aschs Research Flashcards
why did he do his reasearch?
to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others
what are the variables investigated by Asch?
Group size, unanimity, task difficulty
What is a limitation of aschs research?
One limitation is that the task in the situation were artificial, participants knew they were in a research study, and may simply have gone along with what was expected, this means that the findings do not generalise to real-world situations.
another limitation to ache research?
all of ashes, participants were American man, of a research shows that women may be more conformist, this means that ashes findings tell us a little about conformity in women and people in other cultures.
strength of aschs research?
there is support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty. For example, Todd Lucas’s research. This shows that ash was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one of the variables that affects conformity.
what were the ethical issues in ashes research?
The participants could be considered deceived, because they thought the other people involved in the procedure,( the Confederate) where also genuine participants themselves.
What did he investigate?
The variables that might lead to an increase or a decrease in conformity
Findings about group size..
ash found that conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point, this suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two confederate was enough to sway an opinion.
Findings about unamianity…
unanimity refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another. He found that if one of the confederate dissented and gave the correct answer, then conformity levels, dropped from 32% to 5%.
findings about task difficulty..
ash found that when he made the line judgement task, more difficult conformity levels increased as the participant was more likely to believe that the Confederate was right. This shows that as the task got more difficult people grew less short of if they are correct and look to others for guidance.
