aschs research

Question 1

procedure

Answer 1

• showed participants standard line and commparrison line , three lines one with the same length as the standard line others clearly different
• participant asked to match
• 123 male participants
• each naive participant tested with 6 and eight confederates , naive participant not aware of confederate
• first few trials all confederates gave correct answers then started to make errors
• all confederates instructed to give same wrong answer
• 12/18 confederate gave incorrect answer

Question 2

findings

Answer 2

naive participant gave wrong answer 36.8% of time
overall 25% of the participants did not conform on any trials
75% conformed at least once
participants interviewed after said they conformed to avoid rejection nsi

Question 3

variation
- group size

Answer 3

three confederates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
but the addition of other confederates made little difference
a small majority is sufficient for influence to be exerted

Question 4

variation
- unanimity

Answer 4

introduced a confederate who disagreed with the others , sometimes the new confederate gave the wrong answer or the right answer
the present of the dissenting confederate conformity reduced by a quarter from the level when it was unanimous

Question 5

variation
- task difficulty

Answer 5

made task more hard made stimulus line and comparison line similar in length
conformity increased
isi plays a greater role when the task is harder as the situation is more ambiguous we look to others

Question 6

a child of its time
weakness

Answer 6

Perrin and Spencer 1980
repeated ascots original study with engineering students in the uk only one student conformed in 396 trials, felt more confident = less conformist
however also possible that ascots study in 1950 was conducted in a. conformist America and the social norm was to conform . society had changed since so results may not be consistent across time

Question 7

artificial stimuli and task
weakness

Answer 7

participants may haver gone along w the demands of the situation , demand characteristics.
the task of identifying lines is trivial and therefore no reason to not conform .
limits study as cannot generalise to everyday situation

Question 8

limited application of findings
weakness

Answer 8

only men were tested by Asch
neto 1995
suggest women are more conformist then men as they care more about their social relationships.
the men ascots study were from America an individualist culture .similar studies conducted in collectivist culture ie china have found conformity rates are higher as they are more oreintated to the groups needs. bond and smith 1996.

Question 9

findings only apply to certain situations
weakness

Answer 9

participants had to answer out loud and were with a group of strangers who they wanted to impress so conformity levels may have already been higher .
William and sogon 1984
found conformity was actually higher when the majority of the group were friends not strangers.

Question 10

ethical issues
weakness

Answer 10

the naive participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved were real participants not confederates .