Asch's research Flashcards
what is conformity
a change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people
how did asch investigate group size
asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority
conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three
what is unanimity
the extent to which all the members of a group agree
in asch’s studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line
this produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naive participants
what is task difficulty
asch’s line-judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer
conformity increased because naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right
how does group size affect conformity
asch varied number of confederates from 1-15
found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
conformity increased with group size, but up to a point
3 confederates - conformity at 31.8%, presence of more made little difference
suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others as 1-2 confederates is enough to sway opinion
how does unanimity affect conformity
in one variation, a confederate disagreed with the other confederates, either a correct answer or a different wrong answer
the genuine participant conformed less in the presence of a dissenter
rate decreased to less than a 1/4 than it was when the majority was unanimous
suggests the influence of the majority depends on unanimity
how does task difficulty affect conformity
asch increased difficulty of line-judging task by making the stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length, meaning it was harder to see a difference between the lines
found that conformity increased, it may be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder, the actual answer is unclear
the genuine participant may look to other people for guidance on answer and to assume they are right (informational social influence)
how is asch’s research artificial (limitation)
participants were aware they were in a research study and may have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics)
the task of identifying lines was relatively trivial therefore there was really no reason not to conform
the groups did not resemble everyday life groups
this means the findings do not generalise to real world situations
why is there limited application of asch’s study (limitation)
asch’s participants were american men
other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly as they are concerned about being accepted
furthermore the US is an individualist culture, conformity rates are found to be higher in collectivist cultures
this means asch’s findings are culture-bound and have gender bias
what is the research support for asch’s study (strength)
todd lucas et al (2006) asked their participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems
participants were given answers from three other confederates
the participants conformed more often when the problems were harder
this shows asch was correct in claiming task difficulty is a variable that affects conformity
how does supporting research contradict asch (limitation)
todd lucas et al’s study found that conformity is more complex than asch suggested
participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence
this shows that an individual-level factor influence conformity by interacting with situational variables, but asch did not research these factors (reductionist)
