Asch's research - AO1 Flashcards
What were the aims of Asch’s research?
To test conformity to social pressures in an unambiguous situation
How many participants were in Asch’s research?
123 American males
What was the procedure of Asch’s study?
- Groups of 6-8 ; only one was genuine participant, seated last/ second to last.
- PPs had to say aloud which line option matched standard line
- Confederates all gave the same incorrect answer
What was the findings of Asch’s study?
On average, PPs agreed with confederates wrong answers 36.8% of the time
However, 25% PPs didnt give a single incorrect answer
What were the conclusions of Asch’s study?
In interviews afterwards, PPs mostly said they knew their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group in order to fit in , or because they thought they would be ridiculed
What were the variables in Asch’s study?
Group size
Unamity
Task difficulty
What happened in the group size variable?
Asch wanted to know if the size of the group mattered more than how muhc the group were in agreement
To test this, he varied the number of confederates from 1-15 (total group size were 2-16 but with one true participant)
What did Asch find in the group size variable?
- He found a curvelinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
- He concluded that conformity rate increased with group size, but only up to a certain point (3 confederates)
- This suggests that people can be very sensitive to the views of others, as just one or two confederates was enough to somewhat sway opinion
What happened in Asch’s unamity variable?
Asch wondered if the presence of a non conforming confederate would affect the PPs conformity.
In two slightly different variations, Asch:
* Had a confederate give the correct answers
* Had a confederate give a different incorrect answer
What did Asch find out in the unamity variable?
The genuine PP conformed less often in the presence of a disenter - rates dropped to about 5.5%. This is true even when the confederate disagreed with the participant.
The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the PP to behave more independently.
What happened in Asch’s task difficulty variable?
Asch wanted to know if making the task harder (i.e more ambiguous) would affect the degree of conformity
He increased the degree of difficulty of the line by making the original line and comparison lines more similar length.
What did Asch find out in the tak difficulty variable?
- He found that conformity rates increased when the task was more difficult
- With a more ambiguous task, it is atural for people to look for others for morre information
