size, conformity increases with group size
- Unanimity, Disserting confederates lowers conformity.
- Task difficulty, conformity increases when the task is more ambiguous
To what extent is there internal validity?
Yes:
- Same line
- All seated same distance
- Instructions same for all participants
- Confederates are the same
No:
- Demand characteristics, guessed the aims of the experiment
To what extent is there external validity?
No - done in a lab = artificial
What were the ethical issues?
Deception, participants did not know the aim
Informed consent, did not know aim
Protection from harm, students felt stupid
What is internalization?
Public and private acceptance of a belief
e.g A person becoming a vegetarian after sharing a flat with vegetarians
What is identification?
Conformity because of admiration to be part of that group
e.g Supporting a new football team when moving towns
What is compliance?
Public but not private acceptance of a belief
e.g A person may laugh at a joke they do not find funny but others do
What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)
The need to be liked or accepted by a group (Compliance conformity)
What is Informational Social Influence (ISI)
unsure about how to behave so follows majority (Internalization conformity)
What evidence is there to support NSI
Lickenbach and Perkins (2003) - adolescents exposed to messages of peers not smoking were less likely to smoke.
Shultz et al. (2008) - A message that 75% of guests re-used towels at a hotel found that participants reduced their towel use by 25%
What evidence is there to support ISI
Jenness (1932) - Bottle with beans, estimate, discuss. Nearly all participants changed their answer
