Asch's Study Flashcards
What was the aim of Asch’s study?
To see how people respond to group pressure.
What method did Asch use?
The participants were 123 American, male students.
Each participant was tested with a group of 6 to 8 confederates. The participant always sat near the end of the table.
The participant was shown 2 large cards. 1 of them had 1 black line on it whilst the other one had 3 comparison lines.
On each trial, each man had to say which of the 3 lines was the same length as the single black line on the other card.
There were 18 trials. On the first few trials the cons gave correct answers but on the 12 critical trials the cons gave the same incorrect answers.
What were the results of this experiment?
On the 12 critical trials the participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time.
25% of participants never gave a wrong answer.
75% of participants conformed at least once.
Conclusion of Asch’s study.
The results show that people are influenced by group pressure even when involved in a task that has a clear answer.
Asch effect -
The extent to which people conform even in an ambiguous situation when the answer is clearly wrong.
