Asch's Conformity

Question 1

When did Asch’s experiment take place?

Answer 1

1955

Question 2

How many participants took part?

Answer 2

123 males

Question 3

How many trials were there for each participant?

Answer 3

18 trials (12 critical trials)

Question 4

How many answers given by the participants were wrong?

Answer 4

37%

Question 5

How many participants conformed at least once?

Answer 5

75%

Question 6

What are the reasons for conformity within Asch’s experiment?

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

What was Asch’s experiment?

Answer 7

6-8 confederates and one naive participant matching a line with 3 other lines labelled a, b and c

Question 8

What was the level of conformity by putting a confederate in the 3rd seat that always gave the right answer?

Answer 8

Conformity dropped to 5% as the participants had an ally

Question 9

What was the level of conformity when participants wrote their answers?

Answer 9

Conformity dropped because they were giving their view

Question 10

What was the level of conformity when there were 3 confederates?

Answer 10

Some conformity but dropped

Question 11

What was the level of conformity when there were 2 confederates

Answer 11

Conformity dropped because a lower majority

Question 12

What was the level of conformity when making the lines closer together ? (more ambiguous)

Answer 12

Increased conformity because of the ambiguity

Question 13

What are the factors affecting conformity?

Answer 13

• Group size, conformity increases with group size
• Unanimity, Disserting confederates lowers conformity.
• Task difficulty, conformity increases when the task is more ambiguous

Question 14

To what extent is there internal validity?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

To what extent is there external validity?

Answer 15

No - done in a lab = artificial

Question 16

What were the ethical issues?

Answer 16

Deception, participants did not know the aim
Informed consent, did not know aim
Protection from harm, students felt stupid

Question 17

What is internalization?

Answer 17

Public and private acceptance of a belief

e.g A person becoming a vegetarian after sharing a flat with vegetarians

Question 18

What is identification?

Answer 18

Conformity because of admiration to be part of that group

e.g Supporting a new football team when moving towns

Question 19

What is compliance?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)

Answer 20

The need to be liked or accepted by a group (Compliance conformity)

Question 21

What is Informational Social Influence (ISI)

Answer 21

unsure about how to behave so follows majority (Internalization conformity)

Question 22

What evidence is there to support NSI

Answer 22

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%

Question 23

What evidence is there to support ISI

Answer 23

Jenness (1932) - Bottle with beans, estimate, discuss. Nearly all participants changed their answer