Asch's research - essay plan

Question 1

AO1 - baseline procedure

Answer 1

• 1951
• one naive participant - rest were confederates
• shown a test line - had to match with ABC lines
• had to call out which ABC line matched the test line - participant always last two to respond
• answer was always easy and obvious
• when all confederates gave wrong answer - conformity rate was 32%
• control group - error rate was 0.04%

Question 2

AO1 - variables

Answer 2

• baseline study was extended (1955) - investigate variables affecting conformity
• group size
  
  • he varied the number of confederates
  • found curvilinear relationship - conformity increase with group size, up to a certain point
• unanimity
  
  • he introduced a confederate who gave the correct answer or a different wrong one
  • when there is a lack of uniformity it decreases conformity
• task difficulty
  
  • he increased the difficulty of the task
  • conformity increased because the situation is more ambiguous (ISI)

Question 3

AO3 - supported by other research (strength)

Answer 3

• research is supported by Lucas et al. for the effects of task difficulty
• Lucas et al (2006)
  
  • participants solved ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems
  • participants were given fake answers from 3 other students
  • participant conformed more often when problems were harder
• this shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable affecting conformity
• HOWEVER Lucas et al’s study found conformity is more complex than Asch suggested
  
  • participants with high confidence in their ability conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence
  • this shows that an individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables, but Asch didn’t research roles of individual factors

Question 4

AO3 - low ecological validity (limitation)

Answer 4

• task and situation were artificial
• participants knew they were partaking in a research study - may have just been fulfilling demand characteristics
• trivial nature of the task - no reason not to conform
• Fiske said groups didn’t resemble groups we experience in every day life
• this means findings cannot be generalised to real-world situations, especially where consequences of conformity may be important

Question 5

AO3 - sample bias

Answer 5

• study was only American men
• population bias and cultural bias
• other research suggests women may have higher rates of conformity - they’re concerned about social relationships and acceptance
• USA is an individualist culture - studies in collectivist cultures (e.g. China found higher rates of conformity
• this means Asch’s research tells us little about conformity in women and people from different cultures