Asch’s Original Study A01 Flashcards
What are the aims of Asch’s original study?
He wanted to know whether people could be influenced by other people’s opinions to give an answer they knew to be wrong, and see if people were conforming.
What/ who took part in Asch’s research?
-showed participants 2 cards.
- he then asked them which comparison lines was the same as the line on the standard.
-Completed it 18 times, happened in groups 7-9, and only one person was naive.
-the rest were confederates (people who were on in giving the wrong answers).
What did the confederates do for the naive participants?
-They made sure to be a stooge, they had been briefed by Asch.
-they were the first ones to answer, and then the naive one was the last one to answer.
-on the first 2 trials they answered correctly but then on the 3rd trial they answered incorrectly.
-There were 12 altogether critical trials
-There were 6 altogether neutral trials.
What were the results of Asch’s study?
-Measure of conformity from the naive participants from the stooges was 32% (1/3 of conformity from the critical trials), when the situation is unambiguous.
-Individual evidence:
-25% didn’t conform once.
-75% conformed at least once.
What were the conclusions of Asch’s study?
-Asch’s study shows that the impact that a majority can have on an individual.
-Certain variables lead to less or more conformity.
-Asch was not interested in the social and personal conditions that help individuals resist group pressure.
What was the ambiguous task?
-He added in a dissenting confederate who always disagreed with the majority.
-Asch found that with this confederate present, conformity reduced to less than a 1/4 of what it was when the majority was unanimous.
-This found that having a dissenter made the naive participants to be able to behave more independently.
What is normative social influence?
-Humans have a fundamental need for social companionship and a fear of censure and rejection.
-An important condition for normative influence to occur is that the individual must believe that they are under surveillance by the group.
-This normative SI makes people more likely to conform to the majority’s opinions in public but do not always conform in private (compliance).
How can normative SI be brought inti Asch’s study?
-The research shows normative SI by the 32% rate of conformity by the naive participants, they clearly want to be liked by majority.
