Asch's Research into Conformity Flashcards
When did Asch conduct his study?
1951.
What did Asch aim to test?
If people would conform to group pressure; even if it meant giving a clearly wrong answer in an unambiguous line judgement task.
What was Asch’s sample in the study?
123 American male undergraduates.
What was the sample shown?
A series of lines; the ‘standard line’ and 3 comparison lines, one of which was the same length as the standard line.
How many males were tested at a time?
7 males.
Out of the 7 males in each test, how many were confederates?
6 of the 7 males were confederates, there was only one true participant.
On how many trials did Asch instruct the confederates to give a wrong answer?
12 out of 18.
What did Asch call the trials where the wrong answer was purposely said by the confederates?
Critical trials.
Where was the true participant sat in the study?
Second to last within the row.
What was the mean conformity rate that Asch found?
37%.
What percentage of participants conformed on every critical trial?
5%.
What percentage of participants did not conform to any of the critical trials?
25%.
What did Asch find in a control group of participants who were tested individually?
They gave incorrect answers in 1% of the trials.
How did Asch explain his findings?
That the participants would agree with the majority (say the wrong answer purposely with the majority) to avoid standing out from the crowd.
What did Asch conclude?
Participants were showing ‘compliance’.
What are the three variables that Asch further studied to investigate their affects on conformity?
- Unanimity.
- Group Size.
- Task Difficulty.
What is unanimity?
The extent to which all members of a group agree.
When the majority group are unanimous, is the pressure to conform at its highest or lowest?
Highest.
When testing unanimity, what did he provide the real participant with?
A dissenter (non-conformist ally).
What did the dissenter do in the experiment?
The dissenter provided either the correct answer or a different incorrect answer?
What did Asch find when a dissenter was present?
The conformity rate dropped from 37% to average 25%.
What did Asch conclude about unanimity?
That when a group’s unanimity is broken, it is a major variable in reducing conformity.
How did Asch manipulate the group size in his study?
He made a small group of 1 or 2 confederates give the wrong answer.
What did Asch find when he manipulated the group size in his study?
Conformity rates were very low but when the participant was under pressure from 3 confederates, the conformity rates increased to 32%.
Further increases in size majority did not increase conformity by much.
What did Asch conclude about the effect of group size?
Size of the majority is important but only up to a point.
What is argued about the difficulty of the task and how it affects conformity?
That if the situation is more difficult (ambiguous), a person is more likely to conform.
Why are people more likely to conform when the task is difficult (ambiguous)?
They are less confident in their own opinion and therefore are more likely to look to others to provide guidance.
What did Asch find when he made the line judgement task more difficult?
Conformity rate increased.
What are the 7 evaluation points for Asch’s study and his variables?
+ High degree of control.
- Perrin + Spencer (1981 - in Britain 1 person conformed).
+ Easy to replicate.
- Low ecological validity.
- Suffers from demand characteristics.
- Contains elements of deception.
+ However could not gain realistic results without deception.
Which evaluation point ONLY applies to Asch’s original research?
+ It was easy to replicate (test the variables).
