Asch's research. Flashcards
describe Asch’s procedure into researching conformity.
Asch’s research included 123 male undergraduates, the students were show two large white papers, on one card there was a standard line and the other card has three lines drawn on it with one of the lines being the same length as the standard line. the participant was asked which of the three lines matched the standard. each individual was tested individually with a group of around 7 confederates (the naive participant was either seated last or next to last in the group). The participants were unaware that the others were confederates. at the first few trials the confederates gave the right answer but began to make errors and all the confederates give the same wrong answer
what were the findings for Asch’s research
the naive participant gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time and on average 75% at least conformed once. the participants were interviewed after and stated that they conformed to avoid rejection (normative social influence)
what is the ‘Asch effect’
the Asch effect refers to when individuals still conform when the situation is ‘UNambigious’.
what are the conditions that may have reduced or increased rates of conformity.
group size
task difficulty
unanimity
how does group size affect conformity?
there was little conformity when the experiment only included one or two confederates and with the introduction of the three confederate, conformity rates rose by 30%. although further increase of the number of confederates didn’t increase conformity which suggests that group size is as important as group agreement but only up to an optimal point.
explain how unanimity affects conformity
with the presence of another non-conforming individual, conformity considerably was reduced as the presence of the non-conforming person enabled the participant to behave independently. this suggests that the influence of the majority depends to some extent on the group being unanimous.
how does task difficulty impact conformity
Asch made the line-judging tasks more difficult by making the stimulus line and comparison line more similar in length and found out that conformity increased under these conditions. this suggests that informational social influence plays a greater role when tasks are harder as the situation is more ambigious and so individuals tend to look to others for guidance assuming that they are right and they, themselves are wrong
evaluate Asch’s research
Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch’s original study once with engineering students from the UK and only ONE student conformed out of the 396 trials, perhaps due to individual differences as they might have felt more confident with the tasks and were less conformist.
the 1950s was an especially conformist time in America where it made a great sense to conform to established social norms but society has progressively changed and people are much less conformist. this provides limitations to the Asch’s research as it shows that the Asch effect is not consistent across situations and different time periods.
why does Asch’s use of artificial settings limit his findings
participants are aware that they are being studied so might go along with the demands of the situation (demand characteristics). task was trivial so people are likely to conform. the groups that were in place didnt really resemble groups that we are apart of in everyday life and therefore findings cannot be generalised to everyday situations
limitations of asch’s research regarding gender and cultures.
only men were tested by Asch, this is limiting as other research suggests that women might be more conforming as they are concerned by social relationships than men are. the men in the study were all from the united states, an individualist culture, where the majority are more concerned about themselves rather than their social group. similar research was conducted in collectivist cultures, such as china, and conformity was much higher which was expected as they are more orientated to the group needs.
therefore asch’s findings lack generalisability as the research failed to take into account gender and cultural difference
any ethical issues found in Asch’s research..
the naive participant was deceived as they were inform that the confederates were genuine participants like themselves, however, by stating that the participants were actually aware of the aim, this would have created false/ unreliable findings
