Asch’s Research Flashcards
How many and who were the participants in Asch’s research
123 American male undergraduates
Procedure of Asch’s study
-participants shown two large white cards at a time one with standard line and other with three comparison lines with 1 the same length as the standard and 2 clearly wrong
-participants asked which of the three matched the standard and were tested with 6-8 confederates who gave right answers on first few trials them started to make errors
-each participant took part in 18 trials and 12 critical trials in which the confederates all gave the wrong answer
Percentage that conformed the whole time
37%
Percentage that didn’t conform at all
25%
Conclusion of Asch’s study
-people conform to the majority even when the majority are obviously wrong
-asked his participants why they had conformed and most said they knew were giving wrong answer but did not want to stand out which is evidence of compliance and NSI
-pps publicly said they thought one answer was correct but privately thought a differenct answer was correcr
Three main variations in Asch’s research
1) difficulty of task
2) size of the majority
3) unanimity of majority
How does difficulty of task affect conformity
-Asch increased difficulty by making line lengths closer and therefore task more ambiguous
-conformity to the majority increased as task difficulty increased as when we are uncertain we look to others for confirmation
How does size of the majority affect conformity
-little conformity when majority only 1 or 2 however under pressure of a majority of 3 conformity increased
-but further increase did not increase the levels of conformity so rates plateaued meaning size of majority is only important up to an optimal point
How does unanimity of majority affect conformity
Originally all the confederates gave the same wrong answer but then Asch instructed one confederate to give the right answer and conformity dropped considerably by 80%
-concluded that breaking the group’s consensus was one of the main influences in conformity
Expand on strength that there is support for the effects of task difficulty on conformity
-for example Lucas(2006) asked his pps to solve easy and hard maths problems and were given the answer from three other students
-found that participants agreed with the wrong answer more often when the questions were harder than easier
-shows that task difficulty affects conformity rates so supports Asch’s findings
H: Lucas found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested, found that ppd who were more confident in their maths ability were less likely to conform suggesting personality can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables, something Asch did not consider
Expand on weakness that the tasks used in Asch’s research are not reflective of everyday life
-Asch measured conformity using an artificial task in which he asked participants to judge the length of lines which does not reflect real life instances of conformity which can be much more complex
-challenges the mundane realism of the study suggesting it may truly tell us very little about conformity in everyday life
Expand on weakness that Asch’s study used an unrepresentative sample
-the study took place in 1950’s America on all male participants meaning the conclusions drawn from Asch’s research may not be applicable to women or people from different cultures
-also took place during a period of McCarthyism when thousands of Americans were accused of being communist and afraid to be different meaning there may have been a greater pressure to conform so the study lacks temporal validity
-this suggests Asch’s findings on conformity may not be generalisable to the wider population
