asch's research into conformity

Question 1

asch (1951) - aim

Answer 1

examine the extent to which social pressure to conform from a unanimous majority affect conformity in an unambiguous situation

Question 2

asch (1951) - method

Answer 2

• 123 american male undergrad students took part in a line judgement task but believed they were doing a vision test
• a real participant was put with 6-8 confederates who agreed their answers in advance, the real participant was seated 2nd last
• in turn they said which line was most like the target line in length, the correct was always obvious
• each did 18 trials, the confederates gave the same wrong answer on 12 (critical trials)

Question 3

asch (1951) - results

Answer 3

• on average the real participant conformed on 32% of the critical trials
• 74% conformed ar least once, 26% never conformed
• in a control group with no confederates, less than 1% gave the wrong answer

Question 4

asch (1951) - conclusion

Answer 4

• in post experiments interviews with asch, participants said they knew their answers were incorrect but went along with the group to fit in or avoid ridicule
• they conformed due to NSI

Question 5

give a strength of asch’s study
1/1

Answer 5

his study was a lab experiment, meaning he had high control over ev’s so could ensure no other factors would influence his results. the study has high internal validity and can be replicated to assess replicability

Question 6

give a limitation of asch’s study
1/4

Answer 6

his research lacks population validity as he used a biased sample of 123 male american students. we cannot generalise any results or conclusions to the wider population as we can’t assume that women or people from different countries would conform in the same way. using only men also shows a beta bias, the research may have ignored or minimised the differences between men and women

Question 7

give a limitation of asch’s study
2/4

Answer 7

the study has low ecological validity. the study uses a line judgement task which is an artificial task that doesn’t reflect conformity in daily life, this means that the study lacks mundane realism. this and the use of a lab experiment means results and conclusions cannot be generalised to the real world

Question 8

give a limitation of asch’s study
3/4

Answer 8

the study lacks temporal validity. it was conducted in the 1950s, during a time where conformity was much higher. people have since replicated asch’s study, such as perrin and spencer (1980) who used maths and engineering students and found much lower conformity levels. this suggests that asch’s results don’t reflect modern day conformity so cannot be applied

Question 9

give a limitation of asch’s study
4/4

Answer 9

his research has been criticised for being ethically questionable. asch broke several ethical guidelines, he deceived his participants by making them believe they were taking part in a vision test. this deception is unethical, however in this study it was required to acheive valid results as it ensured the participants did not become aware of the aim and display demand characteristics. participants were also debriefed and interviewed at the end of the study to make them aware of the true aim of the study

Question 10

asch’s variations

Answer 10

variations of the line judgement task were carried out to determine which factors influenced conformity levels

Question 11

group size

Answer 11

• 1 confederate = 3% conformed
• 2 confederates = 12.8% conformed
• 3 confederates = 32% conformed (same as original)
• 15 confederates = 29% conformed

Question 12

unanimity

Answer 12

• 1 confederate gave the correct answer = 5% conformed
• 1 confederate gave a different wrong answer = 9% conformed

Question 13

task difficulty

Answer 13

task made more difficult (difference between line lengths was made smaller) = conformity increased