asch's research into conformity

Question 1

what is conformity ?

Answer 1

a change in person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group on individuals (Aronson 2011)

Question 2

why did asch take part in this research ?

Answer 2

• as he was horrified and fascinated with why people seemed to go along with behaviours that they knew were wrong
• interested him on why people conform inspired his research

Question 3

what research did asch study ?

Answer 3

Asch’s Baseline Study (1951)

Question 4

what was the aim of asch’s study ?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

what was the procedure of asch’s baseline study ?

Answer 5

• tested conformity by showing participants 2 large white cards at a time
  ONE CARD - was a ‘standard line’ and on the other cards there were 3 ‘comparison lines ‘
  one of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard and the other 2 were always substantially different
• the participant was asked which of the 3 lines matched the standard

Question 6

what was asch’s research set-up ?

Answer 6

123 AMERICAN male participants were tested , in a group with other apparent ‘participants’
- each naive participant was tested individually with a group of between 6 and 8 confederates
- the naive participant wasn’t aware that the others were confederates

Question 7

draw a diagram of what the set up was with the participants ?

Answer 7

find in textbook
- the genuine p was always seated either last or (as here) next to last in the group . participants gave their answers out loud, one at a time , beginning with the 1st person

Question 8

what was occuring during asch’s research ?

Answer 8

• on the 1st few trials the confederates gave the rigth answer but then they started making errors
• all the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer (out loud)

Question 9

how many trials did a participant take part in ?

Answer 9

• took part in 18 trials and on 12 ‘critical trials; the confederates gave the wrong answer

Question 10

how many times did a genuine participant conform ?

Answer 10

36.8 % of the time ( gave the wrong answer)

Question 11

what was the conforming rate of participants ?

Answer 11

overall 25 % of the participants did not conform on any trials , which means that 75 % conformed at least once

Question 12

what term has been used to describe the result ?

Answer 12

asch’s term - the extent to which participants conform even when the situation is ambiguous

Question 13

what was said by participants afterwards ?

Answer 13

most said they conformed to avoid rejection ( normative social influence)

Question 14

what was asch further interested in ?

Answer 14

the conditions that might lead to an increase or decrease in conformity

Question 15

what did he do as a result in his interest ?

Answer 15

he investigated these by carrying out some variations of his original procedure

Question 16

define group size in terms of conformity

Answer 16

• asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates
• thus increasing the size of the majority
• conformity increased with group size BUT only up to a point
• leveling off when the majority was greater than 3

Question 17

what does it mean by ‘leveling off by 3’?

Answer 17

• increasing the group size beyond 3 confederates (the majority) didn’t significantly increase conformity rates

Question 17

what was the main findings of asch’s research investigating group size ?

Answer 17

• 1 confederates - real participants conformed just 3 % of the critical trials
• 2 confederates - the real participants conformed on 12.8 % of the critical trials
• 3 confederates saw a rise in conformity to 31.8 %
• the presence of more than 3 made little difference it started to level out

Question 17

what does the findings of his research show?

Answer 17

• shows that people are very sensitive to the view of others, because it only took a few confederates to sway someone

Question 17

how did asch carry out his research with group size ?

Answer 17

varied the number of confederates from 1-15

Question 18

what relationship did asch find between the 2 variables ?

Answer 18

a curvilinear relationship
- suggests that group size affects conformity

Question 19

define unanimity in terms of conformity

Answer 19

• the extent to which all the members of a group agree
• in asch’s studies , the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same camparsion line
• this produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naive participants

Question 20

how does unamity lead to produce the greatest degree of conformity ?

Answer 20

• as all majority of members gave the same answer even though it was incorrect
• creates a completely united group consensus
  hence increases the pressure on naive p to conform

Question 21

what does dissenter mean ?

Answer 21

an individual who goes against the majority opinion in a group

Question 22

how did he carry out the research investigating unamity ?

Answer 22

• he introduced a confederate who disagreed with others
• sometimes the confederate gave the correct answer and sometimes he gave the wrong one

Question 23

what was the main findings of asch’s research investigating unamity ?

Answer 23

• conformity dropped by : 5 % - correct and 9 % - incorrect

Question 24

what does his findings show investigating unamity ?

Answer 24

• social support can reduce the pressure to conform and allow us to be independent

Question 25

define task difficulty according to conformity

Answer 25

asch’s line-judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer
- conformity is increased
AS naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right

Question 26

what was the main findings of asch’s research investigating task difficulty ?

Answer 26

conformity increased when the task was considered harder

Question 27

how did he carry out the research investigating task difficulty ?

Answer 27

• making the line-judging task more difficult
• by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length

Question 28

what does the findings of his research show in task difficulty ?

Answer 28

as the task becomes more ambiguous people tend to look for others guidance and assume that they are right

Question 29

what is the findings of his research show defined as ?

Answer 29

informational social influence
- as conforming to people in order to be right , rather to fit in is called