Asch's line study - Social Influence

Question 1

who were the participants?

Answer 1

~ 123 ppts
~males
~from Swarthmore college (USA)

Question 2

what was the aim?

Answer 2

to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform

Question 3

what was the procedure?

Answer 3

~lab experiment
~the ppts were given a false aim that they were taking a “vision test”

Question 4

what was the methods?

Answer 4

~only 1 real (naive) ppt in groups of 6-8 confederates
~group shown 2 cards-
–> 1 was a standard line
–> 1 was a comparison lines
~ppts to state which line was the matching one
~ppts always answered 2nd to last

Question 5

what were his findings?

Answer 5

~75% of participants conformed at least once
~ 3-4 confederates in the group (excluding the ppt) conformity increased

Question 6

more findings

Answer 6

~naive ppt gave wrong answer 36.8% of the time
~ 25% of p’s did not conform
~ control group 1% gave the wrong answer

Question 7

what was found post experiment?

Answer 7

~ppts said they knew the answer but did it to avoid social rejection

Question 8

conclusions

Answer 8

~conform in order to fit in and not be rejected by the group
~as group size increases so does conformity, but only up to 3 or 4 people
~with 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8%, but after that there was no difference.
~conform as they didn’t want to stand out