Asch's Research Flashcards
What is the aim of Sheif study? (1935)
Conducted a lab experiment with the aim of demonstrating that people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambiguous (unclear) situation
What is the method of Sherif’s study?
- A lab experiment
- He used the autokinetic effect - small spots of light projected onto a screen and dark room will appear to move - the visual illusion
- Participants individually tested on their estimates on how far the light moved varied considerably (tested in a group of three)
- Manipulated by putting two people whos estimate was similar and one person estimate different
- Had to say aloud on how they thought the light moved
What is the result of Sherrif’s study?
Sherrif found that over numerous estimates (trials) of the movement of light,
group converged to a common estimate
A person whose estimate the movement was greatly different from the other two in the group confirmed to the view of the other two
Sherrif said that this showed that people would always tend to conform. Rather than make an individual judgement they tend to come to a group agreement
What type of conformity in this Sherrif’s study is a result of NSI or ISI?
NSI
Participants follow to fit in as they come to a group agreement
What is Sherrif’s study used?
As an evaluation
NOT A REQUIRED STUDY
What is the aim of Asch’s study?
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure form a majority group could affect a person to conform
What is the procedure of Asch’s study?
- Used a lab experiment to study conformity
- Used a line judgement task
- Put naiive participant in a room with seven confederates
- Confederates had to agree in advance what their responses would be when presented with line task
- The real participants did not know and this would lead to believe the other seven participants were real
- Each person had to say their answers aloud which comparison line more like the target line
- Real participant sat at the end and gave answer last
- In some trials , seven confederates asked to give wrong answer
- 18 trials in total , confederates gave 12 wrong answers
What is the results of Asch’s study?
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view
On average, about one third (32%) of the participants in each trial went along and conformed to the clearly incorrect majority.
Three-quarters of the participants (75%) confirmed on at least one trial.
What is the conclusion of Asch’s study?
Why did the participants conform so readily?
When they were interviewed after the experiment,
most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for the fear of being ridiculed or thought ‘peculiar; - NSI
A few said that they really did believe the group’s answers were correct - ISI
What are the variations of Asch’s original procedure?
- Group size
- The unanimity of the majority
- Difficult of the task
Explain the Asch’s variation of original procedure
GROUP SIZE
- The number of confederates varied between 1 and 15
- Found little conformity when majority consisted of one to two confederates
- Presence of three confederates, proportion of confirming responses jumped about 30%
- Increases size of the majority did not increase conformity
- Indicating size of majority is important to a certain point
Explain the Asch’s variation of the original procedure
UNANIMITY OF THE MAJORITY
The presence of dissenting confederates reduced conformity
whether the dissent was giving right or wrong answer
The average figure is 25% wrong answers
Having a dissenter enabled a naiive participant to behave more independently
Explain the Asch’s variation of the original procedure
DIFFICULTY OF TASK
Asch made the line-judging task harder by making the stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length
Conformity increased when the task was more difficult
Informational social influence plays a greater role when the task becomes harder
The situation is more ambiguous so we are more likely to look to others for guidance and assume they are right
What is the conclusion of Sherrif’s study?
Results show that when in an ambiguous situation (such as autokinetic effect)
a person will look to others (who know more/better) for guidance (i.e. adopt the group norm)
They want to do the right thing but may lack the appropriate information
Observing others can provide this information
Limitation of Asch’s findings may be a ‘child of the times’
- Permin and Spencer (1980) found just one conforming response in 396 trials.
- Participants (UK Engineering students) felt more confident measuring lines than Asch’s original sample, so were less conformist
- Also , 1950s were a conformist time in America and people might be less likely to conform in subsequent decades.
- The Asch effect is not consistent over time , not an enduring feature of human behaviour
