Asch's Research (conformity) Flashcards
What was the procedure of Asch’s experiment?
He tested conformity by showing participants 2 large white cards at time.
One card showed a standard line and on the other were 3 comparison lines (one of the 3 was the same length as the standard whilst the other two were different/wrong).
The participant was asked which of the 3 lines matched the standard.
The participants were 123 American male undergraduates. Each were tested individually with a group between 6 and 8 confederates (they weren’t aware they were confederates)
The confederates were told to give the same wrong answer.
What were his findings?
The naive participant gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
Overall 25% of the participants didn’t conform on any trials (meaning most did at least once)
When participants were interviewed afterwords they said the conformed to avoid rejection (normative social influence)
What were Asch’s variations?
Group size, Unanimity and Task Difficulty.
What’s groups size?
He increased the groups size by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority.
Conformity increased with group size but only put to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than 3.
What’s unanimity?
The extent to which of a group agree.
The majority was unanimous when all confederates selected the sam comparison line
(This produced the greatest degree of conformity)
What’s task difficulty?
Asch’s line judging takes was made more difficult when it became harder to work out the correct answer.
Conformity increases because the participants assume the majority is more likely to be right. (Informational social influence)
Remember any evaluative points?
Artificial situation and task, limited application of findings, the findings may not be consistent across situations and time.
