Asch's Research Flashcards
what was the aim of Asch’s research?
assess to what extent people conform to the opinions of others even when the situation is unambiguous
how many people were in each group of Asch’s study?
7-9 people, one naive ppt and rest were confederates
how many ppts were there in Asch’s study?
123 American men
what type of experiment was Asch’s study?
laboratory experiment
what were ppts in Asch’s study asked to do?
- shown 2 cards; one had 1 standard line other had 3 comparison lines
- asked to say out loud which one of 3 lines matched the 1 standard line
how many trials were in Asch’s study?
18
how many of the trials did confederates give the wrong answer?
12
what were the results of Asch’s study?
- participants conformed and gave the wrong answer 36.8% of times
- 75% of participants conformed at least once
- 25% of participants didn’t conform at all
what was the conclusion of Asch’s research?
- people conform to others as they want to fit in with the group and not to be ridiculed
what were the variations of Asch’s research?
- group size
- unanimity
- task difficulty
how was the method altered for group size?
number of confederates varied from 1-15
how did the results alter for group size?
- conformity increased with group size
- 3 confederates = rose to 31.8%
- curvlinear relationship
- presence of more confederates, there was little difference and the conformity rates levelled off.
what is unanimity?
extent to which all members of a group agree with each other
how was the method altered for unanimity?
- confederate who disagreed with others was introduced (dissenter)
- 2 variations: dissenter gave correct answer OR dissenter gave a different wrong answer from other confederates and naive participant
how did the results alter for unanimity?
- conformity decreased in the presence of a dissenter (even if the answer was wrong)
how was the method altered for task difficulty?
- making the lines more similar in length, harder to see the difference
how did the results alter for task difficulty?
- conformity increased as the situation became more ambiguous (ISI) and ppts wanted to give the correct answer and be right
what is a strength of Asch’s study?
- Asch’s research is support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
- Lucas et al asked ppts to solve easy or hard maths problems
- ppts were given answers from 3 other confederate students and ppts conformed more often when problems were harder
- this shows that Asch is correct in claiming that one of the variables affecting conformity is task difficulty
what is a weakness of Asch’s study(artificial)?
- the task and situation was artificial
- ppts may have known that they were a part of research so may have simply gone along with what was expected(demand characteristics)
- task of identifying lines is quite insignificant so really there was no real reason not to conform
- Fiske: Asch’s groups weren’t very groupy, didnt ressemble groups we’d see in everyday life
- findings do not generalise to everyday life situations and when conformity may be important
what is a weakness of Asch’s study(g)?
- lacks generalisabilty as ppts were American men
- Neto’s research suggests that women are more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted
- US is an individualist culture(care about themselves) , studies in collectivist(care about social group) cultures, such as China found that the conformity rates are higher
- this means that Asch’s study tells us little about conformity in women and other cultures
what is a weakness of Asch’s study?
ethically wrong
