Aschs study of conformity Flashcards
what does conformity mean
changing your behaviour as a result of group pressure in order to fit on
what is normative social influence
conforming to feel accepted due to fear of rejection and
what is informational social influence
conforming because we believe the person has more expertise in the field than us
what did asch aim to do
he wanted to see if people conformed due to group pressure
he did this by putting them in a situation where the answer was clearly wrong to see of they were influenced by what others would think
what method was used
participants were american male students
there were groups of 7-9 people which were all confederates except 1 naive participant
they sat in a semicircle and the naive participant was seated at the end
they were shown two large cards, 1 card had a line and the other card had 3 comparison lines
they were asked which line matched the standard line. there were 18 trials, the first ones the confederates gave the right answer, but on the 12 critical trials they gave wrong answers
what were the results
on critical trials, participants gave wrong answers 37% of the time
25% never gave a wrong answer so 75% conformed at least once
what was the conclusion
people were influenced by group pressure even when doing an obvious task this is called the asch effect
some results also showed high levels of interdependence as some people resisted group pressure
what is a strength of this study PEE
lab study
environment is controlled and you can isolate cause and effect, extraneous variables are controlled and results obtained are reliable and no ambiguity over findings
this is important because it shows that the study had high internal validity
what is a weakness of this study PEE
limited sample
the sample was 123 american male students, several studies have shown that culture plays a role in behaviour, americans have an individualistic culture and are more independant and likely to stand out against something they don’t believe is right
this is important because it shows the study has low ecological validity and cannot be generalised
