Asch's line study Flashcards
Aim
In 1951 Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to majority in situations where an answer was obvious
Procedure
There were 5-7 people per group and they were all presented with a line (x) and three comparison lines. They had to say out loud which line matched the comparison line. In a group there was 1 real participant and the rest where confederates.
Findings/Results
Asch found that 32% of real participants conformed when confederates gave the wrong answer.
75% conformed at least once.
- IN 1955 ASCH THEN EXTENDED HIS BASELINE STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE VARIABLES THAT MIGHT LEAD TO AN INCREASE OR DECREASE IN CONFORMITY. These were: (below).
Unanimity
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the group is
unanimous.
Evidence-When one person gave a different answer to the group conformity dropped from 32% to 5.5%. If different answers are given, it falls from 32% to 9%.
Explanation: the more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the
participant will have that they are all correct, and therefore the
participant’s answer is more likely to be incorrect.
Link: Unanimity is vital in establishing a consistent majority view, which is
particularly important by providing normative social influence through
preventing any conflicting views arising
Group size
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.
Evidence: There was low conformity when the group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity rose by 30%.
Explanation: a person is more likely to conform if all members of the
group are in agreement and give the same answer, because it will
increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their
confidence in their own answer. Conformity does not seem to increase in
groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size.
Link: This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence,
but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all instances to bring about
conformity.
Task difficulty
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult
Evidence: For example, Asch altered the lines
making them more similar in length. Since it was harder to judge the
correct answer conformity increased.
Explanation: When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity.
Link: This suggests that informational social influence is a major
mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the
individual does not have enough of their own knowledge or information to
make an informed decision independently, and so has to look towards
others.
Evaluation-weaknesses
The task and situations were artificial.
Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected. The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform. According to susan fiske Asch’s groups werent “groupy” i,e they dont resemble groups we experience in everyday life. This means the findings do no generalise to real world situations
Evaluation- Limited application
Asch’s participants were American men. Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted. Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture where people are more concerned about themselves. similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures have found that conformity rates are higher. Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women.
Evaluation- research support
Research support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty.
LUCAS ET AL asked participants to solves easy and hard maths problems. Ppts were given answers from three other students The ppts conformed more often when the problems were harder. Shows that Asch was correct in claiming that T.D is one variable that affects conformity.
Counterpoint- LUCAS ET AL
found that conformity is more complex that Asch suggested. Ppts with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence. This shows that an individual- level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables. but Asch didn’t research the roles of individual factors.
Evaluation- ethical issues
Asch researched increased our knowledge of why people conform, which may help avoid mindless destructive conformity. The naive participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved in the procedure were genuine like them
