Ashe Flashcards
What was the aim of ashes experiment
To examine the extent of conformity in an unambiguous situation
What was the procedure of ashes experiment
-123 male students in usa (androcentric)
–beleived they were taking part in a vison test
–he used as line judgement task and places 1 real naiiveparticipant in a group with 6 to 8 confederates, the naiive pp sat second to last
–naiive pp was deceived to beleive thatthe others were also real participanst
–each person had to say out loud which line a b or c was closed to the standard line, the answer was always obvious
–each pp complteted 18 trials and confederates gave same incorrect answer on 12 trails called critical trials
What were the results of ashes experiment
74% pps conformed on atleast one critical trial
26% of pps never conformed
What happened when Ashe used a control group
Asche also used a control group where 1 real pp completed exp with no confederates and less that 1% gave incorrect answer
Why did the pps in ashes experiment conform
Most of the pps conformed even though they knew their answers were correct but went along with the group to fit in and not be ridiculed so pps complied due to nsi
Variations of Ashe: group size
determine how size of majority affects rate of conformity, higher the majority increases chances or conformity but when the size of the mejority gets bigger the real ps get sus
Variations of Ashe: unanimity
refers to extent that members of a majority agree with one another, so when the real pp has support for their beleif, they are more likely yo resist the pressure to conform
Variations of Ashe: task difficulty
in asches origional experiment, the correct answer was always obvious, to make this more difficult, ache made the lines look closer together and more ambiguous so the rate of conformity increased
Why does ashes experiment lack ecological validity
artificial lab setting with a simple task do not reflect real life situations and therefore lack ecological validity, harder to generalise results
Why does ashes experiment lack temporal validity
completed in 1951 so overtime the level of conformity chnaged (increased) due to chnages in society
How can u improve the ecological validity of ashes study
make study more applicable to real lide design, realistic experiment, so could examine how people conform on social media, where people face peer pressure in their real environment
