Asch's Research + Variations Flashcards
Who researched conformity?
Asch
What was the aim of Asch’s research?
to investigate the extent people were willing to conform to the opinion of others, even when the answer is certain
What was the procedure of Asch’s research?
-123 Men tested
-Only one member in a group at a given time was a genuine ppt, the other’s were Asch’s confederates
-A B and C are comparison lines, one of which is the same length as X, while the others clearly arent
-On each trial the ppts had to say which of the comparison lines was the same as X
-The genuine ppt was always last/ second to last in the group to answer
What were the findings of Asch’s research?
On average the genuine participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time
25% never gave a wrong answer
What % of participants in Asch’s original study never gave an incorrect answer?
25%
What % of participants in Asch’s original study agreed with the confederates’ incorrect answer?
36.8%
How many variables affect conformity?
3
What variables did Asch find affected conformity?
Group Size
Task Difficulty
Unanimity
What was found about the effect of group size on conformity?
Conformity increases as group size increases but plateaus once the group size reached 4-5 participants. Just 1 or 2 confeds enough to sway opinion- tells us people are sensitive to the opinions of others.
What is the optimal group size for Asch’s study?
4
What was found about the effect of task difficulty on conformity?
When the lines were made more similar in length (making the task more difficult), conformity increased suggesting that it is normal to look to others for guidance when a situation become difficult/ ambiguous
What was found about the effect of unanimity on conformity?
When one other person broke away from the majority, conformity dropped. Asch found that the presence of just one confed that goes against the majority can reduce conformity by as much as 80%
What was the effect of having a confederate go against the majority in Asch’s study?
Conformity dropped by as much as 80%
Explain the limitation of Asch’s research that the task was too artificial?
-One limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial.
-Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics).
-The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform.
-Fiske (2014) says that Asch’s groups did not really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life.
-This means the findings do not generalize to real-world situations
Explain the limitation of Asch’s research that findings have limited application?
-Asch’s participants were American men.
-Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
-Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture-similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures have found that conformity rates are higher.
-This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures.
What % conformed when there was just 1 confederate?
3%
What % conformed when there was 4-5 confederates?
32%
What are the limitations of Asch’s study?
-artificial task
-limited applications
-ethical problems
What is the strength of Asch’s study?
-additional supporting research
Explain the limitation of Asch’s research that there are ethical problems?
-The ‘naive’/ genuine participants of the study were deceived, couldn’t give informed consent and may have experienced psychological harm, which goes against many ethical guidelines
-Participants could not give informed consent and were deceived as they were not told the true aims of the experiment, instead told they were doing an ‘eye-test’
-Participants may have also experienced an amount of stress or anxiety when giving their answers in a large group or even embarrassment when later debriefed about the experiment
-This limits Asch’s research as it shows a failure to follow ethical guidelines.
Explain the strength that Asch’s research that there is additional supporting research?
-Lucas (2006) asked ppts to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems
-participants conformed more often when questions were harder
-furthermore, those who were more confident in their maths ability conformed less than ppts with low confidence, irrespective of task difficulty
-therefore, it is clear that task difficulty and individual differences can affect conformity, which is consistent with Asch’s findings.
