Asch’s Study

Question 1

Who was Asch’s study conducted by?

Answer 1

Solomon Asch in 1951

Question 2

Aim of Asch’s study:

Answer 2

Wanted to see how group pressure affects group tasks with an obvious outcome

Question 3

Procedure:

Answer 3

• Eight male students were placed around a table, only one of them was a real participant, the other seven were confederates pf the researchers
• the task was to identify which line (A,B or C) was the same length as X
• they all answered out loud and the confederates were told to answer with the wrong answer

Question 4

What percentage of people conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials?

Answer 4

32%

Question 5

How many trials were there?

Answer 5

12

Question 6

How many participants conformed at least once over the 12 critical trials?

Answer 6

75%

Question 7

Over the 12 critical trials, how many participants never conformed?

Answer 7

25%

Question 8

In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates how many people gave the wrong answer?

Answer 8

less than 1%

Question 9

Conclusions:

Answer 9

Even in an unambiguous (obvious) situation there is a strong group pressure to conform, especially if there is a unanimous (everyone is saying the same thing) majority

Question 10

Pros:

Answer 10

• environment was well thought out and set up- therefore highly valid data was collected as a highly controlled setting was used and obtained in the laboratory experiment (able to control extraneous variable e.g. lighting and heating)
• study produced lots of applications due to the simplicity of the task- can explain why people conform via normative or informational purposes
• different group sized used- variation

Question 11

Cons:

Answer 11

1. NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WHOLE OF SOCIETY- only studied men of the same age, race, IQ, income, background were used (white Americans)- lacks GENERALISABILITY
2. GENDER BIAS- only used men- lacks ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
3. Americans are taught to care for themselves- individualist society- higher levels of conformity
4. ARTIFICIAL ENVIRONMENT- people may have complied due to demand characteristics

Question 12

Variations of Asch’s study:

Answer 12

1. Size of group
2. Unanimity
3. Difficulty of task

Question 13

How does group size affect Asch’s experiment?

Answer 13

The bigger the group size the more likely we are to conform

Question 14

What do conformity levels drop to if the group is very small?

Answer 14

(Less than two) drops to around 10%

Question 15

What can be used to explain why people conform in a large group?

Answer 15

DEINDIVIDUALISATION- if your are part of a group you are more likely to conform then you are to be deindividualised

Question 16

How does unanimity affect conformity and what can be used to explain it?

Answer 16

• if the whole group agrees on an answer then conformity decreases
• if a DISSENTER is present

Question 17

How does the difficulty of a task affect conformity and what can be used to explain this?

Answer 17

• on an easy task, people are less likely to conform and vice versa
• NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE- want to be liked by the group